Not by choice. Never by choice.
“Why are you doing this?”
Her voice is suddenly furious. “Because I’m owed.”
She crouches in front of me and in that brief moment, I make out her eyes behind her hair.
Pale blue. Faded like mine.
And then…
Her irises transform to lustrous brown, then bright amber, then icy white, and back again, cycling through colors as if they couldn’t settle on one hue.
“Because they took and took and took,” she says, and I can’tignore the raw pain in her voice, the fury in her ever-changing eyes.
“Until they took too much.” With her other hand pressed to her heart, she draws a shaky breath. “I will not allow them to do that to you, Thyra. You may hate me, but you will take my gifts?—”
“Not gifts,” I say, my voice stronger, my head rising despite the weight bearing down on me. “You haven’t given megifts. You’ve assured my death so I can’t break your curse.”
Whatever tirade she was about to launch into vanishes. “Well, aren’t you clever.”
“Against my will, I’m draining the power of men who only survive because of their strength,” I say. “They reign only through brutality and fear. Their very lives turn on their ability to defeat their enemies both in physical battle and strategic planning. And now, I’m taking those abilities away from them.”
With a groan of effort, I push to my feet, bracing against this deep burden that feels both internal within my heart and external across my body.
I don’t know how I’ll withstand the heartbreak of the terrible choice ahead of me.
Antony may have loved me, but if he knows I’m siphoning his power, even if he tries to help me, a dark seed will grow at the back of his mind.
I’m certain Stellen, who is driven by logic and whose body is already weakened, will reach the brutal conclusion sooner:
I am a threat.
I wasn’t before. Oh, I was an enemy. A prize. A power they wanted and needed. But I wasn’t a threat.
Now, I am.
“You’ve made me a danger to them.”
The queen also glides to her feet. “Now, you will surely find out how cruel they can be.” She pauses. “Ifyoutell them.”
If I tell them.
Her eyes are concealed again, but not her lips. Her mouth rises in a cruel smile.
“Don’t tell them, Thyra,” she whispers. “Take their power. Use it to tear them apart. Rip at them before they rip at you.”
She steps away from me and with that, the weight evaporates.
My mind pulls back to an icy landscape, the space above me broken by skeletal tree branches reaching like desperate fingers.
Faster than ever, the blade vision is over.
In that moment, I’m aware of Stellen’s arms around me and his worried eyes and his voice asking me to come back to him.
I barely have time to hurl myself out of his arms, lurching forward onto my hands and knees before I vomit into the snow.
Chapter Sixty-Five
