Page 97 of Black Crown

“No?” he asked. “Then you can watch. If you’d acted, you could’ve spared her this.”

A blast of his energy hit me in the chest, expelling the air from my lungs and pushing me against a Druman. He wrapped his arms around me, holding me still. I turned my head away, and another Druman forced my head back toward my aunt and my father. I closed my eyes.

“Even if you do not watch, you will hear every cut, every scream, every time my talons run against her bones. And you will know, heir, you could have spared her pain if you’d acted.”

He was right. I could’ve given her mercy. I couldn’t even shake my head, so I spat. “Don’t blame me for your actions. You’re the one killing her, regardless.”

“Killing? I’m not killing her. Ican’t. But you could have. So don’t blame me for yourinaction,” he replied, his tone no more riled than if we were discussing the weather.

Ryn screamed, and I clenched my teeth and closed my eyes. Another scream, and another. I whimpered with her, but refused to look as Draedyn mutilated and tortured her.

“Please,” she begged. “Ryn, please.”

I choked on my refusal of a few minutes prior, filled with a new awareness and even a small amount of appreciation for why Tyrrik had moved so quickly when killing Arnik so long ago. Her wet, strangled cries continued, until I couldn’t take her suffering any longer. “Al’right,” I shouted. “I’ll do it.”

The Druman released me, and I collapsed to the dark stone, pounding it with my fist. Tears streamed down my face, blurring my vision, and I let them fall unchecked, hoping they would obscure a bit of the torture Draedyn had inflicted on my aunt already.

I hadn’t even had time to know her.

I struggled to my feet and raised my gaze, hunching back over as I threw up all over the balcony.

The tang of Ryn’s blood saturated the area, and when I stood upright, I was more prepared—if that was even possible—to see my aunt’s flayed body suspended by Draedyn’s grip. His hand was buried in her hair, and she dangled limply in the air. Her chest still moved. She was alive, and her wounds were slowly knitting back together.

“Do I have to cut off her head?” I asked him, choking on another sob.

Draedyn shrugged, and my aunt’s body swayed. Her eyelids fluttered, and her bloodied lips moved in incoherent pleas.

“I don’t care how you do it.”

A mercy. That’s what Tyrrik had said, and now I could see it. My talons emerged again, and I whispered to my aunt, “I’m so sorry, Aunt Ryn. Go to the stars and be with your sisters. Please tell my mother I love her.”

I sliced into my leg, and Draedyn watched, transfixed. “Yes,” he said, his voice filled with eager anticipation. “Taste the reward of vengeance, daughter.”

I glared at him.

“Do it,” my aunt coughed on the ground.

I tore my gaze from the emperor and closed my eyes, sliding my talons into her chest cavity like a hot knife into butter.

Draedyn released her, and her body slid from my talons and crumpled to the stone. I squeezed my eyes shut, listening to the drip of her blood from the end of my talon. I choked on a sob and coughed, opening my eyes to see one of the Druman plunge a dagger, slick with Phaetyn blood, into my aunt’s chest.

“A bit too slow,” my father said with a frown. “I’ll leave a contingency of Druman to make sure you’ve learned your lesson. You will stay with her until she’s dead.”

“No,” I gasped as Draedyn whirled on the spot and left the balcony.

I blinked, disconnected from the scene around me. The Druman moved, time didn’t stop, yet I existed in a muted bubble. There was my vomit. There was my aunt, the woman I was named after, her broken body trembling as her life bled from her. As black cracks marred her face, reacting to the Phaetyn poison in her bloodstream.

Twilight descended, and the air cooled. The Druman retreated into the dining room, leaving me and my aunt on the graphite platform.

My breaths came in rapid, shallow gulps, and I crawled over to the female Drae, my kin. My real kin.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered again. I wanted Tyrrik here.

I wanted someone to make this better.

I didn’t want to have my aunt’s blood on my . . . I swallowed, stunned with the craziness of the idea that flitted through my mind. I looked inward, covering my thoughts with my Phaetyn veil and double-checking my Drae-thread.

Aunt Ryn’s power was completely unsullied by Draedyn’s slick green energy. He’d pulled his power back at some point, leaving me a perfect opportunity. I stretched the mossy web over my aunt slowly, first covering the vibrant turquoise still around her heart and then pulling the power of invisibility over her entire body. I hunched over and whispered, “Please work.”

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