Her breathing becomes rapid. She’s frozen and clearly terrified, and yet, she rallies, gritting her teeth and shouting back at me, “Your sister’s safe!”
Her cry halts every whisper within the crowd.
A hush falls.
I’m unconcerned about the deathly silence around us or that every fae in the throng is listening to us, highborn and lowborn alike. I feel like I’m tearing out of my skin.
I should be in the sky already. I shouldn’t be standing here while Cassia needs me.
“Why would I believe you?”
“Because I foresee it,” Thyra says, her voice clear in the hush, but as soon as the words leave her lips, her cheeks turn white, and her eyes go blank.
It’s so different from what happened when the blade’s power streamed up her arm that I’m taken aback.
She’s standing in front of me, but it’s clear her mind is…somewhere else.
I try to reconcile what I’m seeing now compared to how she behaved back at the village as well as in the forge, when the blade’s energy pulsed through her. She was alluring and focused then.
Now, she appears sightless.
I quickly try to recall what she looked like when she had visions in the bloodlands and told me where to fly. She was lying beneath me, but just like now, her eyes were wide open and glazed, staring sightlessly outward.
And yet, she Sees.
“Bruised neck, still breathing,” Thyra cries, her eyes remaining glazed, her voice seeming to tear from her throat. “Scorched feathers, still flying. Tears burned to smoke, but she’s nearly home.”
Lady Delphina edges up behind me, craning to see Thyra. “Is she having a vision?”
I ignore Lady Delphina. I stand close enough to Thyra to press my forehead to hers. I’m not sure if she can hear me when I say, “Thyra. Don’t lie to me. Not about this.”
Her eyes slowly come back into focus, and fora brief moment, a smile forms on her lips. She appears more serene than she has any reason to be while she’s chained and subjugated to my whims.
“I will never lie to you.” Her voice rings out again, echoing across the hushed crowd. “Your sister is already home.”
A heartbeat later, movement in the sky behind Thyra draws my focus skyward, and my poisoned heart stops.
A chestnut-brown eagle appears in the distance, soaring toward us.
Cassia’s eagle. Clearly carrying my sister since she’s standing up on its back, balancing with all her strength and agility on display.
A cheer rises up around me, cries of jubilation rushing to a crescendo. My people know Cassia’s bird, the eagle named Fortuna. And it seems Cassia has spotted my blue beast because she’s heading straight for us.
Fortuna rushes downward, barely finishing landing in the middle of the street before Cassia leaps from her back and races toward me.
She’s calling out, but her voice is rasping in a clearly painful way. “Brother!”
Before she crashes into me, I catch sight of black bruises around her neck…
Bruised neck, still breathing.
Then Cassia’s arms fly around me in a hug that, for once, I wish I could feel.
“Brother.” She’s speaking rapidly, her voice rasping, a painful sound. “I was reckless. Fucking reckless, but I had to try.” She turns her eyes up to me. “He was right there, Antony, and all I could think about was Victor. I had a chance, so I took it. I fucking tried.”
It’s possible I should be concerned by what she’s trying to tell me, but I only care that she’s safe.
“Who was there?” But as I speak, her bird ruffles its feathers in the background, and instantly I know the answer.
