Sunset is only moments away.
The sun is about to go down on the day my father died.
My shoulders slump, but it’s only a moment later that the hairs on my arms rise again.
A cold chill settles at the base of my spine.
My sense of panic re-surges horribly, swirling and unwanted, but stronger.
Within the forest comes the sudden rush of running animals, and I’m startled when a herd of the creatures I saw from the air thunders past the temple, their heads forward, eyes wild and panicked.
It looks like they’re running from something, but I can’t make out a predator behind them. Nothing visible.
I take a step back, knocking into Antony’s chest, at which his arms wrap around me, holding me close.
His command sounds in my ear. “Look up, Oracle, and don’t look away.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Thyra
The sun’s final rays disappear, the sky taking on the hue of dusk, a deepening blue that should be calming.
Yet I can’t shake the awful dread building to an unbearable level within my body.
Can’t ignore the sudden, heavy silence. Far more intense than any silence I’ve ever experienced. So heavy it seems even the fleeing animals have stopped moving. Stopped still. Stopped breathing.
Nothing stirs.
A flash of dark light in the distance makes me jolt.
An instant later, darkness rushes across the sky, pouring toward us from the west, filling the atmosphere so completely it could be black liquid streaming through the air.
Within seconds, a dark canopy stretches out above us, seemingly endless, originating from the west and extending north, south, and east as far as I can see.
Speech strangles in my throat as I grapple with what this means.
Suddenly, horrifyingly, bloodthirsty screeches echo in my memory.
“Vampyrs,” I whisper.
Only light keeps them at bay.
Antony said the curse had cast the Iron Kingdom into darkness. I assumed it was a euphemism for dark times, but now it seems he meant it literally.
“Vampyrs,” he confirms.
My heart pounds as I wonder if he brought me further east because the bloodlands lie in the west, and we’re currently located much further from it than the Starlit City. We’re safer right now than his family is.
I try to turn to him, but he grips me too tightly for me to move, his commands continuing to sound in my ear. “Wait, Thyra. Watch.”
I do, holding my breath, but the darkness only thickens, and my dread builds. Far, far in the distance, I imagine the shrieking vampyrs screaming to feast.
“Fuck.” Antony’s soft curse thrums through me. “She’s fucking punishing me?—”
Just then, bright-white light bursts across the sky. It explodes from a spot that could be the Starlit City, streaming upward in a breathtaking pillar and spreading outward as quickly as the darkness did.
Within the bright light, intense sparkles form, the light drawing together in near-countless patches until they resemble stars.
