Page 138 of Three Dark Kings and the Gilded Serpent

“Done,” he says, sliding out from under the beds. “The circlet will hold the frames together.”

He climbs across the now-joined beds, wrapping his arms around me, spooning my back while Stellen grabs blankets from the neighboring shelves and wraps them over us, sliding under them, facing me.

My eyelids are heavy, my body relaxed.

For the first time, possibly in my entire life, I feel completely safe.

“Thyra.” Stellen strokes my cheek, brushing my damp hair from my face. “Are you⁠—”

“Happy,” I murmur, stretching out between them, pressing back into Antony’s chest, drinking in the hardness of his muscles and the bareness of his body that he usually cloaks in metal. I tug on Stellen’s arm, urging him closer to me, tangling my arms with his, sighing as I nestle against his strong shoulder.

Sleep pulls me down, a slow, comforting descent from which nothing could drag me.

As I drift off, my mind barely registers Antony’s low rumble, which comes as if from a distance, “You saw it too?”

“Yes,” Stellen answers.

Antony growls. “Fuck.”

Chapter Fifty

Maxim

Iram my back against the rockface behind me, burning through the stone at the side of the mountain’s narrow crevice.

The memory of Thyra’s kiss scorches my lips.

The sweet taste of her mouth and the press of her naked body against mine are imprinted on my memory.

Fucking inescapable.

So is my fire and the growing darkness in my heart.

She said impossible things. About Blood Fae. And blood binds. And hope.

The runes along my arms have faded from sight, but my skin itches and my fire has burned for hours, a lava trail now marking my erratic path back and forth through the mountain range. The sun’s full rays haven’t helped, the shadows and cool crevices filling with heat as midday approaches.

Driving my fist against the rock behind me, I exhale my frustration in a roar, muffled between these rock walls. “Where do I go from here?”

I jolt when my serpent appears high above me, craning his head into the narrow pass, appearing dangerously close to slipping and sliding down to me. A real danger that he could get stuck in this narrow chasm, given that he has no claws or talons with which to grip the stone.

He hisses at me, sliding along the edge of the pass, his body snaking in and out of view before he turns and hisses at me again.

If I didn’t know better, I’d say he was frustrated.

“You don’t want to be near me right now!” I shout at him. “I nearly killed you.”

I did kill him.

“Go to Thyra!” I shout. “My fire killed you. Her blood brought you back. You’re only alive because⁠—”

Huh.

Thyra’s blood.

When her arm pressed against my bicep, her skin was still bloody from swiping at her nosebleed. I thought the Dragonstone Blade had triggered these runes on my body, but maybe… it was her blood.

My serpent dips his head into the crack high above me before withdrawing with another long hiss that sounds like a humph.