Page 15 of Crowned by the Shadow (Bound by the Veil #5)

Images flashed through my mind, Fiona’s last battle, her light extinguished by overwhelming darkness.

“Will you fare better, I wonder?”

With tremendous effort, I wrenched myself free, gasping as my consciousness slammed back into my body. The pendant fell from my trembling hands, skittering across the cave floor.

“Senara!” Thorn was kneeling beside me, his face tight with concern.

“She saw me,” I whispered, cold sweat beading on my forehead. “The Empress. She…she saw me through the pendant.”

Ronan cursed under his breath, backing away slightly as if the pendant might bite.

“But I saw something else too,” I continued, the images already fading like a dream. “Inside the fortress, I caught glimpses as I was trying to connect with Volker and again when I was pulled back.”

I closed my eyes, trying to hold on to the fleeting images. “There are dragonkin within those walls. Not corrupted ones, but true dragonkin, at least I think that’s what you would call them.”

“That’s impossible,” Ronan said. “The dragonkin are extinct. The Empress wiped them out the last time she tried to take over this realm.”

I just shrugged at Ronan’s words, knowing only what I had seen.

“These were... magnificent,” I said, the awe still fresh.

“Scales like polished obsidian that caught what little light existed and transformed it into rainbows. They moved with such grace despite their size, wings folded tight against powerful bodies. I think they might be prisoners too, or at least some of them. I saw one in chains of shadow magic, similar to what holds Wyn. But they’re fighting it.

Their scales seemed to repel the corruption somehow. ”

“If the dragonkin are there,” Thorn said slowly, “then the situation is even more dire than we thought. The Empress must be gathering power for something catastrophic.”

I retrieved the pendant cautiously, half-expecting it to burn me again. It remained cool to the touch.

“I couldn’t find Van or Volker,” I admitted. “Something’s blocking the connection. We’re on our own. If we get in trouble, I can try again. Maybe the magic will be friendlier once we are inside the keep.”

Night had fallen completely by the time we were ready to make our move. The twin moons hung high above us, one silver, one a faint copper-red, casting just enough light to illuminate the impossible fortress suspended between the mountains.

“It’s time,” I whispered, gripping the Eclipsed Crown that Thorn had retrieved from his pack.

I’d almost forgotten we had it, the third artifact needed to complete the set.

The crescent-shaped diadem gleamed in the moonlight, its metal neither silver nor gold but something in between, as if it couldn’t decide which court to favor.

I turned to Thorn and Ronan, their faces solemn in the dim light. “The pendant will create the passage, but I need the Crown to stabilize it. The Empress’s influence is too strong here, without it, the portal might collapse or worse, lead us straight to her.”

Ronan nodded grimly. “And if something goes wrong?”

“Then we fight our way in the old-fashioned way,” Thorn replied, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword.

We crept closer to the edge of the chasm, finding a narrow outcropping that extended toward the fortress.

The wind howled around us, threatening to push us into the abyss below.

I knelt at the edge, placing the Mirror on the ground before me.

Its surface caught the moonlight, reflecting not our faces but swirling patterns of stars.

I placed the Crown upon my head, feeling its weight settle against my temples.

Immediately, the Moon Mark on my skin pulsed with silver-blue light, responding to the artifact’s power.

It was only the cloak that Ronan had given me to wear that kept us hidden, otherwise I would have been a beacon in the dark.

“Stand back,” I warned, pulling the Veilshard Pendant from beneath my shirt. “I don’t know exactly what will happen.”

Thorn and Ronan moved a few paces behind me, weapons ready. I closed my eyes, holding the pendant in both hands as I focused on my will. I pictured the ritual chamber where I’d seen Wyn, imagining a door opening between where we stood and that distant room.

The pendant grew warm, then hot against my palms. The Crown on my head seemed to tighten, its metal heating until it felt like a band of fire around my temples. I gasped but didn’t break my concentration.

“Senara,” Thorn’s voice was tight with concern.

“I’m fine,” I gritted out, though the pain was intensifying. “It’s working.”

The air before me shimmered, like heat rising from sun-baked stone. The shimmering intensified, coalescing into a vertical tear that widened with each passing second. Through it, I could see the obsidian walls of the ritual chamber, glowing with those sickly purple runes.

The tear stabilized, its edges rippling like disturbed water. Beyond it lay our destination—and Wyn.

“Now!” I called, struggling to maintain the passage.

Thorn moved forward, ready to step through first, but as he approached, something changed. The tear’s edges darkened, purple-black tendrils of energy snaking outward.

“She knows,” I gasped, feeling a presence pushing against my mind. “The Empress, she’s trying to take control of the portal.”

The Crown burned against my skin, its power the only thing keeping the Empress from corrupting our passage completely. I poured more of my energy into the pendant, fighting to maintain control.

“We can’t wait,” Thorn said urgently. “It’s now or never.”

I nodded, rising to my feet though my legs threatened to buckle. “Together. We cross together.”

Ronan moved to my other side, his expression grim but determined. “On three.”

“One,” Thorn counted.

The tendrils of corruption grew thicker, encroaching further on our passage.

“Two.”

I felt her then, the Void Dragon Empress, her consciousness pressing against mine, ancient and cold and hungry. Her voice slithered through my thoughts.

Come to me, Eclipse Child. I have waited so long.

“Three!”

We leapt forward as one, plunging into the tear between worlds. The sensation was like diving into ice water, shocking, disorienting, stealing the breath from my lungs. For a heartbeat that stretched into eternity, we were nowhere, suspended between realms.

I felt her claws reaching for me in that in-between space, grasping, pulling.

The Crown flared with protective light, but I could feel it weakening against her power.

The Mirror in my pack pulsed in response, lending its strength to the Crown, creating a harmony of magic that pushed back against the darkness.

You cannot escape me, the Empress hissed in my mind. You are mine. You have always been mine.

“No,” I gasped, though no sound escaped my lips in this place without air. “I belong to myself.”

With a last surge of will, I pulled us through, tumbling onto the hard obsidian floor of the ritual chamber. The passage collapsed behind us with a sound like shattering glass.

I lay gasping on the cold stone, the Crown still burning against my skin, the pendant clutched in my trembling hand. Thorn was immediately at my side, helping me to my feet, while Ronan scanned the chamber, weapon drawn.

“Senara,” Thorn whispered, his eyes wide. “Your mark...”

I glanced down at my arms, where the Moon Mark spiraled across my skin. It was changing, the silver light now threaded with veins of darkness, the same darkness I’d seen crawling through Wyn’s veins in my vision.

“She touched me,” I whispered, horror creeping through me. “When we were between realms. She reached for me, and I felt her...”

“The corruption,” Ronan breathed, staring at my mark.

I shook my head, fighting against the cold sensation spreading through my veins. “It doesn’t matter. We need to find Wyn.”

The chamber was empty. No sign of Wyn or Eldric. The runes still pulsed along the walls, but the central space where I’d seen her suspended was vacant. Only the stone altar remained, but the corrupted mirror I’d glimpsed in my vision was gone as well.

“They’ve moved her,” Thorn said, examining the altar. “Recently, from the looks of it.”

I clutched the pendant tightly, trying to focus on Wyn’s essence again, but the corruption spreading through my mark made it difficult to concentrate. Every time I reached for her, the Empress’s presence intruded, like shadows creeping at the edges of my vision.

“We need to move,” Ronan urged, glancing nervously at the chamber’s entrance. “Someone will have sensed our arrival.”

I nodded, tucking the pendant away and drawing my sword instead.

The weight of the Crown still pressed against my temples, a constant reminder of what was at stake.

The darkness threading through my mark pulsed in time with my heartbeat, a silent countdown to something I couldn’t name but feared, nonetheless.

As we approached the chamber’s entrance, I paused, looking back at the spot where Wyn had been held. “We’re coming for you,” I whispered. “Hold on.”

Then we stepped into the shadowed corridors of the Obsidian Keep, the heart of the enemy’s domain, with the Void Dragon Empress’s touch already spreading through my veins.