Page 135 of Crown of Darkness
Thiago falls into stillness. “It’s reached my collarbone. It’s broken through some of my wards.”
I stop breathing. He doesn’t need to say what.
Mother’s curse.
“Then we don’t have any more time,” Eris snaps, pushing to her feet.
I feel like I want to be sick.
But Thiago finally nods. “Fine. I’ll allow it. What do you need? What sort of diversion do you want?”
I cross to him and kiss him gently. “I want you to attack Clydain. Take a small handful of warriors, but don’t get caught. Make it messy.”
* * *
It feelsstrange to be back within Asturia’s forests.
The massive oaks blot out the sky, but the undergrowth is not as wild and untamed as the wyrdwoods that litter Evernight. Evernight feels like a wild kingdom, barely civilized, whilst truffle pigs have trampled the undergrowth here in the forest and my mother’s hunters have chased the deer to exhaustion. I used to love these forests, but I can feel the loss here, the way the wilds mourn for a time when they weren’t so sorely misused.
Eris and I slipped through the Hallow near Thornwood and headed south three days ago.
Though we’re not entirely alone.
“Is it dinnertime yet?” Grimm demands, shadow-hopping from tree to tree.
“No,” both Eris and I drone.
“I could have sworn—”
“No.”
I sigh. “We ate two hours ago. And our supplies are limited.”
“Well, why don’t you kill one of these pigs that seems to be roaming the woods?”
I exchange a long, slow glance with Eris. “Because these ‘pigs’ have tusks as long as my forearm and I value my skin?”
“We’ve been walking fordays. I thought you needed to find this crown before the end of the year?”
“It’s been three days,” Eris says very precisely. “And this is not the sort of thing one rushes. Not all of us can walk through shadows.”
“You could have taken the Hallow to Briar Keep,” he snorts. “We could have been there, captured the crown, and be enjoying a nice, delicious roast pig right about now in the dining hall of Ceres.”
“The Hallow at Briar Keep hasn’t been used in centuries.” At first we tried to ignore him, but there’s only so many hours of incessant meowing that one can ignore.
“Why?”
“Because Briar Keep is haunted,” I mutter, shifting my pack into a more comfortable place. “The entire ruins are choked with thorns, and while many have slipped inside, very few of them return. It’s not safe.”
“Haunted—?”
“Perhaps you can investigate for yourself,” Eris says sharply as we break through the trees. “Here we are.”
Nothing has changed.
Eerie thickets of thorns cling to the rough stone walls, and little turrets peer through them at off intervals. A raven caws as we take slow, stealthy steps toward the keep, but the tress are strangely devoid of animals.
Eris’s nostrils flare, and she moves forward with slow, careful footsteps before abruptly pausing.
