Page 41 of Crowned By the Shadow
“Days,” Wyn replied. “Maybe less.”
I looked at my friends, at Thorn with his unwavering loyalty, at Ronan with his quiet strength, at Wyn with her newfound power. We were battered, exhausted, still reeling from our narrow escape. But we were alive, and we were together.
“Then we’ll be ready,” I said, the Moon Blades humming with agreement in my hands. “Whatever comes next, we face it together.”
Wyn smiled, though there was sadness in it. “Together,” she agreed. “But Senara... there’s something else you should know.”
“What is it?”
She hesitated, her new eyes flickering with conflicted emotions. “When the corruption was flowing through me, when I was connected to the Empress... I saw things. Memories. Truths.” She took a deep breath. “The Empress isn’t just a monster. She’s something that was once sacred, something that became corrupted itself. And she believes she’s the rightful ruler of all realms.”
“Why are you telling me this?” I asked, unease growing within me.
“Because when the time comes,” Wyn said softly, “the choice won’t be as simple as defeating her. It will be about restoring balance. And that might require a sacrifice none of us is prepared to make.”
The weight of her words settled over us like a shroud. In the distance, thunder rumbled—a storm approaching, both literal and metaphorical. I tightened my grip on the Moon Blades, feeling their power flow through me, pushing back against the last vestiges of corruption in my veins.
“Whatever it takes,” I said, my voice steady despite the fear churning in my gut. “We’ll find a way.”
As if in answer, the Moon Blades blazed with renewed light, but then it flickered. What had been illuminating our small group in the darkening forest turned dim and made it hard to see if there were threats approaching. I couldn’t bring myself to care though, not when we had just won the battle for Wyn’s soul.
Chapter
Thirteen
Senara
The light from the Moon Blades flickered again, growing dimmer as exhaustion hit me like an arrow to the chest. My knees buckled, and the world tilted sideways.
“Senara!” Thorn’s voice sounded distant, muffled, as if he were calling to me from underwater.
Strong arms caught me before I hit the ground. The Moon Blades slipped from my grasp, dissolving into motes of silver light that scattered into the night air. I tried to reach for them, but my limbs wouldn’t obey.
“Too much,” I heard Wyn say, her new twilight-touched voice rippling with concern. “She channeled too much power.”
Darkness crept in from the edges of my vision. I fought against it, struggling to stay conscious, but the pull was too strong. My last thought before the darkness claimed me was of the Void Dragon Empress and her terrible, ancient eyes watching me from across the boundary between worlds.
Then nothing.
I drifted in a sea of stars, untethered from my body. The cosmos stretched around me, vast and indifferent. I wasn’t afraid, though perhaps I should have been. Instead, I felt astrange peace, as if I’d returned to a place I’d always known but had forgotten.
Deep obsidian scales lined a face that was too beautiful for words and yet was also completely devoid of humanity. Wings jutted from her back and her feet ended in talons that scored deep grooves into the glade’s crumbling edges. The dark scales seemed to swallow the moon’s radiance, drawing my gaze to her face once more. On her head she wore a crown of twisted talons, scales, and jewels which dripped with captured starlight. But it was her eyes that froze my blood, twin vortices of collapsing galaxies framed by lashes made from darkness itself.
“Eclipse Child,” the Void Dragon Empress purred, her voice resonating on multiple planes. “Did you think there would be no repercussions for taking my mage?”
I tried to back away, but there was nowhere to go in this starlit void. “This isn’t real,” I said. “This is a dream.”
Her laughter was like crystal shattering. “Is it? Or is this the only place where truth exists, unfiltered by mortal perception?”
She moved closer, her massive form somehow graceful despite its size. The stars themselves seemed to bend around her, drawn to her gravity.
“You fight so hard,” she said, circling me. “Just as Fiona did. Just as all who came before. Always fighting, never understanding.”
“Understanding what?” I demanded, finding my voice stronger than I expected.
“That I am inevitable.” She spread her wings, blotting out entire constellations. “I am the void from which all things emerge, and to which all things return. I am the end and the beginning.”
“You’re corruption,” I countered. “Destruction.”
