Page 1 of Crown of Storm and Silence
1
The False Dawn
Kaan
"My lord."Emir's voice slices through the tomb-silence of my throne room. I don't lift my eyes from the crystal containing Lord Matthias—watching him relive his execution brings me such joy these days. "I think we found her."
The crystal detonates in my fist. Glass shards embed deep, blood streaming hot between my fingers, but the physical pain is nothing compared to the howling void that's been eating me alive from the inside. Six weeks since the bond shattered, since she severed our connection and fled. Six weeks of drowning in my own skin, every breath acid burning through my lungs.
"Where." Not a question. A command scraped raw from my throat.
"Northern forest. Twilight Boundary." His face could be carved from stone, but his eyes hold the truth he doesn't want to speak. "The search party found remains."
Remains. Such a delicate word for whatever broken pieces are left of the woman who looked at me and saw only a monster worth fleeing. The woman whose absence has turned my worldinto a graveyard, whose missing heartbeat has left me a walking corpse pretending to be alive.
I rise, shadows bleeding from my skin in dark tendrils. The great hall has been drowning in darkness for six weeks—ever since she fled. Ever since the bond shattered, leaving jagged shards to slice me apart from within. Every heartbeat is agony. Every breath tastes of ash and broken dreams. The emptiness where she used to be throbs with poisonous intensity. The shadows that respond to my will feed on my life force, aging me in ways that have nothing to do with time. Each day without the dawn costs me something vital, but I can't seem to care about the slow death I'm embracing.
"Show me," I command, though my legs dissolve beneath me, weightless and treacherous.
The ride north passes in a blur of devastation—my devastation. Specific villages reduced to smoldering craters, targeted mountains split into jagged peaks, chosen forests turned to scattered graveyards of black glass where my rage had touched them. My shadow steed's hooves barely kiss the ground as we race through the endless twilight I've painted across my realm. The Shadow Court once knew sun—dimmer than the Light Court's blazing glory, but still sun. Now there is only darkness, and maintaining it drains me daily.
"My lord," Emir calls over the wind, his voice carrying the morning reports. "The Council's latest petition arrived by raven today. Seven more lords have formally requested asylum in the Light Court—the documents bear the High Chancellor's seal."
Seven more lords fleeing to the light. The eastern provinces are becoming empty wastelands, but what does it matter? Let them all flee. Let the realm crumble.
"The neutral territories have closed their borders," he continues. "The Light Court has tripled their guard. They're calling you the Mad Lord. The Shadow Plague. Some say you'vebecome something worse than your father ever dreamed of being."
I laugh, sharp as breaking glass. "Worse? How flattering."
"In six weeks, you've torn the realm apart stone by stone. Villages burn themselves rather than face your search parties."
"Good."
"The merchant routes have collapsed. Trade has stopped. People are starving?—"
"Tragic."
His silence speaks volumes, but I'm past caring. Past everything except the howling, clawing desperation that lives where my heart used to be. The void that whispers her name in voices that sound as if they're screaming.
The forest opens into a clearing where my guards wait in a circle around a shrouded form beneath an ancient oak. Even from here, I can see the curves beneath black cloth, the dark hair spread around the covered head that makes my dead heart stutter.
"Nesilhan," I breathe, dismounting before my steed fully stops.
Memory crashes over me—our last night in the shadow pools. Steam rising around us as I pinned her against the stone wall, her legs locked around my waist, her nails scoring my back as I claimed her. The way she arched into me, desperate and wild, her lips burning against mine.
"You're mine," I growled against her throat, tasting salt and desire. "Say it."
"Yours," she gasped, her teeth sinking into my shoulder. "Always yours, Kaan."
When I kissed her, it was scorching—tongues dancing, breath mingling, her taste flooding my senses. She bit my lip hard enough to draw blood, and I groaned into her mouth. Her hands fisted in my hair, pulling until my scalp burned.
"Forever," she whispered against my lips, and I devoured the word.
Forever. What a beautiful lie that turned out to be.
I approach the covered figure. The guards retreat—they've learned what happens when they linger too close to my darkness.
I kneel, hands shaking as I reach for the cloth. I need to see her. I need to memorize every line one last time.
