Page 31 of Blood Court (Cursed Darkness #2)

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

DATHAN

“What is going on?” I ask for the hundredth time in five minutes. We can only see, not hear, what they’re saying. We are still standing in the Blood Court, but I don’t think Lysithea can see us anymore.

“I don’t know,” Verik growls, pacing like a caged beast. “But I don’t like it.”

We’re trapped behind an invisible wall, forced to watch as those two ancient pricks judge her. She looks small on that throne. Breakable. It’s a fucking lie, and it makes my blood boil.

We watch her on that fucking throne, small and alone, and every instinct I have screams to tear this place apart. But my magic is a wet firework in this place. Useless.

I see her argue. Her hands clench in her lap. Her jaw is tight. She looks terrified, but she’s not breaking. Not my queen.

Then something shifts. Her spine straightens. That fragile look vanishes, replaced by something hard and absolute. The shadows in the chamber, which have been dormant and thin, respond to her. They bleed from the corners of the room, flowing towards her throne like iron filings to a magnet.

“What the fuck?” Verik asks.

The shadows crawl up the stone, wrapping around her ankles, her wrists. They aren’t attacking her. They’re answering her. The air in our invisible prison crackles, the barrier shuddering as her power surges against it.

The Arbiters lean forward, their postures rigid.

Her eyes open, and they are pure, incandescent violet.

“She’s got her magic back,” I say, a savage grin stretching my lips.

The two pricks on their thrones flinch. They try to rise, but her power pins them to their seats.

This isn’t their court anymore. It’s hers.

“Show them what a monster really looks like, Thea,” I murmur.

The trial isn’t over. It’s just getting started. And the accused is now the judge, jury, and fucking executioner.

But then the tide turns.

The Arbiters rise out of their seats, enormous and terrifying.

Lysithea flinches, but she doesn’t back down. She lifts her chin higher.

Defiance!

The word echoes around us, the only thing we can hear.

They surround her, trying to force her to her knees.

“Oh, fuck no,” I growl and move forward. The barrier stops me, but I slam my fist into it.

The barrier holds, a smooth, unyielding wall of pure law.

Verik is beside me, his fists hammering against the invisible prison, his hellfire a sputtering, impotent flicker against its surface.

Evren places his hands against the barrier, forming a wall of frost that cracks the magic, but it doesn’t falter.

“You are judged,” the Arbiters boom, their voices a force that makes the air ripple. They raise their hands, and the shadows that answered Lysithea are ripped away from her, flung back into the corners of the chamber.

She stumbles from the sudden loss of her power. But she doesn’t fall.

She looks at them with a cold, clear contempt that makes my black heart sing. She opens her mouth, and the song that comes out isn’t a scream of destruction. It’s a quiet, intricate melody. A song that rewrites the air it moves through.

The Arbiters recoil, their stone forms cracking under the assault of her truth. The sound is a key, unlocking something in the court itself. The barrier in front of us shimmers, violet fractures spreading across its surface.

“Now,” I snarl, and all three of us slam our combined weight against the weakening wall.

It shatters. We stumble through, our magic roaring back to life. I don’t hesitate. I send a wave of pure nightmare at the nearest Arbiter, but it bounces back. These things aren’t alive. They have no fear, they cannot be killed. They are constructs of the court.

“How do we get rid of them?” Verik growls, his hellfire spewing out of his hands, but with no results.

“They’re not alive,” I snarl, my nightmare magic dissipating uselessly against the Arbiters’ forms. “They’re concepts. You can’t kill a fucking concept.”

Lysithea’s song is the only thing that has any effect. The melody weaves around them, and their bodies crack and groan. But it’s not enough. She’s fighting them alone, and they’re too strong.

Evren catches my eye. He taps the glowing Soul Scar on his wrist and then looks at Lysithea.

Fucking of course. We’re her fucking power source.

“Thea!” I roar, dodging a stone warrior that appeared out of nowhere to stop my progress. Suddenly, we are surrounded and fighting to reach her.

She’s a beacon of violet light in the middle of a fucking warzone.

A stone bastard with a massive axe swings at my head.

I duck under the swing, my magic wrapping around its legs, pulling it off balance.

It stumbles, and I drive my elbow into the back of its stone knee, shattering it.

The warrior collapses into a pile of rubble.

But another one appears and smashes its fist into my face, making me grunt and stumble back, blood gushing from my nose.

“Oh, you fucking dick,” I snarl. “You’re going to end up a pile of fucking dust.” I launch at him, pulling on the Sovereign power that will annihilate this fucker.

“Get to her!” Verik roars, a wall of hellfire holding back two more of the stone pricks. They just walk through it, their forms glowing red but otherwise unharmed.

Evren moves like a ghost between them. He’s creating a path. He freezes the floor, sending one warrior sliding into another, a chaotic pile-up of enchanted rock.

It’s the opening we need.

I sprint through the gap, Verik right behind me. We reach Lysithea, her song a shield of pure truth that’s barely holding the Arbiters at bay.

“Give it to me!” she gasps, her eyes still locked on the enemy. She doesn’t need to look. She knows we’re here.

I press my hand onto her back, right over the Soul Scar. Verik and Evren do the same.

Power explodes from us. Nightmare, hellfire, and death.

It pours into her, a fucking tidal wave of everything we are.

Her song changes. The quiet melody becomes a cataclysmic orchestra.

A sound that shatters the air. It’s a battering ram of pure, unadulterated truth.

The stone warriors explode into dust. The Arbiters try to hold their ground.

Their forms crack, violet light spreads across their bodies.

They open their mouths in a silent, agonised scream as the song dismantles the ancient lies that hold them together.

Power pours out of me, out of Verik and Evren, a willing sacrifice funnelled through the Soul Scar into our queen. I feel hollowed out, drained, but it’s a clean burn. A worthy fucking cause.

The Arbiter of Bonds is the first to go. It shatters into a million pieces of glowing magic, each one a dead law. The Keeper of Trials follows a second later, its form imploding into a cloud of glitter that settles on the floor like snow.

The song ends. The silence is so absolute that it rings in my ears.

Lysithea sags against us, her body trembling. We hold her up, a three-pronged support system of pure fucking mayhem. The chamber is wrecked. The thrones are rubble. The runes on the walls are dark and dead.

“Trial over?” Verik rasps, his voice rough.

“Welcome,” a booming voice answers him. “Take your seats, Arbiters.”

“Uhm…” I glance at Lysithea, her eyes wide with fear that I force myself not to drink. “Arbiters?”