“I was going to say the same to you.” I side-eye him as I continue to cradle Thyra to my chest. If her countenance changes for him as it changes for me, then he should have already deduced she’s in the throes of a vision.
To be sure, I snap, “Blade vision.”
“I saw the blade’s energy,” he says, beginning a prowl to my left, keeping his distance, swords remaining drawn. “I also saw you snatch her from a fall that could have broken her legs.”
Is he trying to thank me without thanking me?
I use my powerful eyesight to take in all the small details he might be hoping to hide beneath the soot and oil. The strain around his eyes. The intense worry in the twist of his lips. The shadows that cloud his expression with every glance he directs at Thyra.
Fuck me.It seems the heartless Frost King isn’t so heartless, after all.
I allow myself to exhale, a heavy sound. “She’s turned your world upside-down, hasn’t she?”
He stops pacing but answers me only with a narrowing of his eerie eyes.
I try again. “Has she challenged your status quo? Pulled you beyond the boundaries of your well-trodden paths? Fractured your limits?”
I’m certain he flinches at the last.
He keeps his swords raised. “She suggested you and I could have made a mutually beneficialdeal.”
My eyebrows arch. “How so?”
“My people are hungry while the Iron Kingdom has plenty of grain. You had a power struggle with your stepmother while I could have offered you a solution.”
Silently, I chew over his meaning. “Thyra thought I’d give you grain if you could control Galla Vividari? I don’t see how you could have done that.”
A snarl builds in the back of his throat, and I sense the sound he’s about to make burn the air before he even speaks.
“Stop breathing.”
The air chokes in my throat, the constriction impassable.
Fuck, fuck—“Fuck!” I throw off the constraint. Clearly faster than he thought I would, given the slight widening of his eyes. Damn, I couldn’t breathe for a few seconds there.
My throat is raw and my voice is now a rasp. “That won’t work on me again.”
“If you say so.”
I reconsider the tension around his eyes and his white-knuckled grip on his weapons.
My words are more cautious now. “You’re different than the last time we met.Angrier.”
More volatile, and it’s giving me pause.
He replies, “Adangeroustruth for a liar to speak.”
I incline my head, ready to speak another dangerous truth, except this one might provoke Stellen into action. I’m just not sure what kind of action. “It’s killing you to see Thyra in my arms. Just as it will kill me to leave her without saying goodbye.”
His reaction is not what I expect. “She told you to stay,” he snaps. “So you should fucking stay.”
My eyes widen, but he isn’t done.
“It broke her when she thought you were dead. If you leave, it will break her again.” The corners of his mouth turn downand ice burns across his swords.Fucking angry. “Is that what you want? To crush her?”
His weapons rise and it only now dawns on me…
A soul-crushing possibility that, instead of trying to end me, he might try to force me to stay.
