Page 53 of Three Dark Kings and the Gilded Serpent

Nara doesn’t appear comforted by this, reluctantly lowering herself to the sand, her head on her paws as she watches me carry Thyra to Miriam.

“Kneel,” I command the Ember woman, using my Voice to compel obedience.

She slides to the ground without fuss. “Whatever it takes for you to trust me, Frost King.”

“I will never trust you, Sister of the Former King.”

I heard about the dishonorable acts Maxim’s father committed, including sending an assassin to murder Antony when he was just a boy, only to burn his younger brother instead. Of all the horrors I perpetrated in my rage, I didn’t harm children.

I can’t be certain Miriam wasn’t complicit in her brother’s crimes.

Carefully, I lower myself to the sand opposite her, pulling the cloak slowly from Thyra’s trembling form.

I don’t expect Miriam to be able to see the Dragonstone Blade or the blood bind. We three kings are the only ones who can see them, but Miriam’s focus immediately flies to the bloodied band strangling Thyra’s fist.

The older woman gasps. “Murdered blood!” Her focus snaps up to me. “A family member?”

“My sister’s blood,” I say, suddenly chilled to my bones. “She was innocent.”

Miriam cranes her neck, studying the blood dripping from Thyra’s fist. “This blood is in a state of creation.”

My throat is tight. “What do you mean?”

Her deep-brown eyes are troubled. “I mean, this is blood magic. In its most fundamental state of formation, its final form as yet unknown.”

I can’t stop the impulsive tightening of my arms around Thyra, the sharp inhale that drags at her clumped hair. “No.”

Miriam’s focus is suddenly on my hands, where I can feel my power gathering.

Fucking brave of her to persist. “Contact with unburied blood like this is dangerous at any time,” she says, “but this darkness must have been triggered by a deep trauma on the Oracle’s part.”

She looks to me, as if I’d have the answer.

Goddess help me, I wish I didn’t.

“My death,” I whisper.

Miriam’s shoulders settle and her expression softens. “The Oracle loves you.”

“She shouldn’t!” I snap, but angry tears fill my eyes, hot and unfreezing.

“Too much grief.” Miriam dares to reach for me even as I snarl at her outstretched hand.

At which her expression hardens again.

“We must extract this blood before it takes its final form. Whatever that may be,” she says. “We may already be too late.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Creation,” she says. “Pure darkness. A terrible evil born from the blood of innocence and the trauma of violent grief.” Then, in the next breath, she says, “Now. Let me examine her.”

Without waiting for my permission, Miriam shuffles closer, muttering to herself as her hands waft through the air above Thyra’s body without making contact. “Lethian armor. Unusual cloak. Other blood, not her own and not tainted.” Miriam’s hands glide through the air over Thyra’s face, past her right arm, and toward her legs. “But these daggers…”

She pauses for a curiously long moment, studying the wood-handled daggers that block Thyra’s Oracle power.

Miriam’s voice becomes even quieter. “A terrible crime.”

The daggers weren’t my greatest priority and I didn’t think it would make a difference whether I put them in one of the satchels or left them secured to Thyra’s thighs.