Page 128 of Three Dark Kings and the Gilded Serpent

“Enough!”

His shout drives me backward, but a second later, his eyes roll back in his head.

He crumples to the side, his head about to hit the floor.

I’m closer than Stellen. I throw myself forward again, my knees thwacking the stone before I catch Antony’s right shoulder, pressing my chest to his chest and drawing his head into the crook of my neck.

I’ve ended up half-crouched, half-kneeling, supporting his bulky weight. If my armor weren’t magical, I’m certain I would be waterlogged, the silver threads tightening against my skin to ensure the liquid flows right off. My hair, on the other hand, is dripping, dark strands plastered around my face and Stellen’s yellow ribbon heavy with liquid in my braid.

Now that Antony’s unconscious, Stellen moves quickly, releasing the catches on the final plates across Antony’s shoulders, carefully removing them. When he’s done, I draw on my strength to maneuver Antony so that the water can hit the back of his neck and flow across both sides of his body

Only one plate remains, the breastplate Antony was clutching, now lodged between Antony’s chest and my chest. It feels hot but thankfully not burning.

“Keeping him under the water is the best thing we can do for him.” Stellen crouches on Antony’s other side, the spray gleaming across his face and shoulders. “Can I take him from you?”

Before the blood bind gave me strength, I wouldn’t have been able to support Antony’s weight, but if I let him go, then I’ll have nothing to do but pace and wait and hope, and I can’t do that.

“I’ve got this,” I say. Then add, “The final piece of his armor—can you remove it?”

“Are you prepared for his wrath if he comes to and finds it gone without his consent?”

I tip my chin up, the best rebellious gesture I can make in this position. “He won’t hurt me.”

Stellen rises to his feet and rounds behind me, crouching at my side, his expression suddenly unreadable. “Yet you fear that he will.” Then, more quietly, he whispers, “You fear that I will.”

I shiver when Stellen brushes his fingertips across my right forearm. The blood bind.

“You fear retaliation,” he says, the growing ice across his face and shoulders turning the farthest water droplets into snowflakes.

I meet Stellen’s eyes as I push every small piece of hope and compassion out of my mind and prepare for the confrontation we will inevitably have. “Yes. I do.”

Chapter Forty-Seven

Thyra

Stellen leans closer to me, close enough that he could strike me dead. Especially while I’m holding Antony.

“Logic tells me you’re a danger to me, Thyra,” Stellen says, his voice a murmur while the strains of his power hum in the air. “But I already knew that and not for the reasons you might think. From the moment your voice first reached my heart, you were a promise of a future I could only dream of, the kind of dream that could drive me to take incredible risks. I wasn’t naïve about the dangers that future would hold if I chose to fight for it.”

He’s too calm. Impossibly calm and my heart can’t take it.

The truth about the blood bind has hung over me for days. The impact has been devastating. During my last confrontation with the False Queen in a blade vision, she promised me that kindness will be crushed. Hope will die. She told me I would be the one doing the crushing.

I recognized the cruelty of her actions.

The three kings reigned through brutality and fear, their physical strength and strategic planning keeping them alive. Without that strength, they will die.

Not a hypothetical. A proven reality.

My throat is tight as I ask, “What are you saying?”

“This blood bind will not separate us. No matter what evil it might be trying to achieve.”

I’m shaking my head, denying his words because every time something good has happened, it’s been ripped away from me. “You say that now. But these runes are draining your strength. Taking your powers and giving them to me. Your sharp hearing. Antony’s eyesight. Maxim’s heat. I can even levitate a little. That’s just the beginning. There will come a moment when you have to make a choice between your life and mine, and⁠—”

“Have I not already?” Stellen’s voice is suddenly harsh, no longer calm or quiet. “Have I not already proven to you, Thyra, that I will gladly lay down my life for those I love?” He thumps his fist to his heart. “That I would choose death if it meant you would live.”

I’m frozen, hurting, uncertain, but more than anything afraid of accepting that love could prevail above this darkness. Not my love, because my heart is within my control, but his love.