Page 34 of Blood Court (Cursed Darkness #2)

“Please,” he scoffs. “Don’t be absurd. My group wasn’t stupid enough to kill the Arbiter and Keeper. We went around them, not through them.”

The rebuke is like a whip to the soul.

“Well, that’s helpful,” I snap. “We could’ve used that information before we killed them!”

Blackgrove’s smile doesn’t waver at my accusation. If anything, it grows colder. “Information you never asked for. You were too busy charging headfirst into every challenge without considering the consequences.”

“The book?—”

He cuts me off. “The book is not the only power source in this realm, Miss Lysithea.”

“No, but it’s mine,” I hit back.

His eyes narrow.

Oh… something he didn’t know.

“Explain.”

“Do you mind?” the serpent drawls. “This isn’t a conversation for this arena.”

“Then let us go so we can have this conversation somewhere more appropriate,” I tell it.

“Very well. You will be called back to pass judgement where there is a case.”

In the blink of an eye, we are released and are standing in Blackgrove’s office, a little unsteady on our feet.

I stumble slightly as my feet hit solid ground, my legs still shaky from whatever magic transported us from those cursed thrones. Blackgrove’s office feels almost cosy after the oppressive weight of the Blood Court, but the familiar surroundings do nothing to calm the fury burning in my chest.

“The book is yours?” Blackgrove asks, his voice deceptively mild as he circles behind his desk. “Elaborate.”

I cross my arms, still processing what just happened. Reena is dead. We’re Arbiters of the monstrous Blood Court. Blackgrove just casually murdered someone to balance some cosmic equation. “You brought Evren back from the dead?”

He smiles, but it’s not a joyful one. It’s chilling. I sense rather than see Evren’s gaze burning into the Headmaster.

“You needed him,” Blackgrove says as if that is the end of this conversation, but far from it.

“Don’t you dare blame me! I didn’t even know him two years ago!”

“You didn’t need to know him, Miss Lysithea. But clearly, you do need him alive.”

“Well, duh,” I growl. “But?—”

“But nothing. I did what was necessary to make sure the third and final phase was in place. And here you all are. Making an almighty mess of things, but still.”

I glance at Evren. He seems to be taking this like a champ, but who knows what’s going on under the surface. “Wait? What?” I say, looking back at Blackgrove. “You brought me here?”

“Who else?” he asks. “Did you really think the orphanage was going to let you go so easily? The opposition, as you have come to know them?”

“WHAT?” I thunder as my knees give way under that bomb. I grip the desk as everything in the room rattles. The room stops rattling when Blackgrove raises one hand, once again showing his immense power. His immense power to be able to withstand and even stop my power…

“It took me a long time to find you. Tenny screamed you into a rather perilous situation. Inadvertently, of course.”

“Tenny?” I croak as Dathan lets out an enormous snort that must’ve cleared his fucking sinuses.

“Tenny!” he chortles. “Oh, you just gave me such a weapon! You have no idea!”

“Control yourself, Mr Dathan,” Blackgrove snaps.

Dathan is still snickering like a schoolboy, but I ignore him. My head is spinning. “So you knew I existed, you were looking for me?”

“To complete the grimoire. This realm has fallen into a state of deep regression. Everything is going backwards to a time when it was first birthed. I knew you were screamed into existence. I was looking for you, unable to find you because of where you were. But then Mr Evren’s death gave me the sight. ”

“You have the sight?” Evren croaks.

Blackgrove nods. “Amongst other powers.”

I don’t even want to fucking know.

“So you found me?” I hate to stamp all over the knowledge that Evren finally knows who resurrected him, but I can’t help this interrogation. “You have been manipulating us the entire time we’ve been here to reach this point?”

“You give me too much credit,” he says, settling into his chair like he’s about to deliver a lecture. “I merely set the stage. You four have been improvising rather spectacularly.”

“Improvising?” Verik snarls. “We’ve been fighting for our lives!”

“Yes, well, that was rather the point.” Blackgrove steeples his fingers.

“The opposition has been winning for centuries. This realm slides deeper into corruption with every passing year. The old laws fail. The ancient protections crumble. The pieces were in place. All of you here at the same time. Do you know how rare that is?”

“Extremely,” I murmur, knowing it’s true. All you have to do is look at the faded ink at the beginning of Tenny to see how far apart the groups were formed.

I sink into one of his chairs, my legs giving out completely.

“Then you know that I wasn’t going to let a simple death stand in my way.”

“Simple?” Evren repeats in disbelief. He slams his hands on Blackgrove’s desk. The frost spreads quickly. “Simple?” The word is a roar from the grave. Blood drips out of Evren’s mouth from his raw throat, to hit the pure white of the frost covering the petrified wood.

Blackgrove doesn’t even flinch as blood splatters across his frost-covered desk. His cold gaze shifts from Evren’s bleeding mouth to the spreading ice, then back to those raw, furious eyes.

“Simple in execution,” he clarifies, his voice maddeningly calm. “Complex in consequence. Your death provided me with the exact coordinates I needed to locate Miss Lysithea. As I said, the sight showed me.”

Evren’s hands shake against the desk, more blood dripping from his torn throat. The frost spreads faster, climbing up the walls like hungry fingers. I’ve never seen him lose control like this.

“You used his death as a fucking GPS?” Dathan snarls, his nightmare magic coiling around his feet. “That’s sick, even for you.”

“The sight used it, not me. I was merely the recipient of this information,” Blackgrove states.

I breathe in deeply. All of this is irrelevant for now. What matters is where we are right this fucking second, and that is in deep dragon shit.

Arbiters of the Blood Court. We’re stuck in that role now, chained to those thrones, forced to judge the monsters of this realm. All because we destroyed the previous Court instead of finding another way around it.

“There has to be a way out of the Blood Court,” I say, my voice barely above a whisper.

Blackgrove’s attention snaps to me. “You don’t say? The Warden still awaits. The Sovereign Forge still calls. The Infernal Crown needs to be created before the opposition finds a way to do it themselves.”

“The Infernal Crown?” I ask with a frown. “What’s that?”