Page 9 of Blood Court (Cursed Darkness #2)

CHAPTER SEVEN

DATHAN

I stare at Evren, sitting in a throne of bones in the crypts, staring at the place where the door opened up for us.

“You are not considering going back down there alone, are you?” I ask, leaning against the wall, my hands in my pockets.

He shifts his gaze to me, not surprised by my presence. “Maybe,” he croaks.

“What? No raven conduit?”

“Fuck you.”

“It’s been a while since you told me to fuck off. I missed it.”

He sticks his middle finger up at me and stares back at the wall.

I’m making light of this monumental shift in him, but the thing is, I’m not surprised he is choosing to speak now.

There is a lot to say, and while being quiet was something he could get away with when it was just the three of us, making plans and going about our days, Lysithea has changed all of that.

The Tenebris Vinculum has changed all of that.

“You think going down there is going to fix what that book made you do? You think dying is going to help her?”

His head snaps toward me, his eyes blazing with a fury that could freeze hell. The shadows in the crypt writhe, responding to his anger. “It wasn’t right,” he grinds out, each word a struggle.

“No shit,” I spit back. “None of this is right. But you throwing yourself into a pit full of who-the-fuck-knows isn’t the answer.” I push off the wall, stalking closer to him. “You want to go down there? Fine. But we go together. All of us. And we go prepared to kill whatever the fuck crawls out.”

His fury dims, replaced by a bleak emptiness that’s somehow worse. He looks away, back at the wall. The silence stretches. “The book is a bastard.”

“On that we can agree.”

“Is she okay?” His barely whispered question hits me in the chest.

“She’s fine. She’s a warrior. It’s why we chose her, remember?”

He shakes his head. “Fate.”

“Well, we know that now. Before, we didn’t. We know now she is the centre of this whole fucked-up storm. The one person we can’t let break, and you sitting down here feeling sorry for yourself, isn’t helping anyone. Least of all her.”

Evren looks at his hands. “I felt the book, inside my head.”

“Of course you did, it’s a fucking sadist,” I snap. “It fed on her pain and your guilt. Don’t give it any more. Get up.”

He doesn’t move. The shadows in the crypt deepen, clinging to him.

“Look, I get it,” I say, my voice dropping. “You think you’re tainted. You think you hurt her.” I step right up to his throne of bones, forcing him to look at me. “But what you did kept her from burning from the inside out. Now get the fuck up before I drag you out of here myself.”

For a long moment, he just stares. Then, he pushes himself to his feet.

“Good,” I say, clapping a hand on his shoulder. “Now let’s go find Verik. I have a feeling he’s learned something about that spell the book so kindly offered up.”

He nods, silent again, drowning in his own thoughts. I want to say something about what he told us, about his torture, his mutilation, but I can’t find the words. Not yet.

We leave the crypts, the air of the academy grounds a slap of reality after the tomb-like silence.

I glance at Evren. He’s walking, but he’s not really here.

He’s lost in whatever personal hell the book just dragged him through.

Fine. Let him process. As long as he’s upright and moving, it’s progress.

We pass by the Nightmare Gardens, and I pause, breathing in the mingled scent of Verik and Lysithea.

I raise an eyebrow, but I don’t mention it as we walk past. Following the trail of their delicious cocktail, I lead us to Lysithea’s room.

Evren gives me a weird stare, but I ignore it.

Seeing Verik outside her room, sitting on the floor like a guardian, I stop in front of him and look down. “What happened?” I ask, my voice low.

Verik looks up, his hellfire eyes burning with a controlled rage. The scent of sex and magic hangs around him like a shroud. It’s coming from inside her room, too. I don’t need to ask for details.

“She needed to break something,” he says, getting to his feet in one fluid motion. “So, I let her.”

“And the book?” Evren asks, his voice a low rasp, finding words again.

Verik raises an eyebrow but doesn’t comment on our resident mute having something to say. “Looks like it’s a day for creatures deciding to speak. Had a nice little chat with the book in the library.”

My eyebrows shoot up. “It talks? What the fuck did it say?”

“It says it’s a god. Calls itself Absolute Truth. And it says it screamed Lysithea into existence.”

The corridor is silent for a beat. The air crackles. So, she’s not just its tool. She’s its literal creation. A piece of it. This whole thing just got a hundred times more fucked up.

“There’s more,” Verik says, his gaze hard. “It told me the first trial will test my willingness to use that volcano spell.”

The threat is clear. The opposition, whatever it is, is coming. And the book expects us to meet it with annihilation. It expects Verik to pull the trigger.

I glance at Evren. His face is a mask of stone, but I see the calculation in his eyes. This isn’t just about protecting Lysithea anymore. This is about surviving a war between gods, with us as the primary weapons. And her as the ammunition.

“She is a god,” Evren blurts out, raspy and quiet, but it rings through the air like he’d shouted it from the rooftops.

It makes sense, in a really fucked up way. “As close to one as we can get, anyway.”

“That means we can fight this fucking thing, whatever it is,” Verik states.

“The grimoire?—”

“Not that fucker. We do as it says, and we complete it. I mean the opposition. Those fuckers who want to erase a god because they don’t like what it does or what it stands for.”

“We have no idea what it fucking stands for,” I point out. “We would be idiots to just rush in blindly.”

“Who said anything about being blind?” he counters. “The thing speaks to me. Deems me worthy. If I ask it questions, it might answer if it thinks it would be helpful in its complete restoration.”

Deems me worthy . Well, fuck, if that isn’t a slap in the face. Mind you, I have spoken to the grimoire too. In my head, of course, but still a conversation. And I did it first. So Verik can have his smug little self-important moment.

“So, ask it what the opposition is. Ask it what its end game is. Ask it why the fuck it gets off on torturing its own creation.”

“I tried,” Verik grunts. “It’s a manipulative prick. It only gives what it thinks we need.”

The door clicks open.

Lysithea stands there, wrapped in a pure white towel, her long hair damp as if she has just showered.

Her face is pale, wiped clean of emotion, but her eyes are a different story.

They’re ancient, bruised, and full of a terrifying determination.

She takes in the three of us standing outside her door like a pack of stray hellhounds.

“You’ll disturb the other two if you stand out there all fucking night,” she says and turns on her heel.

We follow her in, and Evren closes the door.

“What are the other two?” I ask quietly, dying to know. No one knows.

She shrugs. “Creatures as dangerous as I am. Never seen them.”

“Why has no one ever seen them?” I muse. “They must be students here.”

“Does it matter?” she snaps.

“No, not really. Just curious,” I say with a soft laugh. “On edge, Thea? Didn’t Verik’s fuck ease some of that tension?”

Her head whips around, and the air crackles with power. For a second, I think she’s going to scream the room apart. Instead, a slow, dangerous smile spreads across her face. “You think that was Verik’s idea?”

I blink. I didn’t see that coming. She keeps on surprising me in all the most delicious ways. “No,” I say, my voice a low rumble. “I think you’re finally showing us who’s really in charge.”

Verik stands to the side, smug as fuck. He got exactly what he wanted. Her move first. He is a lucky fucking bastard.

Lysithea drops the towel. She’s naked, unashamed, a map of power and pain. The Soul Scar glows faintly against her pale skin, a constellation of a curse we all share. “The book thinks it owns me,” she says, her voice cold. “It thinks because it made me, it can break me. It’s wrong.”

This is the queen we chose. The one fate handed us. Not a victim. A weapon sharpening itself on the whetstone of its own trauma.

Evren’s gaze is fixed on her, filled with awe and agony. He sees her strength, and it probably feels like another cut.

“So, what’s the plan, my queen?” I ask, giving her the power she just claimed. I like her in charge. It feels right.

“We find the opposition. I want to know who they are and why they are so scared of what the grimoire can do when it’s whole.”

I nod.

“We need to talk about what the book told Verik,” she says, crawling into bed and lying on her front.

She holds her hand out for Evren. He goes to her immediately and places his hand on her back.

He knows the score. Just because the grimoire isn’t actively hurting her, she is still in pain. “And I want to know what Reena knows.”

“Reena?” I ask. “The vampire?”

“Yes. She called me a queen on a contested throne. Coincidental verbiage, don’t you think?”

“Somewhat. Do you think she is part of this opposition?”

“I think she knows more than she’s letting on,” Lysithea replies. “I want to talk to her alone. See if I can feel her out. I don’t want us to jump out at her with accusations in case she is innocent.”

“Innocent,” Verik scoffs. “No one here is innocent.”

“Stay back at breakfast,” Lysithea says, turning her head so she faces away from us. “She will be less guarded if you aren’t lurking.”

“Oh, we’ll be lurking,” I point out. “But we will stay out of sight.”

She doesn’t reply, her breathing already evening out under Evren’s steady touch. She’s out. She trusts us to keep watch. A mistake she won’t live to regret.

Verik leans against the wall, arms crossed, his gaze fixed on her. The architect assessing his most precious, most volatile structure. This is our new normal. A queen in her bed, surrounded by her monsters. It’s fucked up. It’s perfect.

I move to the bed, shedding my jacket and kicking off my boots. “I’m not leaving her alone.”

Verik doesn’t argue. He pushes off the wall and claims the foot of the bed, stretching out on top of the covers. Evren remains where he is, a silent, cold anchor keeping her tethered.

I lie down next to our siren, close enough that our shoulders brush. We form a wall of nightmare, hellfire, and death around the scream that started it all. The opposition can come. We’ll be waiting.

Tomorrow, we hunt for answers. Tonight, we guard our queen.