Page 181 of A Crown of Tears and Treason
I gently ran my fingers over the gauze on my nose. In the cover of night, Master Sylvannis had spent long hours healing it, but the shape didn’t feel right yet. The split in my lower lip still smarted, but at least he’d managed to reattach the tooth I hadn’t known I’d dislocated while head-butting my attacker.
The kidnapper.
The killer that had turned into ash right above me.
“I want to mentionIwasn’t the one to kill her,” Adara said, tone clipped. “She did it herself with some poisoned vial she had in her mouth once I figured out she was an impostor. Waste of good information.”
I pressed my hand around my neck. She was so similar to me, down to the little dip of my lower lip. The indent in my left ear from when it got snagged in a thorn bush and ripped. But her clavicle stuck out too much–just like it had before I’d come to Phoenix Peak.
“How did you realize she wasn’t me?” I croaked.
“Zorin wouldn’t budge, even after I’d convinced the snake to leave. I called you–her–” Adara narrowed her eyes at my replica. “–to calm him down. He tried to bite her.”
My dear, sweet Zorin. He’d tried to warn me. He hadn’t calmed down until he’d seen me again, safe and alive, after Zandyr had rescued me.
“She sounded like you.” Leesa stood in the corner, her beautiful face contorted with shock. Goose huddled next to her, still as a statue, as if he wanted to disappear from this reality, where his beloved kitchen had been invaded by a dead body. “It was like nothing had happened, I can’t remember a thing. You were there, Goose was talking, then I blinked and everything went on as normal.”
“She froze you with a spell and knocked me out with another.” I turned to Zandyr, who leaned against the wall. Covered in shadows, he was all lethal grace, looking at the imposter as if he wanted to kill her all over again for endangering me. “I couldn’t feel you.”
Even now, our connection was dampened, the barrest pulse of it in my mind. But it was slowly recovering, in tandem with my energy and power.
“I couldn’t either. The connection broke.” Zandyr clenched his jaw, barely leashed fury in his voice. “That’s how I knew something was wrong.”
“The Dragon arrived just as the imposter swallowed whatever poison did this to her.” Adara jutted her hand at the woman.
“We’ve sent Elysia a sample of her saliva,” Zandyr said. “If anyone can discover the poison, it’s her.”
“Let’s hope she can discover it in time,” I said.
“Your cousins are safe,” Zandyr said for what must’ve been the millionth time. “I raised the alarm as soon as you vanished.”
I nodded, but I couldn’t shake the apprehension. Whoevertheywere wanted all of us gone.
I dared a step closer to my replica. She was so still. This would have been me if Zandyr hadn’t come.
“What was that horrid place?” I whispered.
“The Defector Lands. The only area in all of Malhaven that’s more dangerous than the Bone Bridge lake,” Zandyr said. “Every creature and foul being that has no place in any Clan takes refuge there. Not even the Clan Council can tame it.”
“I’ve always refused to take my troops through there,” Adara said.
I understood why even the mighty Adara avoided that place. Whatever that creature in the river was…whatever pestilence had taken over the forest…Death. The place reeked of it.
I tore my gaze away from the imposter. I couldn’t look at my deadly reflection and not imagine my own cousins lying there on the slab. Instead, my eyes sought Zandyr’s for comfort.
“How did you find me?” I asked. Now that I wasn’t fighting for each breath, my mind could focus on important things–answers.
Zandyr clenched his jaw tighter; rage radiated off him. “The blood on your armor is mine. I couldn’t sense you, but the vials guided me.”
Thank the gods for the armor. Thank the gods for Zandyr.
“What now?” I asked when the silence turned too ugly. Only three candles flickered around us, Phoenix Peak quiet in the early hours.
“We need to find what’s causingthis.” Adara yanked the bottom of the replica’s dress.
I gasped. Her toes had crumpled, a small mound of ash underneath her feet. Another fleck of her grayed and fell down.
Zandyr and I exchanged a weighted glance. Whatever had done this to her and the masked figures…”This doesn’t feel like normal magic.”
