Page 10 of Crown of Darkness
“Easy” comes a gentle whisper.
I cling to him, quivering from shock as blood rushes back into my starving limbs. And to think that only moments ago, I was saying that pain would not break me.
“Shush.” There are hands on my back, rubbing firmly enough to steal my attention away from my arms and feet.
Oh, gods…. I don’t even have the strength to care if my mortal enemy is the one consoling me. No doubt I’ll pay the price for this later, but right now, I don’t care.
I can’t feel my fingers or move my arm. I clutch at it uselessly, trying to ease the weight of it, and then Edain sets gentle fingers to the socket.
“This might hurt a little,” he says. “On the count of three. One, two—”
He gives a sharp jerk, and I scream as the arm is shoved back into the socket.Mother of mercy. Trembles shiver through me. I think I’m going to be ill, but the last thing I want to do is vomit on his shoes.
Not in front of him.
I grind my teeth together and fight the urge, swallowing down the pain.
Pain is life. Pain is an old friend.
But it doesn’t feel like a friend now. It feels like a bitter enemy stealing the strength from my veins.
“You’ve been here for weeks,” Edain says. “So sit on your ass until you’ve got your feet beneath you.” He slips a waterskin from around his shoulder. “And I’ll pretend I didn’t see your knees quiver.”
He’s being kind.
Edainis being kind.
Which means this is bad.
“Who are you? Because I’m fairly certain you’re not my evil stepbrother.” I have to work out what my mother has planned. It could be anything, it could be—
My mind shies away from that thought, because I don’t dare betray myself, even in the privacy of my own head.
“I’m the male who’s been forced to deal with a furious queen for the past month. What in the Underworld happened at the Queensmoot?” he growls, unscrewing the lid from the water skin.
Nothing else matters. My dry mouth salivates, and I grab at the skin.
He lets me drink, though he takes it away far too quickly.
“You’ll make yourself ill,” he murmurs.
I don’t care.
I just want more water.
“In a minute,” he says, and I realize he’s stroking my hair back off my face. “Tell me what happened at the Queensmoot?”
So that’s to be the price of his kindness.
I laugh, a dry, rasping sound. “My sister broke the curse Mother placed on her. She rememberedher husband at the last second and then unleashed some kind of magic upon Mother. They drove us back.”
“I’m not talking about your sister.” His gentle touch is on my face again, though his eyes are as hard as ice. “Why were you sentenced to the oubliette?”
I bow my head.
“Please.Please! If there’s any part of you that ever loved me, please stop this.”
It doesn’t matter how many times I close my eyes, I see Vi begging me for help. “Because I dared ask for mercy. It was killing Vi. I couldn’t—”
