Page 13 of Blood Court (Cursed Darkness #2)

CHAPTER ELEVEN

LYSITHEA

The self-loathing that usually claws at me after being touched is absent. In its place is a quiet, terrifying peace.

“The book…”

“It vanished,” I say. “What was it?”

“Information. We need to find it.”

I nod and place my fingers over his lips. He is exhausted, mentally and physically. He doesn’t need to talk to me; he doesn’t need to say anything anymore. “Shh, it’s okay.”

He hesitates but then pulls my fingers back slightly before kissing them. He nods, accepting that I don’t need him to talk if he doesn’t want to.

Curiosity burns through me about what he found, but it doesn’t matter. Me on his lap with his cock still inside me is what matters.

He releases my hair and moves his other hand from my back, pressing his fingers to my temples on either side. He closes his eyes, and I do the same. He wants to show me something. A way to communicate without words.

His mind touches mine. It’s not an invasion like the grimoire’s. It’s a quiet, cold presence, like frost spreading across glass. Images bleed through the darkness behind my eyes. An ancient tome, its pages filled with diagrams of the academy’s deepest foundations.

A spire of pure black rock, stabbing the realm’s core. The Midnight Spire.

At its heart is a forge that burns with starlight and shadow. The Sovereign Forge.

Then, the final image. A crown. Forged from onyx and thorns, it drips with deep red blood. It settles onto my head. My hair is streaked red, my eyes burn with hellfire. A queen of endings.

The vision shatters. I gasp, my eyes flying open. Evren is watching me, his expression grim.

“That’s mine?” I ask tentatively.

He nods slowly, showing me his caution in the thought.

“Do you know what it is?”

He shakes his head.

“So this Sovereign Forge place is in the heart of the Midnight Spire, which is a hell of a creepy place by the looks of it. How do we get to it?”

He shrugs.

“Through the Blood Court,” I murmur, thinking out loud.

He nods, having come to the same conclusion.

“Would that be our destination if we pass these daunting trials?”

He nods again.

“Any way to bypass the court?” I ask hopefully.

He snorts and shrugs.

“Yeah, I figured that was a long shot.”

The door to the room bursts open, banging against the wall with force.

I turn to see Verik standing there, looking like an avenging god, clearly having kicked it in.

“Problem?” I ask with a soft smile.

He growls. “You’re okay.”

“I’m fine. We are fine.”

He grunts and strides into the room.

Dathan appears in the doorway behind Verik, his silver eyes taking in the scene with a predatory stillness. “Did we miss the party?” he asks, but there’s no humour in his voice.

“We found something,” I say, pushing past the tension, the lingering heat between my legs. “A destination. The Midnight Spire.”

Verik’s attention sharpens. “What’s in it?”

“The Sovereign Forge,” I say, the image of the crown still burned behind my eyes. “And a crown that belongs to me.” This is it. The first piece of the puzzle that feels like we are making progress.

He nods slowly. “Okay, so we have a target. We need to complete these bastard trials first.” He kicks a piece of skull out of his path.

“The book gave me a weapon for a reason. That’s my prep.

The rest of you need to figure out what you bring to the fight besides your pretty faces.

” His gaze lands on me, a challenge in his hellfire eyes.

He’s right. I can’t just be the damsel whose pain fuels their power.

I’m the queen, the crown-bearer. It’s time I learned how to light my own fuse.

“I’ll be ready,” I say, the words a promise to myself as much as to them. I slide off Evren’s lap and grip my knickers through my dress to stop the ripped fabric from dropping down my thighs.

Evren sorts himself out and stands. He is less stiff, more at ease. Maybe more of himself than he was before he was brutally murdered and tortured and then resurrected.

“Good,” Verik says. “Because whatever is coming, it’s not going to wait for us to be.”

The ground rumbles as I lift my dress to try and sort out my ripped knickers, making me stumble.

“Oh, you just had to fucking say that, didn’t you?” Dathan asks before we are plunged into a total, oppressive darkness.

When the fire torches flicker on a second later, I’m alone.

“Oh, fuck off,” I grit out as the trap door slams open and the creepy-arse hand beckons me forward. “Nope, not falling for that.”

“Lysithea! Help!”

Evren’s shout echoes through the room, and I lunge for the trapdoor, only to pull up short and grimace. “Nice try, but he has barely used his voice in two years. You think I’m buying that clear as fuck roar? Do better, you arsehole.”

The hand disappears, and I scoot back, looking towards the door. I scramble over to it and rush through, taking the stairs quickly. I need to find the guys.

Busting out through the tower front doors, I race across the grounds of the academy before slowing to a stop in the courtyard.

Something isn’t right. It’s too quiet. There are no students anywhere, no staff hurrying around, no lights coming from the buildings.

Only the moon hanging low in the sky and the rise of the academy all around me in total darkness.

“Oh, that’s not good,” I mutter, realising I’m all alone. “Okay, Arbiters. What is your trial?” The silence is the only answer. Absolute and profound. The moon is a cold, dead eye in the obsidian sky.

The ground beneath my feet shifts. Not a rumble, but a slow, deliberate reshaping. The black flagstones of the courtyard ripple, the stone flowing like thick ink. I back away, my heart hammering against my ribs.

The walls of the academy groan, the sound of a dying leviathan. The gothic spires I know, the familiar dark architecture dissolves. The black stone bleeds away, replaced by something I haven’t seen in years. Grey, oppressive brickwork. Harsh, unforgiving lines.

The smell of moonlight on ancient stone is gone, replaced by the scent of industrial bleach and old, ingrained despair.

The orphanage.

A voice, thin and cruel, echoes from the newly formed walls. A voice I prayed I’d never hear again unless it was her dying croak.

“Look at you, little bitch,” Clara’s voice whispers, carried on a non-existent wind. “Still so small. Still so easy to break.”

The brand on my back flares, but it’s a different pain. It’s not the book’s fire. It’s cold. It’s the memory of the branks, of a silence forced upon me.

This is my trial. Not to fight a monster.

But to survive, a memory made real. Alone.