Page 15 of Blood King, Part I (Crowns #4)

Chapter eleven

Cyrus drifted in and out of dreams. When he woke, he couldn’t move. Or maybe he wasn’t awake. He struggled against the invisible force that held him.

“Easy,” came Everan’s voice.

He tried to open his eyes, but he couldn’t. All around him was darkness.

“Should I give him more?” Kord asked from somewhere close by, but Cyrus couldn’t pinpoint exactly where.

“No. We’ve already given him enough to drop a horse.”

Their voices faded, and Cyrus fell back into darkness. Shadows coiled around him, and cold seeped into his bones. Cyrus found himself in a dark corridor, standing. He looked down. How had he gotten to his feet? Where were Everan and Kord?

Was he still in his room? No…

He glanced around but could see nothing through the shadows.

He started walking. Light followed him; from where, he wasn’t sure. It wasn’t much, just enough to see a few paces ahead.

Cyrus heard nothing, and he kept walking.

The corridor opened into a large room, with a little more light. It was a throne room. Two black thrones sat centered on a dais.

Black. Everywhere was black—the stone walls, the tapestries that covered them.

His pulse quickened.

There was only one kingdom of black.

The Shadowlands.

Cyrus stilled. He’d seen this before. It had been a long time. Ten years? More? Less? This was an old dream, one he’d almost forgotten.

He caught movement from the corner of his eye, and he turned to see a woman. He knew this woman—he knew her moon-spun hair. She looked a lot different from how he remembered her, as a child. He hadn’t known her well then, but still he recognized her.

The Mercian princess.

She was unaware he was even there. His gaze followed her as she walked down the center of the room to the throne, where she turned and sat, alone. Her alabaster skin contrasted sharply against the shadows. Her dress of white and silver boasted Mercia’s colors, and her eyes burned with a blue fire.

As she sat on the throne of the Shadow King.

Then the darkness swallowed him again.

Cyrus stood in a side hall of the arena—the hall of the witch. He wasn’t sure what had made him come. He’d left Manus, Everan, and Kord in the holding chamber, where they waited for their fights.

He’d been in a rage when he’d woken in his chamber that morning.

Not at Everan or at Kord. He understood that they’d done what they’d had to.

Cyrus had been on the verge of rebellion, and it would have killed them all.

Pyro employed an army of guards at the villa—Cyrus wouldn’t have even made it through the threshold of the lord’s residence.

They’d been lucky with Hephain, one of the few guards with a soul. He’d helped get Cyrus to his room, where Everan and Kord had sedated him with tanon oil, then locked them inside while keeping the other guards away.

Visa brewed several pots of runik tea, which Everan and Kord forced down Cyrus’s throat in intervals too frequent to count, to purge the effects of the tanon by morning—before they had to be at the arena.

By the time Cyrus had regained full control of himself, the worst had passed.

Kieve was in his room, again healed by Teron’s touch.

Everyone acted as though things were back to normal.

But things weren’t normal.

Kieve wasn’t normal.

The reality was that Kieve would likely never fight again.

And Pyro would kill him.

Cyrus continued warily down the hall, and when he reached the witch’s cell, he looked through the barred opening of the door.

But she wasn’t there.

How many days had it been? Two? Three? Had they burned her? No. She’d said six days. It hadn’t been six days.

Where was sh—

Her face suddenly appeared in front of him on the other side of the bars, and he stumbled backward with a curse.

She gave him a close-lipped smile. “Did I scare you?”

“No,” he said quickly. A little too quickly to be believable. “I’m not afraid of you.” She probably wasn’t even a witch. But how had she escaped her chains?

Her green eyes shined bright. “That’s what they all say. Before I make them scream.”

Looking closer, he could see what she’d done. There was no magic at play. She’d worked her chains off the ceiling hooks. She still had them locked around her wrists, but with the length of the chain, she could move freely in her cell now. She could reach the door.

“And how do you typically make them scream?” he asked.

“If you’re here to help me, you’re running out of time.” Her impatience was showing now.

“ You’re running out of time. And no, I’m not here to help you.” He didn’t trust this woman.

She turned colder. “Then why are you here?”

That was a good question. Why was he here?

She pursed her lips, and her nostrils flared. “We can help each other,” she told him. “I can free you.”

He narrowed his eyes. “You can’t even free yourself.” And freedom was a dream—a hopeless dream. He should go. This was pointless.

But still, he lingered. He eyed her. “You said you can give me power.”

“I can,” she answered quickly.

“What kind of power? And how much?” He couldn’t believe he was even asking this. She couldn’t give him power.

She cocked her head to the side. “It depends on what you want to do.”

“I want to kill a man. A powerful man.”

The line of her lips curved at the corners. “Is that all?”

“What can you do?” he pressed.

“I can give you control of the beasts.”

His brow dipped. “I don’t want a fucking animal. I want blood.”

“They’ll answer to your thoughts, to your every command.”

That was it? There were only four cats, and they were chained. Even if what she said was true, they would be of no help. “What about men?”

She scoffed. “If I could control men, I wouldn’t be here.” Her green eyes flashed. “But I can bring this arena to the ground.”

“How?” he pressed.

“Give me your blood and I’ll show you.”

He wasn’t so easily fooled. “My blood will free you, won’t it?”

She frowned.

“Answer me,” he demanded.

“Yes,” she said finally. “It will let me free myself.”

“How? What does it do?”

“It will allow me to channel the Aether, to tap into a power greater than anything else in this world.”

He didn’t know what she meant by the Aether , but he understood enough.

She thought he could give her the power to break the bonds of her chains.

She was wrong—he couldn’t. And even if what she said were true, even if she could get some kind of power from him, how did he know she would help him in return?

“How do I know you won’t just escape this arena once you’re free?” he asked.

“When I’m free, this arena will want to escape me .” She spoke with the fire of hungry vengeance. “And I want access to your power after. I need it. So, I’ll make you a deal, seer. Free me, and I’ll help you. You give me power, I give you power.”

But she was wrong about him. “I’m not a seer.”

“You have no idea what you are,” she snapped back. “But I do. I smell it on you. I feel it radiating off you. Free me, and I’ll make you the most powerful man in the world.”

That wasn’t what he was after. “I don’t want to be the most powerful man in the world. I don’t care about being a powerful man at all. I want the blood of powerful men.”

“You want blood, then give me yours,” she said. “Is it a king you want? I’ll give you a world of kings.”

Now that sounded like madness.

“Give me your blood,” she begged. She gripped the iron bars on the door tighter, leaning into them. Sweat of desperation hung on her brow.

If she was desperate, she’d tell him anything he wanted to hear. Even if she did have power, he didn’t. She was either lying or wrong. Neither would help him. He took a step back.

“Lucien!”

A prickle ran up his spine. “I told you that’s not my name.”

A roar from the crowd came from the arena—a fight was ending. Manus would be up for his one-on-one match. Cyrus had to go; he’d wasted enough time. He turned to leave.

“Please!” she begged. “I need your help!”

There was a part of him that wanted to help. But his blood would do nothing but bring chaos to his mind, and he couldn’t afford that. So he couldn’t help her. He couldn’t even help his own men.

“Seer!” she called.

He wasn’t a seer. He backed away from the door, turned, and made his way back down the hall the way he’d come.