Page 32 of Crown of Betrayal and Blood

Why can I see Aero but not the other speaker? Does it have something to do with our shared blood? Who is this Nick guy? And?—

“But can we trust words delivered that way? Please, my queen, think this through. At the very least, ask for guidance from a priest first.” The question stops Aero in her tracks, and she glares at the speaker, though from my perspective, she’s talking to a scribe’s desk.

“Careful, Lord Akehurst. You know Nick can hear a whisper even from the deepest shadows.” With one last glance at the unseen spectral adviser, she shakes her head. “I have no choice.”

As if on cue, the vision shatters like glass, fragments of time and memory dissolving into the suffocating silence that follows. Now that I’m alone, the chamber feels more than a little claustrophobic.

“Phoenix tears.”

That’s what she came here to learn about. She claimed Nick told her they needed phoenix tears to destroy the drachen. Then she packed for travel. Clearly that means we’ll find no phoenix here. Why did she describe it as corruption, though? Can the creatures poison the people they’ve touched?

“Lark!” Bastian’s muffled voice drifts through the door.

“Here! Inside!” I return to the stuck door, slamming my fist against it. “The handle won’t turn. Can you force it from your side?”

“The handle wouldn’t budge for us either. We’ve all been trying to break down the door. Couldn’t you hear us?” Leesa’s voice comes through. “You’ve been in there for almost half an hour. We came running when Bastian sent up a flare, only to find him banging on the door and yelling your name.”

“No. I was…” I glance over my shoulder at the room, which is now empty of anyone other than me.

A glint of gold snags my gaze. A scene is painted along the trim of the door. Just like the cats were before. Its bright colors are strangely out of place amid the ancient dust and shadows. A phoenix, wings ablaze with fiery hues, dances in the sky beside a dragon whose scales gleam like polished emeralds beneath an exuberant sun. They’re cavorting in the sky as the sun embraces the horizon, the image a tableau of impossible harmony.

“Phoenix tears?” Something about the bird’s fiery plume, the way it mirrors the inferno I command, tugs at my mind. “She needed the phoenix in order to move forward.”

I reach out, tracing the outline of the phoenix with a tentative finger, its image sparking a strange kinship within me. I rap my knuckles on it, hoping for good luck, a sign, anything that will show me the way forward.

Click.

The sound is soft but undeniable. My breath catches as I whirl back to the obstinate door. I turn the handle, and the door swings open freely.

ChapterEleven

“Oh gods, Lark.” Leesa throws her arms around me. “What were you playing at? You scared the shit out of us.”

“I wasn’t playing,” I choke out, pulling out of her arms so I can breathe. “The door locked behind me, and I couldn’t open it until I found a hidden catch on the wall. But you won’t believe what I discovered inside.” When I turn back around, I find the door shut again.

“It swung closed on its own.” Blair reaches out to open the door, then curses and yanks his hand back. “Did that thing just bite me?”

He holds his hand up and shows the blood trickling down his palm from the webbing between finger and thumb.

I hold up my own hand, showing off an identical injury. “It did the same thing to me. Which is why I followed it inside the room when it opened.”

“Let me see that.” Leesa examines the shallow wound on my hand.

“It’s nothing.” I wince when Leesa pushes too hard. “But seriously, I found what we’re looking for.”

“Then let’s open the damn door so you can show us. Or did you bring it out with you?” Bastian steps around me, careful to grab the door handle with only his fingers. “It won’t open, so I hope you got whatever it was.”

“It wasn’t a thing. Well, it was. But not a physical thing.” I extricate my hand from Leesa, smiling to reassure her I’m okay. “It was a vision. I saw Queen Aero. And she was talking to someone I couldn’t see. She was telling the man about something a person named Nick had told her. That only phoenix tears can end the corruption.”

“Corruption?” Agnar regards me like I’m batshit crazy.

“I think she was talking about the drachen. She also said that, while her fires could chase them away, they came back each time, hungrier and more powerful.” Repeating those words freezes the blood in my veins. “We were right. We didn’t defeat the drachen. We only stopped the attack that night. I have a feeling they’ll be back.”

Leesa presses her hand flat on the cut I received from the jaguar that morning. I yelp, jumping away from her jabbing fingers. “What the hells? Why are you doing that?”

Her brow furrows. “I’m trying to figure out what’s going on. Your cut is raised, but there are no runners showing infection yet.”

Blair clamps the back of his hand to my forehead. “She doesn’t have a fever.”

---