Page 38 of Merciless Is My Crown

Well, not exactly with my arms around him, but still, we’d been here before, Tavion and me.

But Tristan didn’t—couldn’t—stop trembling, sweat dripping off him as if he was burning from the inside out. Adele crept forward with a canteen, and I dribbled water between his lips, past his anguished breaths.

One more day.

We had to make it through that portal, then one more day in the tunnels.

Then we’d be home.

The word reverberated through me as I lifted my hopeful gaze to Tavion.

But what I found reflected in his face hit me like a blow when he tossed the fur coat down beside me.

“When you’re done coddling your new pet, get him covered up so we can keep moving.”

15

ZORANDER

Nova Pointe was a barren, godsforsaken spit of land jutting out over the unforgiving Marianus Sea, but this was the closest jumping off point to our destination.

Even my Fae eyes weren’t good enough to span the distance across the choppy waters to Darkhold, but I knew the island was there. A place of looming darkness hidden by shadows, little more than a blur on the horizon.

“One more jump,” I muttered when Simon landed beside us, feathers ruffling in the salty wind. He had to be exhausted flying fast enough to keep up with us, but the shifter hadn’t complained, driven by the same relentless compulsion as Torin.

I had to respect their devotion to their friend.

Had to respect the patience—the utter dedication—to hold onto hope for three hundred years.

“There is a landing point on the southern tip of the island. We’ll land there and wait for Simon to catch up.” Torin stepped closer and wound her hands tightly into my coat as I prepared to ghost us across the water, her eyes fixed on that blurred darkness as if her entire future lay within those shadows. “Chances are there’s nothing there left alive, but I suggest we all keep our wits about us.”

The trip only took a handful of minutes, filled with the heavy scent of salt and fish and rolling waves. Then, as if we’d crossed some invisible barrier, reeking foulness hit me full in the face.

The second my feet touched down on the parapet, little more than a dangerous sliver of stone jutting out above a gaping darkness, my feet slid on the rain-slicked rock, my weight pitched awkwardly enough I tipped backward over the edge.

One desperate glance showed a fall that would surely kill me before Torin’s hands darted out and snagged my collar, heaving me upright. “Thanks.” My fucking heart beat out of my chest as I got my feet under me. “Still don’t trust you…but thanks.”

“Anytime, Commander,” Torin said smoothly. The back of my neck prickled as I slowly unspooled my magic, dark tendrils as thin as fingers testing the reeking air.

The brimstone-drenched air was choking, the mist-covered island surrounded by some unnatural, impenetrable darkness. Not magic, exactly, but some primitive, arcane power cloaking this place in eternal night, turning the sun into a pale globe that cast no light.

“Gods, it stinks,” Raz murmured, face twisted against the assault.

“This smells different than before.” Torin tipped her head back and took a deep breath. “The brimstone is the same, but there’s something fouler beneath. Something ancient. Like this entire island has been corrupted at its very heart.”

The inner island was a round sunken crater surrounded by a ring of jagged toothlike mountains, higher than anything I’d ever seen in my life, the peaks swallowed up by the cloak of shadow so completely I couldn’t see the tops.

Perfect if you were a dragon and had wings to span the unfathomable distance—an impossible maze of sheer, insurmountable cliffs and plummeting drops if you had to travel on two legs.

Every stone was pitch-black; even the sand lining the shores was as dark as the glittering midnight granite beneath my feet. There wasn’t a tendril of green, not so much as a sprout pushing up from the cracks.

I pulled my knives. Raz did the same.

A polished, round wall circled that central crater, perfectly crafted, every stone set so neatly the rampart appeared to be carved from one continuous piece of rock. From that circle, a shimmering ward projected upward, all the way into the clouds.

The circle encompassed a city hewn from the rock, jutting needlelike peaks separated by deep valleys. Not a city like Tempeste or even Blackcastle, built of wood and stone, but something ancient and indestructible.

It was hard to believe every jagged peak used to house a dragon. A family of dragons.

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