Page 19 of Three Dark Kings and the Gilded Serpent

“Yeah.” She gives a soft snort. “I said that.” She’s quiet before she continues. “Imagine a different world, Thyra. One where I could be queen. You could be Oracle. Imagine the world we could create, where no woman ever had to kneel to a man.”

Icy air rushes across my bare skin, brushing across my fingers that would have once turned blue in this cold, that did once turn blue.

Up on the wall, the crow caws again, but softly this time, a wail on the wind.

Lilis sighs into the snow. “Stellen’s running out of time, Thyra. If you want to save him, you must not hesitate.” And then she adds, as cold as ever, “If our positions had been reversed, I would have killed you already.”

I know it.

But I am not her.

I certainly don’t owe Brunkil a fucking life debt.

Quietly, I recall a moment that feels like hours ago but is more like minutes when Stellen caught my eye during the fight with the shapeshifters and murmured…

“Warrior and queen,” I say.

Oh, but chaos will control me.

Chapter Five

Thyra

Iinhale the frozen air and the scent of blood clinging to the wind and then I make my choice.

At high speed, I retract the thread from around Lilis’s neck.

My soft, commanding cry vibrates through my fingertips, pushing the thread outward so it won’t hurt her before it wraps around my right palm.

I leap forward, away from her, my muscles responding to my impulses with a furious pace, the end of the thread snapping in the wind while the bulk of it stays snug around my palm.

Opposite me, Brunkil’s wolfish eyes widen.

He was prowling closer to me, treating me like prey, his claws extended, ready to subdue me.

I don’t think he planned to kill me. An Oracle is too valuable to lose.

Perhaps he should have.

My left arm pumping, I snatch the wood-hilted dagger from my right thigh as my legs carry me across the five paces between us.

Brunkil’s snort carries spittle to the snow, his alarm fading as rapidly as it appeared.

I anticipate his transformation into his wolf form, the same approach he used to evade Stellen’s sword when they first fought. At that time, Brunkil’s shifting shape left Stellen slicing through nothing but empty air above Brunkil’s collapsing fur coat.

Now, I throw myself low, my right arm swinging down then quickly up again, scooping the air beneath Brunkil’s chest as his form hunches, half fae, half wolf.

My dagger hits his heart.

The collision knocks him backward and I’m ready, my leg muscles screaming as I launch myself upward again, springing from the ground, ripping the dagger vertically through his shoulder and into his clavicle, where I let it go.

My right palm connects with the side of his neck, where his skin has half transformed into fur.

The silver thread responds to my exhale.

As Brunkil’s body flies backward, I wind the thread around his neck, run the two steps up his torso so I can use his shoulder as a springboard, and launch myself into the air.

Up. I wrench the thread tightly around his throat, slicing all the way through.