Page 13 of Infernal Crown (Cursed Darkness (DarkHallow Academy) #3)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

VERIK

Cradling Lysithea in my arms while she recovers from the monumental effort of expanding DarkHallow’s boundaries, I spend the time turning over the technical aspects of what she accomplished.

The sheer scope of magical engineering required to stretch the academy’s territorial limits across miles of hostile terrain makes my architect’s soul sing with professional appreciation.

And absolute terror.

If the expansion fails, if the boundaries snap back like an overstretched rubber band, Lysithea dies. The binding that keeps her alive will tear her apart the moment she’s outside DarkHallow’s influence. Every minute we delay is another chance for something to go catastrophically wrong.

“Stop wearing a hole in your brain,” Dathan mutters from over by the window. He looks like death warmed over, the magical drain from lending Lysithea his power written in the dark circles under his silver eyes.

“I’m thinking,” I reply.

“You’re panicking,” Evren corrects with brutal honesty.

I shoot him a glare, but he’s right.

“The expansion is holding,” I say, forcing myself to stop worrying. “I can feel it in the stones. DarkHallow’s authority extends all the way to the Spire now.”

“But?” Dathan prompts, because there’s always a but with me.

“But we’ve never tested a territorial expansion of this magnitude. The magical stress on the ley lines alone should have caused fractures. The fact that it worked at all defies every architectural principle I know.”

“Maybe that’s because you’re thinking like a demonic architect,” Lysithea says from my lap. “Instead of thinking like someone building with god-magic.”

“How do you feel?” I ask, letting her crawl off my lap and stretch.

“Like I’ve been turned inside out and reassembled by committee.” She stretches, working out the kinks in her shoulders. “But alive. And still connected to DarkHallow’s expanded territory.”

“Good enough for me.” I stand, cracking my knuckles. “Let’s see what we’re really dealing with.”

The others nod, understanding that the time for hesitation has passed.

We move to the centre of the room, and I place my hands on the scorched stone where I created the doorway.

The magic responds immediately, DarkHallow’s power flowing through me with familiar heat.

But there’s something different now. Something vast and ancient threaded through the academy’s magical foundation.

Lysithea’s sovereignty has changed the very nature of this place.

I channel my hellfire into the stone, but instead of tearing a hole in reality, I fold the space precisely as I need it. The doorway shimmers into existence, showing us the twisted landscape of the Midnight Spire through a heat haze of controlled magic.

“After you, your majesty,” I say with a mock bow.

She punches my arm, but she’s smiling.

We step through together, the transition smooth as silk instead of the violent wrench we’ve been used to. The expanded territory welcomes us, recognising Lysithea’s authority and our right to be here.

The Midnight Spire spreads out before us, and the sight stops me cold.

The carnage from our battle is still here, but it’s changed.

The melted stone has cooled into impossible spirals, creating new architectural features that follow no earthly design principles.

The scattered weapons have fused with the ground, becoming decorative elements in a mad sculptor’s vision.

Bodies that should have rotted away have crystallised into statues, their expressions of terror preserved in perfect, gleaming detail.

“Fucking hell,” Dathan mutters beside me.

“The Forge. It’s been reshaping everything around it.”

The entrance to the Sovereign Forge looms ahead, no longer the gateway we left behind.

Massive columns twist skyward like frozen hellfire, supporting an arch that defies gravity.

The stone has veins of silver and gold threading through bloodstone so dark it seems to drink the surrounding illumination.

But it’s what my demon-given senses reveal that makes my blood run cold. “It’s a creation engine.”

The others look at me sharply, but I’m already moving closer, my hands spread to read the magical resonance in the stone.

The construction signatures are unmistakable.

Load-bearing enchantments designed to channel universe-altering power.

Dimensional anchors that could hold reality stable while it’s being unmade and reformed.

Containment protocols that could imprison gods.

“Verik?” Lysithea’s voice carries a note of concern.

The grimoire chooses that moment to appear, manifesting directly in front of us with its two eyes blazing like stars. But it’s changed, grown more powerful. The leather binding has been replaced with living shadow.

“Welcome back,” it says, its voice a harmony of whispers. “I trust you found the expansion educational.” The grimoire’s pages flip open, revealing no text but moving images. “Your realm is merely the first, little Siren. A test case for methods that will perfect all of existence.”

The images shift, showing realm after realm spread across dimensions I lack names for. Worlds of crystal and flame, underwater kingdoms populated by beings of living song, vast forests where the trees think and dream. All of them beautiful, all of them unique, all of them marked for utopia.

“You want to unmake everything,” Evren says, his voice flat with understanding.

“I want to perfect everything,” the grimoire corrects. “These realms are flawed, filled with lies and deception and unnecessary suffering. I will remake them in truth. Honest worlds where falsehood cannot exist.”

The Forge is a factory for universal conquest. A machine that can reach across dimensional barriers and reshape entire realities according to the grimoire’s twisted vision of perfection.

“How many?” I force myself to ask.

“All of them,” the grimoire replies with terrible satisfaction.

“Every realm, every dimension, every possible variation of existence. When I am complete, when the Crown is forged and my power fully manifested, you will create the sub-realm from where all of this will be achieved. I will reach across the barriers between worlds and gift them all with absolute truth.”

“You’re insane,” Dathan says, but his voice lacks its usual conviction.

“I am purpose,” the grimoire replies. “I am the solution to the fundamental flaw in all creation. The capacity for deception that corrupts everything it touches.”

I watch the visions of perfect, sterile worlds and feel sick.

This is what happens when an architect has unlimited power and no understanding of why people need imperfection.

Why they need the ability to tell kind lies, to create beautiful fictions, to build something that serves emotional needs rather than purely functional ones.

“The Crown will make the Siren truly divine, granting her the power to breach dimensional barriers at will. She will be my agent of perfection, carrying my truth to every corner of existence.”

Lysithea takes my hand, her fingers intertwining with mine in a grip that’s crushing my bones. We came here thinking we were fighting for our freedom and committing suicide. Instead, we’ve walked into the first stage of multiversal genocide.

“What if we refuse?” she asks, though we all know the answer.

“Then this realm, and all of you, burns,” the grimoire says.

“And I create another Siren, another set of tools, another way to accomplish my purpose. The method matters less than the result. You have a choice to make. Serve willingly and preserve what can be preserved of your realm’s essential character.

Or resist and watch everything you love become a footnote in my great work. ”

The doorway I created shimmers behind us, our escape route back to DarkHallow. But running won’t solve anything. The grimoire will find another way, create another Siren, another path to its goal. The only way to stop this is to see it through to the end and stick with our plan.

And pray we’re clever enough to find a way to destroy a god.

“We are so fucked,” Dathan mutters.

For once, I can’t argue with his assessment.