Page 45 of Blood King, Part I (Crowns #4)

“ What’s with the doors? ” he asked.

“ Seer trick, ” she said. “ It helps compartmentalize visions. It doesn’t have to be doors. It can be draperies, anything that helps separate them in the mind. ”

“ You seem to know a lot about seers. ”

“ I’ve known a few. Over the years. ” Sadness flashed across her face, but it disappeared as quickly as it had come.

“ Now, ” she said, “ think about the vision you saw. When we open this door ”—she waved to the door on her right—“ that’s what you’ll show me.

Since we don’t have the spell to help structure it, you’ll have to will it there. ”

That didn’t sound too difficult. He brought forward the vision in his mind and opened the door, but the room was empty. He shut it again and looked at her.

“ You have to will it, ” she said.

What did that even mean?

“ Concentrate, ” she added.

Irritation needled him. He was concentrating. Cyrus focused on the vision of the Mercian queen sitting on the Shadow throne, and he opened the door again. Nothing. He closed it.

“ I don’t think you’re— ”

He opened it again. Still nothing. He closed it. His irritation grew.

“ Cyrus— ”

He flung it open again. Empty.

“ Okay, stop, ” she said firmly.

Cyrus paused.

“ We’re in my mind, ” she said, “but you have to know that you can control everything here. I’m showing you a hall of doors. You can turn it into a hall of windows, or have it not be a hall at all. ”

“ How? ” he asked, his irritation growing to frustration.

“ Will it. I think you have a reluctance to be in someone’s mind, a reluctance to take control from them. You have to get over that. Take the hall from me. ”

“ And make it what? ”

“ Whatever you want. Take it. ”

He was growing even more frustrated.

“ Take it, ” she pressed.

Take it how?

“ At least try. ”

“ I am trying, ” he said shortly.

“ Take it! ”

Something snapped. A bolt of anger burst through him, the doors flew open, and the entire hall collapsed to rubble around them.

She stumbled backward, her eyes wide, her mouth open.

Regret immediately filled him. He wasn’t exactly sure how he did it, but he quickly swept the hall back up and into place as it was. “ I’m sorry, ” he muttered.

But she didn’t take her stare off him. He wasn’t sure why she looked so surprised now. She’d told him to do it. Or was she upset? He couldn’t tell.

Give her the vision. That was what she wanted. He used the same weight of want, gave the same will from his core, and opened the door again.

Inside, the Mercian queen sat on the Shadow throne.

Essandra still stared at him for another moment, before she peeled her eyes from him and finally shifted her attention to the vision. She stepped inside, and he followed.

The Mercian queen sat on a throne of Shadows, staring into nothing. Her long, icy hair swirled around her shoulders, and her dress moved as if caught in a gentle breeze, but she sat like a statue, captured in a moment.

Cyrus walked around her, studying her. “ She sits on the throne alone, ” he said.

Essandra examined the vision as well. “ That doesn’t mean the Shadow King is dead. ”

“ She wears the color of Mercia, ” he argued.

“ Look again. Notice the details. ”

He was looking.

“ Look at her crown, ” she said.

Then he saw it—not a Mercian crown. It was dark and sharp. A Shadow crown. His eyes moved lower. On the center finger of her right hand, she wore a black ring.

“ That’s a mortite ring, ” Essandra said. “ She would’ve had to have gotten it from the Shadowlands. ”

“ A Shadow ring and a Shadow crown… ”

“ For a Shadow queen, ” she finished.

“ But she travels to wed the king of Aleon. ”

“ Does she? Let’s look. ”

Essandra started back toward the hall and another door, but he didn’t need a door.

Cyrus pulled the vision to them, right beside the one of the Shadow throne.

Here, the queen rode a white horse under the blue banners of Aleon, with a flurry of rose petals around her.

There was no crown on her head, but Northern forces accompanied her.

All except one…

“ That’s a Shadowman, ” Essandra said of the dark beast of a man riding with the queen. “ But not the Shadow King. ”

No. Cyrus knew what the Shadow King looked like. But this man rode beside the queen, not behind her. Close, with an air of protection over her. “ He appears to be someone of importance, though. And in the queen’s service. ”

“ Look at her hand. ”

His eyes dropped to the same black ring that she’d worn sitting on the throne.

“ So, she sits on the Shadow throne before she goes to Aleon, wears a Shadow crown, and travels with a Shadowman of importance, under his protection. I’ve had it wrong.

” He pushed out a breath. “ Fate, you tricky bitch. She does wed the Shadow King. ”

A wave of disappointment rippled through him.

He’d thought higher of Mercia, and higher of the Mercian queen.

But no—she chose to wed the Shadow King.

She chose to ally herself with him. After everything her people had suffered, after everything Cyrus had suffered, she’d chosen the man who’d profited from this suffering.

Disgust rippled through him. That made her complicit.

He walked back to where the Mercian queen sat on the throne. “ Why would she do this? How can she so easily cast aside what he’s done? Not for love. He’s over twice her age. ”

“ No, he’s not, ” she said.

What?

Her expression changed, and her brows drew down. “ Oh… You don’t know… ”

“ I don’t know what? ”

“ Rhalstad Ratha Shal died in the war several years ago. It’s his son who sits on the throne now. ”

Cyrus shifted back. The Shadow King was dead? He shook his head as he took another step back. No. He shook his head again. He’d never truly thought vengeance against him was a possibility, but he’d wished for it. He’d dreamed about it. And now that he had a crown himself, he’d hoped for it.

But that had been stolen from him.

Anger swelled within him.

He shouldn’t be angry, Cyrus told himself as he tried to will back his calm. There was no guarantee he would have been able to do anything. If the Shadow King was dead, he should be glad for it, regardless of how it had come to be.

But he wasn’t.

The Shadow King might have died, but he’d led a full life. He’d gotten to leave a legacy—a legacy that his son now carried on. Fury flushed Cyrus’s skin. The son had taken his father’s place. He’d inherited his father’s crown. He’d inherited his father’s guilt. And he’d killed Kieve.

He was still responsible.

And now, so was his Shadow queen.

Cyrus looked back at her on the throne. The edges of the vision began to crack.

“ Cyrus. ” There was an urgency to Essandra’s voice, and he looked to see her staring at him. “ Cyrus, stop, ” she said.

Stop what?

“ Come out! ”

Come out of where?

“Cyrus!”

Her voice was no longer in his mind but in his ear, and he opened his eyes to her shaking him on the bench in the stone garden.

It took a moment for him to get his bearings. “What’s wrong?”

“Your nose,” she said, alarmed.

He reached up and touched the trickle under his right nostril and pulled his fingers back to find blood.

Alarm rippled through him, but he shook it off.

He was fine; it was only a nosebleed. Yet, when he tried to stand, his legs buckled underneath him, and he dropped to a knee.

Essandra jumped forward to help catch him.

“What’s happening?” he asked as he clutched her.

“I’m not sure.” The worry in her own voice did little to quell his. She held him as he tried to stand again, but his strength was gone.

“You probably used more energy than normal since you didn’t have the spell, but seers have natural protections for the body—a shield—not to mention the staves I gave you.”

She’d rattled off her thoughts so quickly he’d barely caught it all.

And he wasn’t sure what any of it meant, but he didn’t really care about the workings of power at the moment.

A second attempt at standing got him back on his feet.

He gripped the bench for support, and slowly, he started to feel more stable. It was fine. He was fine.

His breaths slowed.

“I’m fine,” he said.

“Are you sure?”

He nodded. And then he remembered—she wasn’t fine. Her arms still bore the cuts from her spells, some of them deep. “Let’s get you to Teron,” he told her.

She gave a small scoff. “You’re the one collapsing and you want to take me to Teron?”

He straightened, and his eyes met hers. “I want you healed. Now.”

Her smirk disappeared and was replaced by a look he couldn’t read.

“Cyrus!” a voice called, and he turned to see Bash walking quickly toward them.

“Cyrus!” Bash broke into a jog to meet him quicker.

“Fuck the gods, that was a long way,” he said, panting, when he reached him.

“I’ve been looking for you everywhere. Kord said you were in your study, but you weren’t.

Then I checked the sparring field.” He took another labored breath.

“You weren’t there either.” His eye caught Cyrus’s face, and he paused.

“You don’t look so good.” His brows dipped. “Are you okay?” He stepped closer.

“I’ll be all right,” Cyrus assured him.

Then Bash seemed to notice Essandra standing there.

“Oh, hi,” he said, and gave a small wave.

Then his eyes caught her arms. “You don’t look good either.

” The large fighter didn’t bother with social-status norms, mostly because he always forgot.

He just did what came naturally as a kind-hearted person.

Cyrus didn’t mind. He preferred it, actually.

He also preferred Bash get to the point of why he was here.

“What do you need, Bash?”

“Oh. Right. The council sent me to get you. A ship’s come. With a messenger.”

A messenger? “From where?”

“I don’t know. But he looks important.”

Cyrus glanced back at Essandra.

“You go ahead,” she said. “I’ll be fine.”

“Take her to Teron,” Cyrus told Bash. “Don’t leave her until she’s healed.”

“That’s not necessary,” she said.

But Cyrus’s eyes stayed on Bash. “Not until she’s healed,” he said again.

“Got it,” Bash promised.

Giving Essandra one last look, Cyrus struck out for the throne room. His steps fell harder, heavier.

A ship. A messenger.

No peace. No pause.

Whatever news had arrived, he was pretty sure it wouldn’t be good.