Page 156 of Merciless Is My Crown

“Blood magic.” I wiped my bloody palm on my cloak. “Seems like magic works as well in dreams as it does in real life.” I bent down and picked up a sliver of stone, one that looked remarkably like black glass, with an edge so sharp it glinted.

“Pain is a strange thing. It can break through barriers…even through veils between realms. Solok once used pain to turn me into a weapon of destruction, did you know that? Let’s see if pain can pull me out of your dream as easily as you sucked me in.”

“Pain does not exist in this place,” she hissed.

“Yes, I heard you the first time.”

I grinned. “But you’re a liar, so there’s no reason you’d tell me the truth, not even here. Besides, I’m not really here, am I?” I raised my hand over my head, sucked in a breath, and drove the sharp point into my thigh.

64

RAZIEL

Nothing about this made sense.

A dragon disappearing into thin air.

The liquid, rippling darkness.

Trubahn’s eyeless, broken body sprawled on the still-flaming cobblestones.

But the most wrong thing was my princess, standing before me with a blank, mindless stare, as if whatever she saw was dissolving her from the inside out.

“Anaria?” I gripped her shoulders, peering into her empty eyes. “Anaria. Wake up.”

“What happened?” Tavion growled, his gaze focused on that dark entity coiled before us like serpents waiting to strike. “Did that stuff touch her? Is she infected?” Horror flared in his eyes and something had me reaching out, grasping his arm.

“Her magic touched it. Them. Then she was gone.” I squeezed his arm, some of that frantic fear bleeding out of his gaze and into mine. “But she’s not in pain, Tavion. Just…somewhere else.”

The shadows were a multitude of dark, reaching tendrils merging into one writhing and awful void, held at bay only by Anaria’s still-intact shield. My fingers closed tighter on Anaria’s shoulders. “Princess. Come back to me.”

But peering into her eyes was like looking down a long, empty hallway.

Whatever this magic was, it was sentient. And hungry, consuming my princess’s stars like they were some delicacy. They were growing stronger; the shield was failing and neither Tavion or Zor could help me shore it up.

Cosimo had turned his attention on the far end of the street, his pale magic painting the air blue.

“Try again to wake her.” Zor took up position to my right, squatting down until he was eye to eye with what was on the other side. “Or get her out of here. Once these shadows get through, I doubt we can fight them. They remind me of a Reaper, just move differently.”

“I leave and that barrier falls,” I warned him, wondering if we should all just get the fuck out of here and let Southwell fall.

“It’s like she’s caught in one of those visions. With the skulls,” Tavion muttered, bracing his legs wider as a handful of murky forms limped out of the darkness. They moved jerkily, like Trubahn, like someone else controlled them.

“The Oracle,” Zor hissed, and Tavion just nodded.

“She’s here.” The truth shocked me as I studied Anaria’s blank, empty face cupped in my palms. Nothing. There was nothing there. “The Oracle has taken Anaria somewhere. Maybe like in the visions.” I moved my princess gently, setting her back against the building.

“Get your arses in gear,” Lyrae snarled, stalking up the center of the street, right past the writhing darkness trying to get to us like she didn’t even see it. “They’re coming, or don’t you two have eyes in your heads?”

“We see them,” Tavion growled, answering for both of us. “Your former master is controlling them. How do we know she’s not pulling your strings, too?”

“Fuck you, Montgomery.” Lyrae didn’t even bother looking over, her hair sleeked back, eyes alight with malicious glee. “But that’s easy. If she was, you’d already be dead.”

“Go kill them instead.” Tavion pointed to our attackers. “You bloodthirsty bi?—”

But Lyrae was already in motion, her lean body a precise, dangerous weapon, tearing through the possessed mages like butter, dodging deadly bursts of magic and spell work easily enough I narrowed my eyes.

“Are you seeing this?” Zorander asked. I kept my hands on Anaria, kept her protected and safe, with her empty eyes and vacant expression, but my gaze was on the carnage unfolding, the oily serpents writhing just beyond our barrier.

---