Even if I left the bloodlands, I can’t return to the Starlit Court. Hadrian will kill me on sight. Fill my mouth with iron dust and burn me from the inside out.
Assuming iron dust alone could kill me.
I don’t plan on finding out anytime soon.
Once again, I twitch northward.
Azul ruffles his wings, making himself appear bigger than he already is, a guard against my impulses.
Rubbing my heart with the heel of my palm, I attempt to ease the sensation of being pulled toward Thyra. An endless pull.
I once told her that if she wanted my help, she had to ask for it.Fuck that.I would never make her ask again. I’danticipate her needs and provide for her before she even has to utter a word?—
I’m wrenched back to myself when Azul shrieks at me, raking his talons across the stone, sparking fire, and I realize that once again, I’ve begun levitating into the air, turning northward.
Fucking fuck!
Dropping back to the mountain ridge, I crouch low and wrap both hands around the jagged cliff’s edge, balancing precariously, trying to connect with the stone. The air. Gravity. Any fucking thing.
Dark anchors.
I need an anchor.
Or maybe a fight. I narrow my eyes at the distant vampyrs, wishing they’d come closer.
For years, pain kept me focused. The constant burn of iron in my heart kept me sane. Thyra’s blood has freed me from my reliance on that iron blade. I don’t need it anymore. But damn, I wish I could thump my chest and deliver a shot of the agony I deserve.
What thread of hope do I have when redemption is beyond me, and the life I threatened, Thyra’s life, became the binding that kept my broken pieces from spiraling apart?
Exhaling a snarl, I rid myself of the entire notion of hope.
Thyra was my hope, and now she’s gone.
I have darkness now.
Darkness and violence.
Once again studying the vampyrs, I consider more carefully the way they’re grouping themselves. Even with my strong eyesight, I can’t see details beyond a mile away, and because of the undulating mountain ridges, it’s impossible from this angle to see what lies behind the southernmost hills. Or within the valleys betweenthem.
Even so, it’s clear the majority of vampyrs are perched in flocks across the tops of the black ridges, but, oddly, they’re keeping to the west of those mountains.
Why?
As I strain to make out details, a group closest to the east rises into the air and flocks even farther west, as if…
Something’s driving them there.
The hairs on the back of my neck stand on end as I make out a glimmer of…
What is that?
Tilting my head, I adjust my focus, this time to the air closer to my body, discerning a glistening ripple wafting toward me.
Some sort of heat wave?
Behind me, the remaining chunks of icedrip-dripfor another second before they melt in a rush of water.
“Azul?” My back stiffens. “What the fuck is?—?”
