She could only imagine what Thronos had heard about Omort. Once he’d stolen Rydstrom’s crown, Omort had instituted a reign of terror in Rothkalina. Though she and Sabine had resided with their brother—half brother—in the seized Castle Tornin, that didn’t mean they’d shared Omort’s sickening behavior.
They would’ve escaped, but he’d had lethal controls in place, forever forcing them to return to him.
She remembered telling Sabine, “I’ll scream if he beheads another oracle.” He’d butchered hundreds of them, peeling their heads from their necks with his bare hands.
“What can we do?” Sabine had said, sounding as blasé as ever. “Take it up with management?”
Anyone who contradicted Omort was slaughtered. Or worse.
Lanthe had a brief impulse to explain to Thronos what things had really been like with Omort. To explain that she’d lived in Castle Tornin under two kings—and now thanked gold for her new life under Rydstrom’s reign. But then she recalled that she wouldn’t be around Thronos long enough to waste the effort. Not that the Vrekener would believe her anyway.
So she returned to intimidation. “If you don’t fear Rydstrom, then maybe you’ll fear Nïx the Ever-Knowing.” The three-thousand-year-old Valkyrie was a soothsayer, rumored to be on her way toward full-blown goddesshood. Though Nïx was insane—seeing the future and past more clearly than the present—she was steering the entire freaking Accession, that great immortal killing time.
“Nïx, then?” he scoffed.
Okay, so maybe she and Lanthe weren’t tight, per se (they’d scarcely spoken). But Nïx had been in on the plot to kill Omort, had aided Sabine, Lanthe, and Rydstrom. Rydstrom considered her a good friend. “Yes, the Valkyrie is one of my best friends.”
“With so much practice, sorceress, I thought you’d be more skilled at deception.” He drew his lips back from his fangs. “Who do you think told me how to find you?”
Lanthe rocked on her feet—either from shock or because the ground was moving again. “She wouldn’t.” Lanthe should’ve known better than to trust a Valkyrie!
“She would and she did. Along with some advice concerning you.”
“Tell me.”
His answer: a smirk.
“Then you did let yourself get caught by the Order?” He had to have—how else could mortals have captured a male who could fly?
But then, how the hell had they taken half of these beings? She’d probably been their easiest catch. When Lanthe had left Tornin, heading to the mortal realm to find a lover after her long sex drought, a woman on the street had offered her discount gold; Lanthe had followed like a slavering dog—right into a trap.
“That’s a big risk, based on a mad Valkyrie’s word,” Lanthe said.
He raked his gaze over her. “My reward is commensurate. As will be my revenge.”
Squeezing her temples, Lanthe began to pace the small expanse of land, steering clear of the edges, while keeping away from Thronos’s imposing presence. She’d spent ages bolting at the sight of him; now this proximity was messing with her mind.
Unrelenting Vrekener attacks had affected Lanthe and Sabine in different ways. While Sabine had been left deadened to fear, Lanthe had grown chronically nervous, always expecting another surprise strike. Now her every instinct for survival was on high alert just from his nearness—
The plateau suddenly split open like halves of a log chopped in two. She screamed as a gorge yawned between her and Thronos.
When the motion stilled and she could clear her vision, she saw they were on opposite sides of a brand-new chasm.
Those rising mountains were making all the earth around them shed away, like chunks from glaciers. “You’re going to get me killed up here!” she yelled, but Thronos was already in flight.
The ground disappeared beneath her feet; before she could fall, he snatched her close as he took to the air once more.
“Ah, gods. This is happening. This is actually happening.” She buried her face against his chest. I hate this, I hate this. . . .
“Your fear of flying inconveniences me. When did this develop, sorceress?”
“When one of your knights took Sabine high into the air—then dropped her. She was fourteen.” At the memory of Sabine’s head exploding, Lanthe heaved again.
“What lies are you telling now? No Vrekeners attacked your sister.”
She fell silent. Was he lying? Or did he truly not know his knights had hunted her and Sabine? As prince of the Air Territories, Thronos was the Lord General of Knights, in command of their staunchest warriors.
Did some of those men have their own secret agenda?