Page 21 of Crowned By the Shadow
Senara nodded, wiping her face with the back of her hand. “You’re right.”
As we walked in silence through the darkened forest, I studied her profile in the moonlight. The Moon Mark on her skin pulsed with a strange, uneven rhythm—but what truly concerned me were the threads of darkness spreading through the silver patterns like ink in water.
The corruption was spreading.
I’d seen it before. It always started small, with subtle changes in the natural magical patterns of a fae’s essence. But it never stayed small for long.
Through our bond, I could feel it, a cold, alien presence threading through Senara’s natural warmth. The Empress had touched her somehow, perhaps during our desperate escape through the void. And now that touch was spreading, seeking to claim her completely.
I said nothing. What could I say that wouldn’t add to her burdens? She had just lost her father moments after finding him. She was still processing the revelation of her royal heritage, the knowledge that she was not just an orphan with unusual powers but the daughter of a Sun Court prince and a Moon Court princess. And now we were racing against time to save Wyn from whatever horrors Eldric had planned.
The corruption would have to wait. At least for now.
“Tell me about him,” I said after we had walked for nearly an hour.
Senara glanced up, confusion momentarily replacing grief in her eyes. “About who?”
“Sebastian. Your father.” I kept my voice gentle. “In those few moments you had with him... what did you learn?”
For a moment, I thought she might refuse to speak of him, might retreat further into her grief. But then she drew a deep breath, and I felt a flicker of gratitude through our bond.
“He was... broken,” she said slowly. “Fenvalur’s experiments had fractured his mind. But beneath that, there was such strength. Such determination.” A small, sad smile touched her lips. “I have his eyes.”
“You do,” I agreed, remembering the striking similarity between their gazes. “And his stubbornness, I’d wager.”
That earned me a weak laugh. “Probably. He said he’d mentally and magically been looking for me and my mother for years after we disappeared. Even when he knew my mother was dead, he never truly stopped searching.”
I nodded, encouraging her to continue. Talking about Sebastian seemed to be helping, giving her a way to process her loss while preserving the precious few memories she had of him.
“He called me ‘daughter’ with such... such pride.” Her voice caught. “As if knowing me, even for those brief moments, was worth all his suffering.”
The raw emotion in her words tightened my chest. I had never been close with my own parents, like most Sun Court warriors, I had been raised to be a warrior, trained from childhood to serve. Family bonds were secondary to duty among the Sunkissed; they distracted and created divided loyalties. But seeing Senara’s reaction to finding and losing her father made me wonder what would it be like to have that kind of connection?
Our soul bond had given me a taste of that belonging. Despite being forbidden by both courts, despite making us fugitives, it had shown me what it meant to be truly connected to another person. To care more for someone else’s well-being than for rules or duty or even my own life.
Was that what family felt like? Yes, my father and mother had been present in my life, but it was more out of obligation than because they cared, and when I wasn’t the warrior they had wanted I was branded a failure and they moved on to the next child. It was only when the general and the King himself took an interest in me that my father came around, but even then I knew I was still a disappointment to him.
The corruption spreading through Senara’s mark pulsed again, and I felt her stumble slightly. I steadied her with a hand at her elbow, concern sharpening my senses.
“Are you all right?”
She nodded, but I could feel the lie through our bond. “Just tired. It’s been... a lot.”
That was an understatement. In the span of a single day, she had infiltrated the fae capital, confronted her torturer, discovered her father, freed him from imprisonment, and then lost him to a heroic sacrifice. A single one of those events would have been overwhelming. Together, they were nearly unbearable.
And now, on top of everything else, the Empress’s corruption was spreading through her, a poison seeking to claim her from within.
I tightened my grip on her hand, channeling a small measure of my Sun Court magic through our bond. It wasn’t much, just enough to warm her from the inside, to push back against the cold tendrils of corruption for a little while. I felt her gratitude flow back to me, a gentle wave of affection that eased some of my own pain.
This was what our soul bond truly meant. Not just sharing emotions or enhancing our magic, but supporting each other when the weight of the world became too much to bear alone. It was a sacred trust, one I would never betray.
As we continued onward, the first hints of dawn lightened the sky. The forest thinned, giving way to rolling hills that would eventually lead to the Shadow Lands. Somewhere out there, Wyn waited for us, perhaps unaware that we were coming for her, but I doubted it, if anyone she would know that Senara would never abandon her. And beyond that, the Void Dragon Empress gathered her strength, corruption spreading across the land like a plague.
The challenges ahead seemed insurmountable. We were just two people, not only that but fugitives and outcasts as well. The two of us were up against forces that had shaped the fae realms for centuries.
By all logic, we should have no chance at all.
But logic didn’t account for the woman beside me.
