Page 4 of Merciless Is My Crown

Rocking. I was rocking back and forth.

My legs were on fire.

That was Tavion’s musky scent, his strong arms protecting me against a buffeting storm.

When I did manage to open my eyes, what I glimpsed couldn’t be real. Torchlight reflected on roughhewn stone walls blurring past us.

Stars in a sky vaster than the universe.

Firelight flickering in an ancient, ruined room that smelled vaguely of incense.

My only constants were this excruciating pain and Tavion. Powerful arms holding me, his scent surrounding me as he cradled me gentler than I ever imagined possible. Urging me to live, though I wasn’t sure survival was up to me anymore.

Not with this fire running through my veins, planting strange, obsessive ideas into my head.

Corvus’s corrosive venom was poisoning more than my flesh. He was corrupting my mind, weaving an inescapable tangle of thorny vines through my thoughts, supplanting them with horrific images and foul creeping impulses that were not mine.

Kill. Corrupt. Ruin.

Fear settled deeper into me, my shivering body—burning like fire on the inside, freezing on the outside—writhing against Tavion’s as his voice turned more desperate. I couldn’t understand the words, but his tone told me everything.

He was scared.

Enough to keep talking, to fill my head with his deep, steady voice, to keep Corvus’s demonic whispers at bay. I would have been lost without Tavion; he became the lifeline that tethered me to everything that was good and decent.

So I put what little strength I had into curling my fingers around Tavion’s arms and holding on.

Keep talking, I urged silently.

Keep talking, keep holding me, and keep me safe from the monsters.

3

ZORANDER VAYLE

Before I could stop him, Tavion wheeled his horse around in the tight space, and the thud when he drove his heels into the horse’s sides had me screaming, “Don’t you even think about it.”

Then the bastard was gone, thundering down the tunnel at breakneck speed, heading for the exit. And, presumably, the palace.

We took too long to turn around, the tunnel walls tight enough our shoulders brushed the ceiling. We didn’t make good time riding back. By the time we reached the exit, there was nothing there but the scent of Anaria’s blood. For the briefest moment, something deep inside me responded to that smell, some primal and ancient instinct kindling wild panic over her being hurt.

I smelled her everywhere, in the breeze blowing from the woods, in the wildflowers’ sweetness, traces of her essence left all over this entire realm, shaped by her hand.

“Tavion’s headed for the Wynter Palace.” I kicked my horse closer to Torin, fixing my glare on the golden owl perched on her shoulder. “Get your healer. Make it fast.”

“Simon.” Torin pointed in the direction of the city. “Find Bexley and take him to the palace.”

The owl took silently to the air as Torin turned her blank gaze to Tempeste looming above the now-lush forest. “He’s a powerful mage, the best healer I know. Chances are, Simon and Bex will beat us there and have Anaria healed and healthy before we even arrive.”

“No one touches Anaria without us present. Especially some male we don’t know.” Raziel’s wild eyes darted between Torin, the darkened city, and the Wynter Palace, where Anaria was presumably headed. “Let’s not forget, I don’t fucking trust you.”

“Too bad, because I’m all you have,” the seer reminded him. “Remember, I gain nothing if the girl dies, Zor. And if she lives…” Torin’s face softened. “If Anaria survives, we will remake this world.”

Raz’s smile turned frosty, and a hint of blue-black magic thrummed in the air, poised to lash out. To kill. “Pretty words, as usual. But you betray us again, Torin, I’ll gut you without blinking an eye.”

Even Torin had the sense to snap her mouth shut, and none of us commented on the constant thrum of barely restrained power around Raziel, as if he was fighting a losing battle for control.

I’d seen my friend wipe battlefields clean with his magic for a century, but this…ever since he’d removed the collar—ever since Anaria—his magic had transformed. Become keener. A thundering behemoth of savage power that I both respected and feared.

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