It takes us long moments to rise and head to our bedrooms to dress.
Before we separate, I say, “If you’re ready before me, you should keep reading that letter.”
A sparkle returns to her eyes. “Are you sure?”
The corner of my mouth twitches upward. Then, more soberly, I say, “Read the end. It will matter to you.”
She nods, responding to my more somber mood. “Okay.”
As she heads to the bathing room attached to her bedroom, I move to my own, grab a cloth, and clean myself up, every swipe reminding me of Thyra’s moans.
Can destruction be a good thing?
Logic tells meno, but my body tells meyes.
When I return to the dining room, fully dressed in a fresh tunic and pants, Thyra’s sitting in one of the chairs, her knees pulled to her chest.
She’s dressed in her training suit, although I sense the hum of Lethian armor concealed beneath it, and her long hair is braided neatly down her left side. She hasn’t pulled on her fur boots yet, her bare feet brushing the floor, but she doesn’t seem cold. I guess the nearby heating element is enough for her.
In front of her on the table rests the ornate chest, but it doesn’t look as though she’s opened it, and that’s probably just as well for now.
In her hands is the letter she was reading from before, but she isn’t focused on it, her gaze distant.
The heaviness of her heartbeats tell me her mood has shifted. As I anticipated it would.
“I’ll never break the curse,” she says.
I pull up the second chair, positioning it so I can face her.
Before I can speak, she continues. “Now I understand why, when I told you how the curse could be broken, you didn’t ask me questions about it. You knew, as soon as I spoke of it, that it could never happen.”
I want to tell her that doesn’t mean she shouldn’t try, but optimism isn’t in my nature. I expect sacrifice and anticipate where defeat could occur. That is the only way to win.
She holds up the letter and reads aloud from the postscript at its end. “‘My love, a final sliver of tasty news for you to devour. The Tol-Dakri have arrived to seal the peace with our Serulian King. Their chief has submitted one of his sons to join the queen’s personal guard, and let me tell you, you wouldlikehim.
“‘Unlike his brothers, he works metal and, oh, he is delicious. I personally watched him hammer amedallion for the queen. If I can pry him away from her side, I will make overtures. On your next visit, he could entertain us very nicely. I don’t care if his mother is rumored to be a Blood Fae.’”
Thyra puts down the letter and draws the conclusion I reached years ago. “A Blood Fae forged the Dragonstone Blade.”
Chapter Sixty
Thyra
What use is hope when it can be shattered?
Antony spoke of hope as a dangerous thing, but I pushed back, believing that faith would always see me through.
Now I’m facing a crushing defeat delivered by a single, carelessly penned letter.
“Blood Fae are extinct,” I say. “We will never find a fae who can break the blade.”
Horribly, startlingly, a part of me is relieved.
When the hammer crumbled in my hand, I fought overwhelming confusion and a deep sense of failure. I felt responsible, even though I had done nothing to make the hammer disintegrate.
But if a descendant of the fae who forged the blade doesn’t exist, then the hammer’s destruction is not the catastrophe I thought it was.
What matters more is the blood bind it imparted to me.
