Just as I take another step, my sight floods with golden light, a force knocking into me so hard that I stumble.
What the?—?
A second later, the catacombs are gone?—
I’m standing on a wide stone rooftop while gleaming white starlight streams down on me. Unnatural starlight, not like the clear night skies in my kingdom.
Despite the bright light, everything around me is hazy, obscured, and my hearing buzzes.
Then a scream breaks through the pall, and my focus flies to my right. I would recognize the Oracle’s voice anywhere; it’s imprinted on my soul ever since I first heard her scream.
“I won’t be your pawn!”
My eyes widen when her form becomes suddenly clear within the haze.
She’s attempting to wrench herself back from the male figure who stands in front of her, yanking wildly on a chain that stretches taut between her wrist and his, her right arm extending so far that she’s in danger of dislocating her shoulder.
An image of the Dragonstone Blade is startlingly visible across the inside of her arm. Its golden hilt stretches across her palm while the tip of its blade points to the inside of her elbow. The Lethian silk it was wrapped in is depicted twining around her arm all the way up to her sleeve.
She’s screaming, and the man is shouting, and my heart thumps loudly, my sensitive hearing splitting with the intensity of rage and fear in her voice.
I recognize the chain she’s tugging on.
The Iron Fae call it a ruby circlet because of the blood that splatters when it doesits work.
It’s a truly cruel invention. Part of me wishes I’d thought of it, but never mind, I’m monstrous in my own ways.
The man she’s straining away from is dressed entirely in steel armor. Despite how hazy my view of him is, it isn’t difficult to identify Antony, the Iron King.
An icy growl builds in my throat at the way he’s treating her.
She’s vulnerable. Her father died today, for fuck’s sake. She needs to mourn. She needs to be cared for. Her heart must be tearing apart with grief.
He should not have chained her, should not treat her with brute force. He should give her warmth and show her kindness, make her feel safe?—
I stop myself, putting a halt to these alarming thoughts.
But, of course, I’m only thinking strategically. Her grief is a useful tool, and Antony has clearly overlooked it.
Well, better for me if she learns to hate him even more than she already must.
I take a step forward, wondering if they can see me, but it appears they can’t because neither of them looks in my direction or acknowledges me in any way.
A moment later, I become aware of the thread between me and the Oracle, the same icy blue rope that connected us back at the village before it snapped.
It pulls me toward her as she wrenches herself back from Antony. She makes it a step, then another, forcing him to follow her while she screams and struggles as if she would willingly tear off her own hand, break her own body to defy him.
As she cries, her appearance transforms, just as it did back at the village. Icy tears freeze on her suddenly porcelain cheeks, dripping from eyes that have faded from dull blue to a pearly gray once more. The strands of her dull black hair wash to pure white, luminescent in the starlight.
I want to roar at her, to tell her she doesn’t need this veil, butalarm floods me, because somehow, she’s made it to the edge of the roof, and it looks like she’d rather step off it than stay chained to him.
“I will not be your vengeance,” she cries, sending a suddenly frosty blast of air across the space between us, a blast that propels her to the very edge of the roof, and it appears that Antony can’t stop her.
Somehow, in this moment, she’s stronger than he is, a truly bone-chilling possibility. Even more chilling is the icy power of her scream as if she’s calling on some sort of frost power…
But none of that is more important right now than the very real danger she’s in.
If he launches himself toward her to grab her, the chain will only gather slack, and she’ll tip right over the edge.
