Page 72 of The Crowned Queen

“Loren!” Serafina’s voice cut through the dark haze surrounding him like a knife. “If you’re going to stay, you have to keep them under control. I need space to work if I’m going to save her life. Kai—” she turned to the human man, her voice hard as steel. “What happened?”

“Caylin whipped her.”

Kai stood in the doorway, his normally tan complexion sallow. Blood—Araya’s blood—soaked his shirt, sticking the fabric to his skin.

“Was there iron braided into the whip?”

Serafina bent over Araya’s ruined back, carefully plucking away the shredded fabric. The shadows all tensed around Loren as she moaned, her brow furrowing.

Kai swallowed. “I didn’t see it happen. But… probably.” His eyes flicked to Loren. “I swear, I wasn’t there. If I had been, I would’ve stopped it⁠—”

“You got her out.” Loren’s voice sounded foreign to his own ears. “You don’t have anything to apologize for.”

But he did. The shadows reminded him of that as he sank to his knees beside the table, cradling her limp hand in his as Serafina worked. He had done so many things wrong, he’d spend the rest of his life apologizing to her.

If she lives, the shadows snapped.

Chapter

Twenty-Six

Araya stood alone beneath the trees.

No—not trees. These were monoliths, their trunks rising like living pillars jutting up from the mist that clung to the forest floor. They surrounded the broken palace, great roots heaving up through the courtyard stones and vines crawling through the wreckage. The hair on the back of her neck prickled, the sensation of being watched pressing down on her like a physical weight.

But nothing moved. There was no sound—not of people or animals or even birds.

Araya took a careful step forward, studying the wreckage. She could still see glimpses of what this place must have been. A moss-covered fountain, choked with debris. Shards of colored glass still stuck in the arching window frames. A fragment of intact wall carved with swirling, curling motifs that were as strange to her as they were familiar.

How long had it been since a person last walked here? Years, probably. Maybe even decades. Even the air tasted old, every breath Araya took thick with the taste of damp earth and stone, all underlaid with the faint but unmistakable tang of iron.

“Am I dead?” Araya asked.

No one answered. But the feeling of something other only intensified, settling into her bones and echoing in the space between her heartbeats. It had been there when the vines tore into Elvanfal too. She could have sworn it had spoken to her there. But she’d been hurt—very hurt.

Araya closed her eyes, shivering at the memory of the iron-braided lash coming down across her back. Kai had been there. He’d killed Garrick Shaw. Had carried her when she could no longer walk. Taking her to⁠—

To Loren. Araya choked on a sob, pressing her hand against her chest. Had they really made it? Or had her exhausted, agonized mind simply been trying to give her one comfort in her last moments?

That presence wrapped around her, holding her like it had in Elvanfal. Ancient and vast, yes. But also comforting and warm, like the memory of her mother’s arms, and for a moment the pain and fear of not knowing faded away.

“What are you?” she whispered.

It didn’t speak, but she could feel it all around her now. It brushed over her skin, filled the air she breathed and the ground under her feet. It latched onto something inside her, a tug that pulled on every fragment of her being, drawing her forward.

“In there?” Araya asked, opening her eyes.

The doors of the palace hung from their hinges, smashed and broken. Araya held her breath, half-expecting someone to step through the doors and beckon her forward. But there was nothing—no movement, no sound, no reassurance that she wasn’t walking directly into her own doom. It had been the same with the Shadowed Veil. Dara’el had saved the fae on Eluneth—and doomed them, all at the same time. Whatever power had intervened here…Araya had no doubt that it was dangerous. Powerful. It had torn down the wall at Elvanfal. Killed Caylin. Consumed Garrick Shaw. It would have killed her, if Jaxon hadn’t cut her free.

But she was either dead or dreaming now. What harm could she come to?

Araya took a step forward, searching for the best path down to the palace. But at the same moment the world shuddered around her, the ground pitching under her feet as her surroundings rippled like water, bending and splitting into a thousand reflections of itself.

Throwing caution to the wind, she lunged forward, stretching out her hand like she could pull herself clear⁠—

Araya woke with a ragged gasp. Hard wood pressed against her cheek, the cloying scent of oil and blood and crushed herbs filling her lungs. She couldn’t move, couldn’t do anything more than blink as fire lashed across her back, tearing the flesh from her bones. It hurt. It hurt so much⁠—

“She’s awake.”