Page 57 of Three Dark Kings and the Gilded Serpent

I can’t forget that.

Yet he hasn’t spoken a word since he burned the blood to ash. He hasn’t broken the peace between us as he easily could.

Fuck, but he looks as drained as I feel.

I focus on Thyra, reminding myself that I can fight my way free and get her out of here at any moment if I need to.

I breathe in the gentle beats of her heart. Her quiet exhalations. The soft hum radiating from her armor, a calm that is no longer agitated and fearful.

“For they shall Sing no more,” I whisper, the same prayer she spoke over my family’s grave. “All of their hopes, spoken and unspoken, will now rest in silence.”

Carefully, I reach for the yellow ribbon, where Miriam supports Thyra’s arm, shivering at the power radiating out from it.

Slowly, I unwind my sister’s ribbon from around Thyra’s wrist. Two broken pieces now.

I lift them to my lips. “You are not dust, nor darkness,” I whisper, “but a dream of what could be. It is not the end. One day, we will Sing together again.”

The two pieces shiver in my open hand and then I can hear it again.

My mother’s song.

Her voice chimes like a series of bells, the purest, most breathtaking melody rising up and filling the air around me. A song of love. Hope. Faith. Protection.

Peace.

As her voice rises around me, I breathe it in, allowing my soul to calm, and so does the storm.

Through the snowfall, early morning sunlight finally begins to shine. The rays widen and the ice begins to dissipate.

The song ends and I raise my head, facing the peace of a storm that is no more.

My family’s pain is no more.

I thought I’d feel empty, but my heart expands. My next inhale brings Thyra’s scent to my lips. White roses. Life in this desert.

Sand dunes stretch out around me. The breeze is warm.

Directly ahead, the women standing in rows lower their arms before they sink to the ground, visibly exhausted.

I close my hand around the pieces of my sister’s ribbon before I press my cheek to Thyra’s. I vow that one day, I will braid these pieces into my hair again, create a warrior’s braid as my mother would have wanted.

When I open my eyes again, I find Maxim watching me, his expression hooded.

His aunt is quiet. “What will you do now, Frost King?”

Damn, but this might be my hardest decision. “Thyra deserves to be with fae who can take care of her.”

“True.” Miriam nods, astutely anticipating my thoughts. “But before you sacrifice your own desires and walk away, you might consider that it was the trauma of losing you that gave the blood magic a foothold in the first place. Imagine how she will feel if she wakes up to hear you’re alive, but you chose to abandon her.”

I can’t forget her cry when the Iron King left her after she asked him to stay. She had dropped her head into her hands, pressed the heel of her palm to her mouth, and tried to muffle her scream of pain, a broken cry that shattered my hearing.

“How can I stay?” I ask, brushing the hair from Thyra’s face, willingly drowning in her quiet breathing. “I can only tolerate this warm environment for a day. Maybe two. I can’t endure it much longer than that and neither can my wolf.”

Behind me, Nara gives a soft whine. Now that the sun is shining, she will be drawing on her inner energy to keep herself cool.

Maxim clears his throat, rolling his shoulders.

Stiffly, he says, “There’s an abandoned tower at the northeastern corner of Ember. Very close to the burned-out cliffs. We passed it on our way here. I don’t expect that you saw it through the storm. I stopped manning that tower years ago because it was too exposed to Iron Fae attacks. I kept losing men, so I built an alternative tower farther south.”