Page 47 of Three Dark Kings and the Gilded Serpent

Miriam’s use of my name instead of my title throws me, let alone her sudden command.

“If you want this curse broken,” she cries, “defy your impulses and bring the Oracle to me.”

My serpent has reached me.

I launch myself upward into his path, catching hold of his left horn and swinging myself onto his back, a seamless maneuver I’ve performed many times before.

He flies sharply northeast and I nearly command him to change course. To fly due north. But his approach is clever. This way, we’ll very quickly reach the barren eastern mountains where no sane fae goes. We can travel north along the ridge without any chance of interference.

My aunt’s words echo in my ears, her order unsettling. But more realistic than any plan I could ever have.

Getting Thyra to the Ember Kingdom without hurting her will be a massive challenge. Once she’s here? Fuck, but I can’t even sleep without burning. I can’t keep Thyra wrapped up in the dragon’s hide every minute of every day.

Taking her to my aunt is a valid option, even if I fight it with every beat of my heart.

Defy my impulses? That’s like telling a flame not to consume air.

From far behind me, my aunt’s voice reaches me. “May the Goddess of Truth and Light be with you, Maxim!”

With her prayer in my ears, I lean low over my serpent’s neck, battling the gusting wind and the frozen air as we fly into a storm as dangerous as a burst of my flames.

Chapter Sixteen

Thyra

Iam ice and darkness.

For hours, I wait, kneeling on the ashen ground at the center of the blackened field I’ve seen in my blade visions.

I’m wearing a black dress, short sleeves, the Dragonstone Blade fully visible on my right arm.

The blood bind is caught in the image of flames and it hasn’t moved on. A strange stopping of the blood bind’s power.

New is the blood-soaked band wrapped around my hand and wrist, a crimson shackle around which my fist remains clenched.

A dusty wind tugs at me, but I’m aware that, far away, my body is freezing and this lazy breeze is really a wild maelstrom.

Hours pass before the False Queen appears, gliding toward me across the ashen ground, her hair as always, a curtain over her face.

She lowers herself to the dark earth opposite me, kneeling for a long, quiet moment, and even though I can’t see her eyes, I feel the weight of her gaze.

I return her stare, my back stiff, my hands folded in my lap, my long braid falling across my left shoulder.

“What choice will you make now, Thyra?” she asks.

I respond with silence, my lips frozen, my throat hoarse from screaming into the wind.

What choices do I have? A bitter question.

“You hold destruction in the palm of your hand,” she whispers and for a moment, her hair parts, revealing an arched eyebrow and one side of her curved lips. “Will you claim Stellen’s pain for your own and use it? Or will you hand it over to those who don’t deserve its power?”

“I don’t want it,” I say.

Her smile fades. “Yet you didn’t warn him.” She leans forward. “You could have told the Frost King what the blood bind was doing, weakening him. I gave you the chance to tell him. You didn’t.”

Her accusation cuts hard.

I didn’t choose to be afflicted with the blood bind, but I allowed fear to stop me from telling Stellen the truth.