Page 35 of Merciless Is My Crown

“What about the balance?” Corvus sneered. “What about?—”

“This world is full of humans and Fae and other beings. Antagonize them and they will unite against us. I refuse to wage a deadly war to survive. I would rather die.”

Pain slashed across my arm, and I blinked in confusion at the red furrow carved into my arm that had just…appeared out of nowhere.

Saphrax’s nostrils flared. “You’re hurt.” His dark-as-night eyes flew to mine, flashing red-gold for a split second. “Amalla, you’re bleeding.”

“It’s only a cut, Saphrax, nothing big enough to worry about.”

“You are injured, my Amalla. You are bleeding. There is so much blood. Too much blood.” His panicked roar shook the trees overhead, his eyes flashing back and forth, black to red to gold as he crushed me against him, his body trembling.

The forest crumpled around us, as if the rain was melting the trees away, Saphrax roaring and roaring, shaking everything around me, the walls of my chest caving in from the force of his rage…

I blinked and the rain-soaked forest became hewn stone walls.

The stench of burning flesh turned to damp, moldy stone.

A chill shivered down my spine. The vision hung on with stubborn claws, filling my head with a foggy kind of horror as I sorted through the strange yet familiar images. I rubbed my face, half expecting to find it wet from the rain. Panic surged through me as I catalogued the new information.

Corvus and Gelvira had killed the other three gods. Gods of life and rebirth.

They created this death cycle the world was now trapped inside.

This was all their fault.

Tavion’s eyes glimmered with tears, his face a mask as he lifted me to my feet, the bloodstained knife still gripped in one hand. I cupped his face, searching his eyes before I brushed my lips over his. Gentle and soft but enough of a reassurance a shudder wracked him before he sagged against me. “Thank you. I can always depend on you, Tavion. You have never let me down. Now let me check on Tristan so we can quit this place for good.”

I didn’t bother cleaning off the dust. I headed toward Tristan, crouched on the floor, still half lost in the vision, hazel eyes so wide I saw the whites all around them, his expression wrecked.

“What was that? Where were we? How did I know that was you?” The words came staccato fast, each one punctuated by a fast, desperate inhale.

I didn’t know what alerted me to the danger.

The sudden flicker of red flames in the depths of his eyes, the tightening thrum in the chamber as some strange, dark power was called upon, but something—instinct, maybe—had me ripping the iron bands free and throwing up a shield between me, Tavion, Adele…and whatever Tristan just turned into.

He shifted so fast the change was instantaneous, becoming the embodiment of a living flame. His long, sinuous body was covered in golden fire, and he was so big he took up half the crypt, long tail slashing back and forth, the end covered in wickedly sharp spikes.

Those spikes crashed into my shield and sent me flying back, fire crawling over the surface of my barrier, his serpent-like head weaving back and forth, red-gold eyes searching for some way to reach us.

His mouth gaped open, curved fangs gleaming.

To devour us.

His terrified horse, caught on the other side, dodged back and forth then leapt over the thrashing, deadly tail and darted straight into the portal, the glowing light swallowing him up, the monster snapping those fearsome teeth together with an empty clack that shook my bones.

“What…what is that?” Adele clung to me, her ruined fingers digging in so hard yet I didn’t have the heart to pry her off as I sent another surge of magic into the only thing keeping us alive.

My barrier shivered every time a blast of fire flared across it, every time that lashing tail struck like a battering ram. He paced back and forth, using the taloned points of his wings like two legs, that merciless gaze pinned on us.

“Wyvern,” Tavion said, at the same time I hissed, “Dragon.”

“Dragons have four feet,” Tavion explained, as if it really mattered how many feet the creature had when the vicious beast swallowed us whole. Still, some distant part of me appreciated his thoroughness. “And their tails aren’t barbed.”

“What is a wyvern?” Adele was bone-white, her eyes taking up half her face.

“Deadlier and meaner than dragons,” Tavion hissed. “That’s really all you have to know.”

As if the thing heard him, those spikes slammed against my shield. Once. Twice. Three times, my magic shuddering with every blow. If he got through my shield, we were dead, but if the wyvern went through that portal before we did…we’d be trapped here. We’d have no alternative but to retreat back to Caladrius and take the land route, a four-day journey fraught with dangers.

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