Page 104 of Merciless Is My Crown

It took me time to work up my courage to go into my brothers’ room, the metallic scent of blood so heavy I vomited. There were three beds in the room—wyverns were social creatures, and from the time we were born we’d slept two in a bed. I shared mine with Trent, which was the only reason I’d survived, otherwise they would have torn the castle apart searching for me, and the king…well, the king didn’t care enough to ask how many of us the soldiers had killed.

But when I stared down at my baby sisters, I swore to myself I would do two things before I died.

Slay the Shadow King like a dog in the street.

But not until he restored my family name and fortunes.

It took me damn near six hundred years, but I’d managed the last part. Now I just had to kill the bastard.

An earth-shattering roar yanked me from the memory.

My eyes flew open to a wall of solid rock in front of me. I flung my wings out, snapping my metacarpals tight, and caught a frozen updraft, my shoulder and back muscles screaming in agony as I raced up and up and up the cliff face.

Zephryn’s roar still echoed across the chasm when I crested the mountain and soared out over the empty openness of the Dearth, a dark stretch of ocean to my right, a ring of black, craggy mountains a hundred miles beyond us.

The Northern Crown, Zephryn had called that towering range, which meant…

I tipped my head sideways, keeping my neck straight, scanning the desolate plain.

Below us was a protected flat area, the steep cliffs marked by the line of white foam breaking at their base, mountains to the north and south, and to my left…an expanse of solid, glittering ice.

Frost Lake.

I followed Zephryn down, circling as we descended and keeping in a tight formation, Simon as silent as a wraith overhead. Torin’s cloak stretched out behind her, her gloved hands wrapped around the dragon’s scales, I presumed, as we dropped lower and lower until I made out the rocks amongst the snow-dusted grass.

There, right where Anaria said it would be, was a rounded building, the domed black roof rough enough to blend in with the rocky terrain, the walls made from the same material. A row of needle-thin, tall windows encircled the sides beneath the eaves, as if light was not a consideration.

There was no door.

Zephryn landed first, had already transformed, and was changing into the clothing Torin handed him, Simon alighting beside them. Once the owl shifter was dressed, I shed my wyvern form and caught the duffel bag Zephryn pitched over to me.

“Get dressed. We’ve got an hour.”

No matter Anaria’s assurances about how they would lead the Oracle on a merry chase across Caladrius, we’d decided an hour was enough time to either find the pendant and get out, or decide it wasn’t here.

But excitement curled in my gut as I hauled the cloak over my head and headed for Ashbane, looming five stories high over the sheer cliffs dropping to the thundering ocean below.

42

ANARIA

Raz and I landed in Tempeste under the fading light, the sun completing its arc across the pale blue sky and outlining the circling Reapers in a golden glow that made them look almost ethereal.

“Head inside. I’m right behind you.” Raziel gripped his knife in one hand, but I was relying on my magical shield to keep us—and our scents—hidden from the ravenous creatures overhead.

We crept up those bloodstained steps, passed beneath the city’s memorial arch—almost a twin to Stormfall’s—then disappeared into the soot-covered, burned-out Citadelle, noses jammed into our elbows to block out the stench of rotting bodies.

We picked our way around debris, up staircases jammed with the corpses of innocent servants and not-so innocent soldiers, and past the wrecked throne room, one white marble pillar broken in half, half the roof collapsed.

We’d run out of sunlight when we arrived at Torin’s room, where I couldn’t stop checking the crow-like Reapers through the hole in the ceiling to make sure they weren’t diving for us.

“Are you sure about this, Anaria?” Raziel asked softly. I unfastened my cloak then slipped off my shirt, shivering when the chill hit me like a wall of ice. He had already stripped to the waist, and his shirt hung to my knees, his cloak dragging on the floor. When he wrestled my too small shirt over his muscled torso he looked ridiculous, but appearances didn’t matter.

What did matter was our scent-saturated clothing—worn for days and days while we traveled to the Barrens.

“No. But this is…” I blew out a shaky breath, exhaustion and the impossibility of what we were up against crashing down on me. “This is the best I could come up with.” I forced my lips into a tight smile. “But you know what they say. A bad plan is better than none at all.”

Raziel gripped my hands. “This will work, and I shouldn’t have even mentioned it.”

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