Please. Not another vision.
I have no control, and my surroundings vanish.
I brace for the scorching pain of iron dust and chains. Brace to find myself nearly naked and circled in flames or doused in ice.
Instead—
I land on my knees, ash floating up around me while charred earth stretches in every direction as far as I can see.
Before me stands a tall, willowy woman, dressed in black, her dark hair blowing across her face, the wind plucking at her dress just as it tugs at the thin, white dress covering my body.
White ribbons twine around me, pressing the dress to my curves, but this time, they’re scattered with rose petals.
Delicate ivory petals fall about me as the ribbons slither across my body, tightening around my waist and chest and reaching up toward my throat.
I try to stand, pulling against the ribbons, trying to stop them from closing around my neck, but the moment I touch them, the edges of the rose petals become sharp, cutting my fingers, forcing me to freeze. Forcing me to remain kneeling in the black dust, my hands at my throat, the ribbon tightening and tightening…
My name sounds on the breeze.
“Thyra.”
The woman, until now frozen like the statue of the FalseQueen herself, sinks to the ash in front of me, kneeling opposite me, her black dress spreading across the dark powder.
The dark material nudges the folds of my white dress while a single ivory petal floats to her black dress between us.
She reaches out to press the tip of her forefinger beneath my chin.
“Do not fight me, for you will not win.”
Her words are soft. Alluring. Cunning.
I try to speak, but I have no voice. No breath in this place. All I have is a determined thought: I won’t be your pawn.
It seems that my thoughts alone are enough, because the tip of her forefinger twitches.
“Oh, Thyra. Of course not.”
Her hair billows again in the wind, and this time the strands lift away from her mouth, revealing her crimson lips as she whispers, “You will be my revenge.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Stellen
Achill strikes my cold heart, a remarkably painful sensation that makes my head snap up.
My focus flashes from the ancient scroll I was poring over to the dark room around me. I scrutinize the rows of shelves, the shadows between them, and the unchanging light.
The catacombs beneath the Sacred Stone Temple are quiet.
Nothing moves.
I’m alone, just as I commanded, and yet the chill was very real. A shot of ice, startlingly colder than my power. It lingers even now at the base of my spine.
My hands clamp around the scroll I was reading, dangerously close to tearing its edges.
This scroll is one of the few in my possession written and illustrated by the Ferocie Scribes, an ancient tribe of fae whose artwork was infused with magic.
An image of the False Queen is emblazoned on it, the best depiction we have of her. The oldest one I could get my hands on, which makes it more likely to be accurate.
