Crown of Darkness

by Bec McMaster

  But the second my blood hits the earth, a tremor runs through the ground. Those thorns are suddenly mine, and I twist them back upon her, lashing them toward her with vicious speed.

  My mother screams as she throws herself aside.

  Scrambling to her hands and knees, she glares at me.

  I hold my hands up. A faint light suffuses my fingertips. I can feel the lands whispering to me, calling out for succor. It’s a little like the night I bound myself to Evernight. They yearn to be touched, yearn to uplift a queen—

  “No!” my mother screams, and then she grabs a knife from her belt and throws herself at me.

  I’m caught in the land’s whispers, distracted by the thorns that beg me for command. A flash of light shears toward me, and only months of Eris’s training forces me to react in time. Twisting beneath the blow, I roll her wrist over the top of my forearm and drive my fist into her ribs.

  She collapses into an undignified heap at my feet.

  Several of the guards draw sharp breaths.

  Nobody has ever seen my mother stumble, and I recognize the danger all too late.

  Mother looks up with a gasp, but there’s murder in her eyes. I’ve seen her look at me with hate and rage, but never with this much cold. There’s a moment where I still exist—the daughter who betrayed her, the daughter who turned against her—but then I see her visibly excise me from her life.

  “You will not take my crown,” she growls, and the color in her irises is smothered by a tide of black ink, until her eyes are fully black. “It is mine. As these lands are mine.”

  She forces herself to her feet, and that inky color steals through her cheeks until her face is mottled with black veins.

  I can’t help taking a step back.

  This isn’t my mother.

  It’s a monster in fae flesh, driven purely by vengeance.

  How did I not see it?

  “From the moment I felt you kicking in my womb, I knew you were a seed that should never have been given root. Everything about your begetting was a lie, and your birth ruined me. You were born to betray me, and I did not listen to my instincts,” she hisses. “I told myself there must be some good in you. There must be some half of you that belonged to me, but all I can see is your father. You are a monster I should have drowned at birth.”

  For a second, I can’t breathe.

  It isn’t true. I know it isn’t true, and yet those words flay me from within.

  Curling her fingers into claws, she spits a curse, and then thorns rupture from the ground, stabbing for my throat.

  I scream, but something sweeps the thorns out of the way. They wither and die, even as new ones keep stabbing through the soil, until I’m surrounded by a thicket of dry, brittle branches, poison still dripping from those inch-long thorns.

  Adaia slowly lowers her hands, and this is the first time I’ve seen her fear.

  The winds swirl again, but this time they carry his scent upon them. A dark shadow falls from the sky, landing with a thud in front of me.

  And then Thiago is there, enormous feathered wings tucking in tightly against his body. His eyes are as black as hers are, and the barest hint of one of his darkyn tattoos creeps up his throat.

  “Adaia.” He slowly straightens. “I promised you a reckoning the last time we met.”

  “So you did.” Her gaze slides to his wings. “No longer trying to hide your filthy nature, I see.”

  “Why pretend I care what you think of me?”

  Little whispers stir through the grass. Thorns creeping like vines. She’s trying to distract him.

  “Watch out!” I call.

  Thiago’s lip curls, and then he flicks his hand and the thorns wither and die, crumbling into dust.

  My mother stills. “You dare walk into my castle. You dare try and steal from me—”

  “You had something I wanted.”

  A scream of rage escapes her. “You filthy, wretched thief. I will see you die for this!” Her fingers curling into claws, she strides toward him. Thorns rupture through the grass, reaching for him, but he’s in the air, his massive wings thrusting down.

  And that’s when the world explodes.

  Both of us are flung apart, and I hit the grass and roll to my feet, drawing my dagger. There’s a ringing in my ears as my eyes fight to make sense of the world.

  Fire rains down through the trees. Little sparks of ash streak through the sky like shooting stars. Somewhere to the right there’s a bonfire—

  “No!” my mother screams, pushing to her feet, her face stricken. “My oak. My oak!”

  The queen’s oak is burning, enormous flames licking toward the skies.

  How did that—?

  There’s no time to lose in gaping.

  “Run,” Thiago says, shoving me into the trees. “There are hundreds of guards swarming out of the castle, and we need to get out of these woods!”

  I sprint through the trees.

  Thiago materializes out of the darkness, grabbing my arm. He’s vanished his wings and looks completely seelie again. “This way!”

  I told him not to use his magic here. Not to draw attention. “You set her oak on fire?” She’s as bound to that tree as she is to the land.

  “Not me!”

  “Then who—?”

  “I don’t know. And we don’t have time to find out. We need to—"

  “I can’t leave yet! She must have hidden the crown somewhere. She knew we were coming and she—”

  “There’ll be other chances, Vi.” He shakes his head, glancing tersely at the fire. “We have to go. Now.”

  To leave without the crown makes my stomach knot. My mother knows what we want now, and she’ll lock that crown away so fiercely that even the light will never get so much as another glimpse at it.

  And without it….

  I can’t breathe. My feet won’t move.

  But they have to.

  I let Thiago tug me into the forest, every step feeling as though my boots are made of lead. Torches flare through the trees, and he catches a glimpse of them and then draws me the other way. Toward the east.

  Mother knows we need to get to the Hallow if we’re to have any chance at escaping.

  But torches gleam through the trees ahead of us too. More guards. They’re coming from every direction.

  “Do you trust me, Vi?” He wraps his arms around me.

  “Of course, I do.”

  Darkness shrouds us both, and I wrap my arms beneath his and hug his shoulder blades as I recognize the whispers in the air around us. Something strokes my skin—

  “Such a pretty girl,” it whispers. “So sssoft and fleshy…. So delicioussss…”

  Our eyes meet.

  “I’m angry, and they call to me strongly when I give in to my emotions,” he admits. And then his jaw locks and the whispers die away. “We’ll have to fly.”

  “Can you even carry me?”

  Wings appear beneath my hands, and then he spreads them as wide as he can. “Do you doubt me, my love?”

  A soft gasp echoes behind us.

  My head whips toward the sound, and there’s Andraste, her mouth falling open in shock as she sees his wings.

  “You,” he says coldly, stepping toward her and dragging me with him.

  “Stop!”

  Thiago glances at me, his eyes completely black, but it’s not the Thiago I know. There’s a feral edge to his features. The darkyn prince who wishes to crush the world. “We can’t trust her.”

  “Stop,” I repeat, my hand pressed against his chest. “Let me talk to her. She wouldn’t be here if she didn’t have something important to say to me.”

  And I have something to say to her.

  Every inch of him trembles, and he slowly lowers his head, his fingers curling into fists. “Make it quick.”

  Andraste’s mouth forms a little O of horror. “It’s true.”

  “That you betrayed us?” I shake my head. “I fall for it every time—”

  �
��I didn’t betray you.”

  “Really? We stole inside the castle but the crown wasn’t there! She knew we were coming. She knew and—”

  “It wasn’t there,” Andraste snaps, “because I took it.” Brushing her cloak aside, she unties something from her hip and holds it in her gloved hand. “I was going slip away to the Hallow and send it through to you while she was distracted.”

  The crown.

  Mother’s crown.

  It has no gemstones. Nor is it merely decorative. Seven sharp prongs stab away from a circlet of heavy gold, and as the light flickers over it, it feels as though something malevolent within the crown stares back.

  “Here,” she says, shoving it into my hands. “Take it.”

  “Why would you do this?”

  She knows the consequences of betraying Mother. It was one thing to protect me at Briar Keep. Another to steal from our mother—and to deliberately sabotage the queen’s plans.

  Because while I didn’t set that fire, there’s only one other fae in the court who has the power to wield such flames. Fire runs through the Asturian matriarchal bloodline, and while it’s one of the few fae gifts I can access, my sister wields it like a whip.

  Andraste curls my fingers around the crown. “Take it. I can hear it whispering to me. Just take it. And get out of here. She’s had the Hallows surrounded both here and at Briar Keep. She expects you to flee in that direction.”

  “But why?”

  Her gloved hands are warm beneath mine as I take the crown.

  I don’t know if I imagine it, but there’s a little shiver through my veins, as if some sort of power leaches through my skin. It’s the crown.

  “Because….”

  “Because?”

  “Because I am sorry. Because I can never take back any of my actions, my lies. And because….” Andraste looks at me with eyes wet with guilt. She shoots a glance over my shoulder toward Thiago and then presses something into my hand. “I don’t want you to lose your child.”

  A little curl of paper.

  “What are you trying to—?”

  “Read it when you are safe,” she says, shoving me toward Thiago. “Read it and know this: I am sorry. And I do not ask for forgiveness, only for understanding. I have tried to protect you as best I could. As I have tried to protect her. And I thought my silence was the best protection I could offer, for there are eyes and ears in every inch of this court. I did not dare reach out to tell you.”

  “To tell me what?”

  Guilt darkens her eyes, but then another explosion of flame is set off nearby. My head whips toward the west. Toward the armory.

  “Go,” Andraste tells me. “I’ll try and distract the guards.”

  Thiago hauls me into the trees, but I pause at the edge of the clearing and look back.

  “Goodbye,” Andraste mouths, and a chill runs through me, because this time, I feel as though it’s forever.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  The night is a blur.

  Thiago flies us toward the north, finally setting me down somewhere near the Duke of Thornwood’s lands—and the Hallow there. We arrive back in Ceres just as dawn breaks in the east.

  I take three steps, and that’s when I realize my thighs are slick, and it’s not from desire. The dull pain that’s been nagging at my back all day suddenly makes sense.

  I stop halfway up the stairs in surprise.

  “What is it?” Thiago asks, from behind.

  “I….” I dash up the stairs into our chambers, and from there into the washroom. Stripping out of my clothes confirms the truth.

  I’m not with child.

  “Vi?” Thiago knocks on the door I slammed in his face. “What is it?”

  “Give me a moment.”

  I clean up as best I can, and then slip into a robe that’s hanging from the back of the door. A bath will have to wait. There’s another nagging sensation in my chest, and this one won’t be suppressed.

  “What is it?” he repeats, when I open the door.

  “My monthly finally came.”

  Expression drops from his face. “Ah.”

  And I wonder if we wear the same mask.

  I was so certain I was with child, but the feeling that cuts through me is both of relief and loss. With the crown in our hands, there’s no longer any threat from the Mother of Night, and I guess there’s a little part of me that wanted a child.

  His child.

  Thiago opens his arms and I walk into them, leaning against him and closing my eyes.

  “You’re upset,” he murmurs.

  “No, I… I don’t know what to think. I could almost imagine her.” And the dreams. Every night the dreams. “It’s a relief right now, but….”

  “You wanted her.”

  “She felt real,” I admit, curling into him. “She felt so real.”

  And to lose that feels like a little death inside me.

  Thiago kisses the top of my head. “Go and take a bath. I’ll send for some breakfast.” He gives me a brief squeeze before he finally opens his arms. “You did it, Vi. You were right. We have the crown.”

  He heads for the door as I turn back to the wash chambers, but something stops me from entering.

  I never checked the little message Andraste pressed into my hands. At first we were too busy running and fighting—and then flying—but now I can’t help wondering what she was so desperate to tell me.

  “I do not ask for forgiveness, only for understanding.”

  I find it in the inner pocket of my dress and unroll the little scroll of paper.

  It’s written in the language that Andraste and I invented when we were children—a series of dashes and swirls that only we could decipher. And it’s been so long since I’ve seen it that it takes a moment for me to understand what I’m reading.

  There was child, Vi. The fourth time you went away, you came back swollen with child. A little girl with your mouth. You named her Amaya—

  Amaya.

  The word strikes through me like a bell that’s been rung.

  Hammerstrikes of memory assault me.

  And then I’m falling, falling, my hand clutching my head as another layer of curse work shatters and I’m swept into the past….

  Pain. And desperation.

  And fear.

  “Push,” snaps a hard voice. “Push.”

  I can’t do it. I can’t get through this. If I push, then my mother will take my baby away.

  “No!” I scream, biting my knuckles. Help me. Help me, please. It’s tearing me in two.

  I need him. I need him so badly, and he’s not here, and I’m so weak that I don’t know if I have the strength to fight them all. Thiago! I throw the thought out into the night, but there’s no answer.

  And there won’t be.

  This little ruined keep of Clydain—which has been my home for the past six months—is far to the north of Asturia and warded by so many levels of magic that no one will ever hear me or see me again.

  “Please… no.” Another spasm of pain tears me into two, and my spine bows as I scream.

  “You have to push!”

  “Vi.” Someone kneels beside me, taking me by the hand, and I clutch at them as if they’re my last lifeline.

  I can barely breathe, every iota of my being trying not to birth this baby. It’s the only way I can protect her, and every inch of me contorts with pain.

  But suddenly Andraste’s face is next to mine. “If you don’t push,” she says, “your baby will die.”

  I burst into tears, gasping raggedly. “Please don’t let her take my baby…. Please.”

  My sister’s face dissolves as the unbearable urge to push takes over. Gods, it hurts. Every panting breath feels like I’m being torn in two. But I beg her. I beg her with my eyes and the entire whole of my being.

  “That’s it!” the midwife encourages. “Bear down, Princess.”

  “I’ll protect her as if she is my own,” Andraste says, cradling me as I shake. “I promise
, Vi. I’ll never let anything happen to her.” And then her voice drops, until it’s only a whisper. “In Maia’s name, Vi. I will protect her no matter what I must do.”

  It’s the only thing I can hold on to as I scream and grunt and push.

  And then suddenly the pressure is gone, and my body collapses back in Andraste’s arms as the baby slips free of me.

  My baby. My baby. I try to raise my arm….

  The midwife lifts her head from between my thighs, a little bundle in her arms. A cry splits the air, and sweet Maia, but my baby is breathing. My baby’s breathing and blessed gods, she’s so—

  “Show me.” A voice cuts through my haze, and then my mother swims out of the shadows.

  Every inch of her is smothered in black, and the golden crown on her head seems to loom over all of us. She’s never far from it.

  “No.” I tense, but Andraste’s grip on my hands tightens.

  “You were right. It’s a little girl,” the nurse says, her gaze drifting between my mother and me. She tilts the baby toward my mother.

  A girl.

  My mother takes the bundle in her arms, and every inch of dread I’ve ever felt sinks its icy daggers through my chest.

  “Don’t you dare touch her.” I try to push up onto my hands, but my body spasms again.

  “Hush now,” my mother croons as my baby cries. “Look how beautiful you are.”

  I don’t even know what she looks like.

  “Give her back!” I scream, reaching for my baby. No, please. Not this. Anything but this…. “Give her back!”

  “She doesn’t belong to you anymore,” my mother says, lifting my baby and smiling down at her. “She is mine. Mine to raise as I see fit. Mine to mold. Mine to destroy if I so choose.”

  No.

  I try to shove my way out of the birthing bed, but my limbs are so weak and I’m still shaking.

  “Mother.” Andraste appears at the queen’s side, and rests a hand on my mother’s arm. “May I see my niece?”

  My mother offers my baby to my sister, and Andraste gathers her safely into her arms.

  “Please.” I reach toward them. Toward my daughter.