But it works.
With a scream, she launches herself at me, her right fist swinging, her jump carrying her upward, her aim breathtakingly perfect. Fast and strong.
Her hand cracks across my cheekbone. Pain bursts through my face and jaw and I flinch to the side, but I don’t defend myself.
Her left fist snaps across my other cheekbone, a quick follow-up strike, before her feet have even touched the ground, another explosion of pain snapping my head in the other direction and knocking me backward.
She drops to the ground, her next scream making my ears ring and my head spin.
“Fight back!”
Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t.
Her voice… Too much pain…
“Fightback!”
She shoves me, her palms hitting my chest, and again, I’m knocked backward. She follows me, her fists smacking my shoulder, my jaw, my face, again and again.
“Fight me!” she cries over and over. And then, “Fight me like you fought him.”
I snatch hold of her wrist before her next strike can land. “No.”
She doesn’t seem to care that I’ve caught hold of her. Her other palm rams against my chest, shoving me hard. And again. Andagain. Until my back hits the wall near the door.
She throws another punch, this one wild and uncontrolled, but now I catch hold of her, gripping both of her wrists, and for the first time since she screamed, she tries to pull away.
Tears stream down her cheeks. Her breathing is erratic, harsh. Angry.
“Let me go.”
I open my hands.
Her eyes are wide, her face crumpling before she wrenches away from me and stumbles toward the coffin.
She makes it three steps before she sinks to the ground, her arms heavy at her sides, her shoulders hunched, and there she stays with her back to me, quietly sobbing.
Slowly, I cross the distance to her, taking deep breaths to steady myself, testing my jaw. Not broken but badly bruised.
Lilis’s warning wasn’t without merit.
Thyra is strong.
Even before Lilis said so, I knew it to be true.
Thyra survived three whole days in the Iron Kingdom chained to the side of a vampyr. She must have endured numerous encounters with Galla Vividari, whose reputation is horrifying even to the cruelest Frost Fae. Then Thyra lived through the bloodlands, and a snowstorm, and an entire weekof training with Lilis, who is one of the unkindest fae in my kingdom.
Thyra has survived me.
She did all of that through force of will.
I lower myself to the floor beside her, studying her carefully, waiting for her to flinch away from me.
She doesn’t.
Between her sobs, she says, “You lied to me.”
“Yes.”
