Crown of Darkness

by Bec McMaster

  Sweat drips down my temples. I grind my teeth together and silently scream.

  Finn squats and hauls the burning bookcase off Imerys and then throws her unconscious form over his shoulder. The little demi-fey guard scrambles up his body and clings to his shoulder as Finn starts back toward us.

  “Hurry!” I yell.

  I can’t hold it much longer.

  He shoves past me and I back away, trying to ward off the flames as we escape. And then we’re through the door, collapsing on the cool cobbles with a gasp.

  “Vi?”

  I think I’m going to throw up. Every inch of me trembles, and I lost the ward just before we escaped, which leaves me coughing out the sudden lungful of smoke I just swallowed.

  A dark form materializes next to me, fingers finding my own. I catch a glimpse of black tattoos, swirling more hungrily than usual, and the light of a fae lantern catches on the fierce glint of Thiago’s eyes.

  Relief burns there. Along with a dozen I’m-going-to-kick-your-ass later questions.

  I’m fine. I wave Thiago away with a hand. “If the pair of you don’t put some clothes on, you’re going to start a riot. Imerys?”

  “Alive,” he says curtly. “Do I need to ask why you were in there?”

  I roll onto my back and stare at the night sky, feeling like a house just collapsed on me. “Someone has to rescue… foolish princesses who run into burning libraries.”

  “Does that count princesses who run into burning libraries to save them?”

  “I’ll owe Finn a debt of gratitude.” But later. Much later.

  “We’ll discuss it when we’re in private,” he growls, then turns to the library. “I’ll see if I can do something about this, now you’re all out.”

  “Vi!” A cloud of perfume envelopes me and then Thalia drags me into a hug. “Maia’s blessing, what were you doing!”

  I try to explain as Finn sits beside me, resting on his hands and sucking in fresh air. Imerys guzzles water from a flask beside him, her face dark with soot.

  “You saved us,” Gossamer says, patting Finn on the arm. “I owe you a debt.”

  I might be imagining it, but I’m pretty sure she caresses the muscle in his biceps for a second longer than necessary.

  Maybe Finn senses it too. “No debt, my lady,” he says, lifting his fingers for her to settle onto. He lowers her to the ground. “It was my pleasure. And now I am one up on Eris.”

  I look around. “She’s not here?”

  “What do you mean?”

  I tell him what happened.

  Finn pushes to his feet, cursing under his breath. “Eris doesn’t simply vanish. If she was on watch tonight, then she’d be stuck to your ass like a burr.” He doesn’t say that something’s wrong, but I read it on the grim line of his face. “I’ll find her.”

  And then he’s gone.

  A huge dome of shadowy clouds envelops the library and collapses in upon it. Thiago stands in the yard, holding his palms outstretched.

  “What’s he doing?” I whisper.

  “Everything needs oxygen to breathe,” Thalia says. “Even fire.”

  The clouds of smoke roil and thrash, but it looks like they’re being contained within an invisible glass dome. Flame licks at the edge of the ward, but they’re slowly being choked out.

  Another figure steps from the shadows.

  Prince Kyrian, his face grim as he wields his own magic. Twirling his finger, he sweeps Thiago’s darkness into tight coils that seem to crush the building. Flames writhe, but they’re slowly dwindling as if his smoke-coils choke the life from them.

  The fire burns low… and dies.

  Finally, it’s done.

  The air reeks of smoke. Blackened marks scorch the library tower, and every window in the place is merely an eyeless gaping hole.

  But some of the library remains untouched.

  And nobody died.

  Though, as I see Princess Lucere bearing down upon me, I don’t think we’ve escaped entirely unscathed.

  “What in Maia’s name did you do?”

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Me?”

  “Your natural gift is Fire, isn’t it?” Lucere snarls. “I think if we need to find the culprit, then we need look no further than right here.”

  Thiago steps forward. “Vi had nothing to do with this.”

  “Were you with her?” Lucere demands, turning on him in a rage. “Was she in bed with you when this happened? Can you vouch for her whereabouts?”

  And he pauses.

  “I was on the battlements,” I reply softly, “with Eris. I couldn’t sleep.”

  Thiago cuts me a look telling me not to say any more. “Vi has no reason to attack you and your court—”

  “Doesn’t she?” Lucere demands coldly. “Perhaps she didn’t like the way you danced with me. Perhaps she—”

  “If you think me foolish enough to attack a foreign kingdom over something so petty as jealousy,” I snap, “then you know me not at all. I am not my mother. And I know who Thiago chose all those years ago. He spent thirteen years winning my heart, over and over again, and you think I’d believe that his head is turned by another woman?”

  The color fades from Lucere’s cheeks, but I see a faint smile on Thiago’s sultry mouth.

  I step closer. “From the moment I have arrived in this court, you have greeted me not as a fellow royal but as an enemy to be held with contempt. You have insulted me. And you have sneered at my relationship, but let me assure you, I do not see you as a threat. I pity you instead.”

  “How dare you?” she demands.

  “I dare because I have held my tongue until this moment,” I reply, “because at least one of us remembers their manners.”

  “Princesses,” Kyrian chides. “Let’s not accuse anyone of any wrongdoing unless we have proof.”

  She makes a move toward me, her face absolutely furious, but Corvin snatches her arm, and when she turns on him in a rage, he stares her down.

  “No,” he says softly. “Whether she was involved in this fire or not, we will not offer anything less than courtesy, nor will we—”

  “She wasn’t involved,” a soft voice says.

  All of us turn our heads.

  Imerys stands with her arms wrapped around herself, her eyes soft and aching. “She saved my life, Luce. All I could think of was Gossamer, but the princess came in after me. She warded the flames away so we could get out.”

  Lucere’s color mottles. I think she’d probably set me on fire right now if she could.

  “Your Highness!” someone calls.

  We all turn, which is the problem when four of you have spent your life listening to that title.

  Finn staggers around the corner of the main tower, carrying someone in his arms. There’s a guard beside him, hauling another guard.

  “They’re all asleep,” Finn says. “Just lying there. Like this.”

  And I finally see what’s in his arms.

  It’s Eris.

  Her dark lashes remain soft as they shield her eyes, and her arm hangs laxly so that her fingers almost brush the ground. Nearly six feet of solid muscle and contained rage, and at that moment she’s so still I don’t know if she’s even breathing.

  I shove past Lucere, my blood running cold. Finn carries Eris with ease, but I can’t help reaching for her.

  Eris of Silvernaught doesn’t do vulnerability. To see her sprawled bonelessly in Finn’s arms feels like the last shock I can take for the night.

  “Is she all right?” I demand.

  Healing is a gift in my bloodlines, though I’ve never spent time studying the art and I’m too tired to even access my gifts right now, but the pulse in her throat remains steady beneath my fingers.

  “Asleep.” Finn frowns as he lays her on the cloak Thiago spreads on the ground. “Wake up, Eris.” He taps her cheek.

  Her head lolls to the side, and in that moment—if she wasn’t wearing the firm leather body armor she lives in—she’d alm
ost look like the sleeping fae princess of the tale.

  “E?” There’s an odd tremor in Finn’s voice.

  “Let me.” Thiago kneels and lays his hands flat on her chest, closing his eyes. Wind swirls around him, rifling through his thick dark hair, and a faint white glow hums around his hands as he tries to heal her.

  He opens his eyes as the glow around his hands fade. “I can’t rouse her, though there’s nothing wrong with her. There’s a… silence within her. An emptiness.”

  Thiago never reveals his vulnerability in company, but the muscle in his jaw tightens.

  “There are more,” says the guard, who lowers his friend to the ground. “They’re all like this. Just… asleep.”

  Lucere’s expression tightens, but I meet her eyes.

  “Not one of my fae gifts,” I point out.

  “What could have done this?” Kyrian demands.

  Corvin kneels beside their guard. “Our guards are warded against mental attacks.” He tugs a leather thong from within the guard’s tunic. “They all carry a crystal that should protect them.”

  There’s nothing on the end of the strip of leather. Just a shard of fractured obsidian.

  I straighten slowly. A fire could be a coincidence. An untended candle. The phoenix feather finally igniting.

  But this….

  “This was an attack.”

  A flash of cold fury crosses the Prince of Ravens’s face.

  “If you don’t wake up, then I’ll kiss you, Eris,” Finn whispers in her ear. “I swear I will.”

  I keep waiting for her to shove him out of the way with a grimace, but there’s… nothing.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever wanted her to punch me so badly in my life,” Finn growls, sitting back on his heels. Cupping his hands behind his head, he lifts his eyes. “She’s not harmed. She’s not suffering. She’s simply been sent to sleep.”

  “There’s only one fae who could have done this.” I hear the cold tremor in Thiago’s voice as he brushes Eris’s hair out of her face.

  Lucere and I both look at each other, and for a second, all I see is a crown princess who’s struggling to hold on to her country in the midst of a brewing war.

  “Queen Maren of Aska,” I whisper. “My mother’s ally and the Queen of Nightmares.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  “I cannot help thinking it seems awfully convenient,” Lucere growls, pacing the floor before the fireplace in her rooms. “You come here demanding an alliance with Ravenal, citing that the queen of Asturia will ruin us all, and when I tell you she’s offered us peace, this happens. Half my library is burned, a full company of guards falls into a dreamless slumber, and now you’re trying to tell me this is an attack by Queen Maren.”

  “She’s the only one who has the power to do this,” I point out. Eris still hasn’t woken, though Finn’s chosen to sit by her bed. “I served at her court for two years. I know what she can do. Queen Maren is the nightmare we all pretend we can’t see, and Eris’s wards were—”

  “Impenetrable,” Thiago says, and the quiet menace in his voice alarms me.

  We both look at him.

  He’s shaking his head at me. “Even if Queen Maren did attack us here, she couldn’t have gotten through Eris’s wards by herself. They were laid by thirteen of the finest of our sorcerers after the Battle of Nevernight.”

  Lucere’s lip curls. “To contain that vicious creat—”

  “If you dare finish that sentence,” Thiago tells her, his voice growing rough-edged with fury, “then you will not merely be a morsel caught between the jaws of Asturia and Aska, you will face me, here and now. Eris is my finest general. She has served the Alliance faithfully for nearly five hundred years. And she is one of mine.”

  “Manners, Luce,” the Prince of Ravens purrs, though he’s barely deigned to join the conversation thus far. Lying on the daybed near the window, he strokes a white cat that wears a black leather collar. “As exciting as it would be to see the two of you shred pieces off each other, Ravenal’s already bled enough, hasn’t it? Great-grandmother is dead, war is brewing, and now someone set half the castle on fucking fire. We don’t have time to play games.” He arches a brow at Thiago. “We all know what your general can do. And we all know where Maren’s gifts lie. The only possible way Maren managed to do this is if she was wielding the Dreamthief’s Mirror.”

  “That’s a myth,” Lucere snaps.

  “No, it’s not,” says a quiet voice near the fireplace.

  Imerys hasn’t said a word since we all retreated to Lucere’s private chambers, but despite the paleness of her skin and the streaks of ash that dull her blue-black hair, she drags the cold compress from her face and stares at her sister. “The Mirror exists. It was one of the great relics, created to trap the Dreamthief himself.”

  “The great relics?” I can’t help myself. “You know of the great relics?”

  “With it, you can access the Dreamthief’s powers,” Imerys replies. “You can control him, even as he lies bound within the Hallow.”

  Prince Corvin straightens, looking dangerous in black leather with a cloak of pure raven feathers. “If Maren has the mirror, then she’s more dangerous than any of us can predict. She can steal into our dreams, she can trap us in endless nightmares, and even if we were to somehow fight off sleep, she can send us into the dream world in an instant.” He looks at Thiago. “And nobody knows how long it will take for them to wake. Or if they will wake.”

  “What do we do?” Lucere asks.

  “I told you what you needed to do last night,” Thiago replies. “The only way to defeat Adaia and Maren is for the three of us—Kyrian, you, and myself—to join—"

  “Join what?” she demands. “Your war? Ravenal is finally free of my great-grandmother’s clutches! We have years of rebuilding to do. There’s barely anything left of the kingdom as it is, and—”

  “There won’t be anything of it left if you allow Adaia to march in and burn it.”

  “You and your fucking wife will drag us all into ruin!” she suddenly hisses. “Did you ever think of that when you first claimed Iskvien as your wife? Did you even give a thought for anyone else when you told the world that you would burn it to ashes if any of us dared intercede with the marriage?”

  “Anyone else? Or just you?”

  “You will ruin us,” she says bitterly. “You will ruin us all, and for what? Her?”

  Shadows lengthen as Thiago’s eyes darken. I recognize the set of his shoulders and the press of his mouth. There’s no sign of the charming suitor who won my heart for all those months, no sign of the careful prince who tries to rule his country with a fair and even hand. No, this is the predator. The dark prince they all whisper about.

  Even my breath catches, because I’ve never seen the warlord who earned that reputation long ago fully unleashed. It’s like a glimpse of the male beneath the mask, and I don’t know him.

  Not completely.

  “Is it ruin to seek salvation in the only hope you have ever seen?” he asks in a gentle voice that holds an edge of malice.

  The two of them stare at each other.

  “You should thank her, you know.” Thiago takes a step toward her, eyes glittering darkly. “Because you know nothing of what I am capable of. You know nothing of the depths that call at me. There is only one thing that reminds me of who I am and what I wish to remain, and she’s standing right in fucking front of you.”

  Kyrian steps between them, not as a threat, but as a warning that we need to keep a cool head here. “We’re playing directly into Adaia’s hands.”

  I catch Thiago’s arm.

  And our eyes meet.

  “I can fight my own battles, thank you very much.”

  “I’m aware of that,” he growls in my head.

  “Then stop acting like—”

  “Like what? Like I just saw my wife being dragged out of a fucking burning building? You said you would go nowhere without me.”

  My eyes narrow. �
�Or Eris. Who was with me.”

  His thin in return.

  “Later,” I tell him. “You can chide me later. Right now, you’re threatening our allies.”

  “What I have in mind has nothing to do with ‘chiding,’” he promises. But he turns to the prince and princess. “My apologies. I spoke out of turn. It’s not every day you see your wife nearly die.”

  “She wasn’t the only one,” says Imerys, suddenly coughing. “And that’s enough, Luce. We’re only talking ourselves in circles.”

  “Immy?” Corvin kneels next to his youngest sister as she continues coughing. “How are you feeling?”

  “Like someone just burned half my fucking library.” There are tears in the corners of her eyes.

  I keep seeing the library in my mind, going up in flames. Lucere and Thiago doused the worst of the fire, but so many of the books were burned.

  Especially those on the level where Imerys and I were searching the other day.

  Where something was watching us.

  “Go home,” Lucere says through clenched teeth. “I think you’ve done enough here. I don’t know what the truth is. I don’t know who attacked us. Or why. But as I told Adaia the other day, Ravenal intends to stand by itself. It will uphold the terms of the original Alliance. We do not side with either of you. We stand by ourselves, and will remain neutral in this coming conflict.”

  Thiago doesn’t move. “Remember this moment when Ravenal’s borders are being overrun with red and gold banners. This was the moment where you could have saved your people and your country.”

  And then he turns to shoot us a dark look.

  “Let’s go home.”

  Kyrian catches his arm before he turns to go. “Keep me apprised. If you need help, I will do what I can.”

  Failure tastes as bitter as I thought it would.

  “You did your best,” I murmur as we’re about to mount and head for the Hallow. “Her eyes and ears were already closed before we even arrived.”