Page 8 of Crown Me (Immortal Vices and Virtues: All Hallows’ Eve #3)

Adeline

B ron’s arms shoot around me, plucking me out of my freefall, although it doesn’t stop us from falling.

I can barely draw breath, wrapping my legs around his hips and holding on as tightly as I can while the plummet snatches the air from my chest.

I don’t know how the ground beneath the tree opened up.

All I know is that we’re falling, and we’re falling far .

My power surges from my right hand, a compression of air aimed at whatever ground we’re falling toward.

At the same time, Bron extends his right arm and his massive claws snap out. He rams them into the dirt wall we’re falling past, dislodging stones and dust.

Between my magic and his claws, our descent slows from heart-thumpingly fast to a slow glide to a crawl and then I feel the thud as his feet meet the ground.

The sudden stillness is as breathtaking as the fall.

I stay right where I am, holding on to him, shrouded in darkness, waiting for my eyes to adjust.

Far above us, a circle of cerulean-blue light is all I can see of the opening we fell through. From it, extends a very fine thread of sapphire-blue light that makes me narrow my eyes because it looks suspiciously like the thread of fate that the Mother was trying to tame back in the tapestry room.

Of course, I could be mistaken. The thread is so faint, I can’t follow its path and the cerulean-blue light from the tree could be playing tricks with my eyes.

Other than that, I can’t see much. I have a vague sense that there could be walls around us. Maybe we’ve landed in a cave, but I can’t be sure.

Bron’s heart pounds at my ear and when I shift a little, his arms tighten around me.

“Are you hurt?” he growls in my ear.

I shake my head.

“Scraped? Bruised? Anything broken?”

I can’t stop my smile. “If either of us was going to be hurt, it was you.” I tip my head back, trying to make out his expression. I could light one of my fingers up with flames, but I don’t think he’d appreciate a fire so close to his body. “How’s your shoulder?”

The way he rammed his claws into the dirt wall would have placed enormous strain on his arm and chest.

“It’s okay,” he grumbles and I sense him move that shoulder, rolling it a little.

I really should unfurl from around him, probably need to pay attention to what dangers we might have landed in, but I convince myself I still need to catch my breath.

Just a few moments longer.

Right here, wrapped up in his arms.

Dropping my head to his left shoulder, I close my eyes and stay where I am.

His thumping heart slows a little, a strong beat near my ear, then quickens again.

Slowly, his right hand presses to my back, stroking upward to my shoulder, a touch that I instinctively want to arch into.

I tell myself I’m only wrapped around him because I was in a potentially life-threatening situation, but I can’t ignore the heat in my core and the alluring temptation to turn my head and find his lips…

“Adeline,” he murmurs at my ear.

I force myself to find my voice. “Yeah?”

“I was thinking…”

He falls quiet and, after a long moment, I prompt, “Yeah?”

“Maybe my bear wasn’t completely wro?—”

A sudden shriek splits my hearing a second before a creature rushes toward us in an alarming flurry of amber feathers, beating wings, and yellow claws.

I leap from Bron’s arms, propelling myself into the clear space behind me, somersaulting through the air to land safely on my feet.

Meanwhile, Bron spins, his claws outstretched to our new foe.

The creature hits him in the chest, squawking wildly.

I blink at it, recognizing the plume of black feathers on its tail. “Bessy?”

At the same moment, I become aware of two other things. First, that the chicken didn’t fall from above us—it came from within the place we’ve fallen into .

And second, that a light source is growing brighter off to my right, allowing me to see everything around me.

We are, indeed, in a cave with a tunnel curving off to the right.

“Bessy!” Bron catches the clearly agitated bird against his chest. “How did you get here?”

She tucks her wings to her sides and proceeds to cluck rapidly while Bron tips his head and…

I shake myself…

Can he understand what Bessy’s clucking?

“Uh…? What is she saying?”

He looks over at me and shrugs. “No idea. But it calms her if I act like I understand.”

The chicken gives a vexed squawk.

“Are you sure she can’t understand you ?”

He winces when she pecks his arm. “Yeah, I’m not so certain she can’t.”

“Maybe you should have kept that whole pretending-to-understand thing to yourself,” I chortle, but my smile quickly fades. “No matter how she got here, she’s clearly frightened about something.”

Off to my right, from within the curving tunnel, the light continues to grow brighter.

At the same time, the cerulean-blue glow far above us closes over, as if the ground is reforming beneath the tree up there.

The darkness overhead makes the thread I noticed before clearer.

It definitely looks like the thread of fate that was refusing to integrate into the tapestry when we saw the Mother a short time ago.

The thread extends from high above us where the tree is located, all the way down toward us before it snakes across the cave’s ceiling and into the distance, toward the increasing light source.

Bron’s voice is tense as he points to the sapphire-blue thread, which has clearly caught his attention too. “That looks like the brightest thread in the tapestry.”

“I can’t be certain what it is,” I whisper. “Maybe it’s the same thread. Maybe it just looks that way. The Mother always refused to explain her tapestry to me. She said it was too dangerous to know your own fate.”

He studies me for a moment. “You think it’s your thread?”

“Maybe.” I bite my lip. “I don’t know.”

That thread, the way it sits outside the tapestry… I don’t know how to explain that it’s too much like me. Standing at the edges trying not to be pushed away.

“If the thief stole the crown by digging a tunnel under the tree,” Bron says, as if he senses my need to change the subject, “it would explain how they got past the tree’s aboveground defenses.”

I wrench my focus away from the sapphire-blue thread. “We need to proceed carefully.”

He gives me a firm nod. “We don’t know what kinds of traps the thief might have set for anyone who discovers this tunnel.”

I take a deep breath. “There’s only one way forward.”

Bron’s response is to tuck Bessy under his arm before he steps up to my side.

The chicken falls silent as we step carefully toward the curve in the path.

As we approach the bend in the path, my heart beats faster, a sense of dread rising within me, but I have no logical reason for feeling that way.

It’s just a tunnel…

The moment we round the corner, intensely bright light flashes in my vision.

I throw my arm up over my eyes, trying to see through it.

Then it fades, draining away, leaving…

I stumble back a step, fear flooding my body.

I’m standing in the middle of a dungeon, empty cages lining the walls on either side of me, but unlike the Crone’s dungeon, which is more threat than torture , this place carries the awful coppery scent of fresh blood and the echoes of cries I’ve tried so hard to bury. Memories I’ve tried to forget.

A scream rises into my throat.

I need to warn Bron!

But when I reach for him, he isn’t there. Neither is Bessy.

I’m alone in the grimy darkness. Surrounded by the nightmares of my past. Filled with cold panic.

I call on my magic, grasping for my power over fire, determined to banish the shadows creeping across the floor toward me.

My magic flickers… sputters… and dies.

No…

I can’t be powerless. Not here. Not when fear threatens to crush me.

I try again to reach for my power, calling it as desperately as I can. Every power I have. Fire, frost, sunlight, levitation, astral projection, anything , but none of my powers respond.

Quiet laughter floats toward me through the darkness. “Oh, Adeline. You try too hard, darling.”

I freeze when a regal figure moves within the shadows at the far end of the corridor.

The darkness drips away from her as she glides toward me.

Her body is swathed in a velvet gown, her long hair streaked in pink. She drags her fuchsia-painted fingernails across the bars of the cages she passes, a rat-tat-tat that jars my hearing, making me flinch.

The smirk on her lips only grows.

My mother’s voice chills me to my bones when she says, “My traitorous daughter has returned.”