Chapter Twenty-Eight
Maxim
Antony and I circle each other on the black mountain ridge, two predators ready to strike.
All it will take is a wrong move, and we’ll try to kill each other again.
Even if it’s clear that we need information from each other.
Thyra’s in danger, which means my future is in danger, but I have no way to control these strange visions of her. No way to get back to her except to keep moving forward.
“What the fuck just happened?” Antony asks, paying no attention to the wound that continues to trickle blood down his chest.
“You tell me,” I say. “You were with Thyra these last three days.”
He sure as fuck should know more than I do.
Antony’s fangs extend and retract. “How do you know her name?”
“Thyra?”
“Yes,Thyra,” he snarls. “I didn’t know her name until I asked her for it.”
“I heard you say it.”
He scowls at me, his pace slowing. “When?”
“The day before yesterday. When I was pulled to her by the thread that connects us.” It’s my best and only description of what happens when my mind is transported to wherever she is.
“The thread.” Antony presses his right hand to the wound on his chest, his focus suddenly faraway, a dangerous absence of mind, given how easily I could attack him.
“The tree,” he mutters. “The wood. Breaking?—”
He gives himself a savage shake, but before he can continue, I demand to know. “What tree?”
I was sure he would have been pulled into the same vision of Thyra that I was, but I saw her with Stellen beside a cluster of ponds in a clearing surrounded by white mist. Rocks, water, mist. Not a tree in sight.
Antony finally stops pacing. “Ask me for a truce.”
“What?”
Again, his fangs extend and retract. “I promised my brother I’d kill you the next time I saw you. I can’t ask for a truce. Ask me for peace, and then we can talk.”
“Peace?” I raise my fists, both smoldering. Even if I wanted to extinguish my fire, I can’t. “Peace between us is impossible.”
He snorts. “At least on that, we can agree.”
But his request isn’t lost on me.
“Then we’re agreed,” I say.
His eyebrows rise. “An impossible peace.Hmph. It will do.” Then, he asks, “Did you see Thyra just now?”
I narrow my eyes at him. “You first.”
I don’t expect him to answer me, but he immediately says, “I saw her.” His focus again becomes faraway. “I can’t shake it.”
“Where was she when you saw her?”
