Page 25 of Infernal Crown (Cursed Darkness (DarkHallow Academy) #3)

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

EVREN

Lysithea’s unconscious form lies crumpled on the Ossuary Tower floor like a broken doll, chest rising and falling with the shallow rhythm that speaks of magical exhaustion rather than physical injury.

Her skin has lost the silver luminescence that marked her transformation, returning to her familiar pale complexion.

The Crown, reduced to little more than metallic fragments held together by rapidly fading power, still clings to her temples with the desperate tenacity of something that refuses to acknowledge its own dissolution.

Verik crawls over, particularly boneless from channelling magical forces beyond normal limitations. “The Armageddon spell worked perfectly. Complete structural collapse with minimal dimensional bleed-through. Rather pleased with the execution, actually.”

“You can tell that from here?”

He nods and closes his eyes before opening them to stare at Dathan, where I carefully placed him after being blasted through the portal. He shuts his eyes again, blocking out the view. I turn away.

Not now.

I kneel beside Lysithea’s still form. Her magical signature fluctuates between states that shouldn’t coexist, power levels that rise and fall according to principles I don’t recognise.

Then I understand what I’m observing. The Crown’s power hasn’t completely faded. It still flows through the fractured artefact.

“Lysithea,” I say, placing a careful hand on her shoulder.

Her eyes flutter open. It takes several seconds for awareness to focus on my face, consciousness struggling against the weight of everything she’s endured.

“Evren? Are we dead?”

I chuckle, pushing aside that one of us is. “You’re safe at DarkHallow. The grimoire is destroyed along with the false realm. Do you remember?” I help her sit up slowly, supporting her weight as magical exhaustion makes coordination difficult.

“Dathan?” she croaks.

Gulping, I shake my head.

Her face crumples, but then she grips my arms tighter than I’d expect. “I told you I would bring you back to life,” she says, letting me go to reach up to touch the Crown’s fractured remains. “When this was over, when I had the power to do it.”

The words hit me harder than I expected. Two years of undeath, two years of magical animation sustaining what Blackgrove’s necromancy dragged back from the grave. Two years of existing in the space between life and death, conscious but not truly alive.

“It’s okay if you can’t…”

“I can and I fucking will,” she growls, getting to her knees. She sways slightly but brushes off my attempts to steady her.

She places both hands on the Crown’s fractured surface. The artefact glows with silver fire that traces patterns across her skin, but this spell is different from anything I’ve witnessed before. More complex, more fundamental.

The process terrifies me even as I crave it. Blackgrove’s necromancy has sustained me for two years, magical animation so sophisticated that I pass for living in almost every way. Altering that might end in final death. But if it doesn’t… It’s worth the risk to be whole again.

“It might hurt,” she warns.

Her silent, especially as I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing, is implied. “I trust you.”

The transformation doesn’t hit me all at once.

Instead, it flows through my body in waves, each one addressing a different aspect of my existence.

First, Lysithea’s power severs the necromantic connections that have sustained me since Blackgrove dragged my consciousness back from the hell dimension where I was tortured.

The sensation of those bonds breaking feels like losing gravity.

For a terrifying moment, I exist in a complete void—not alive, not dead, just consciousness floating in space between states.

Death magic that has been part of my identity dissolves completely, leaving me with abilities I possessed before my first death, but nothing of the supernatural power that marked my return.

Then true life floods back into systems that haven’t functioned naturally since my resurrection.

My heart, which has beaten through magical compulsion for two years, suddenly pounds with biological necessity.

The sensation overwhelms me. The physical rhythm, the emotional significance of a pulse that exists because life demands it rather than because magic sustains it.

Blood that has circulated through necromantic animation suddenly flows according to biological imperative.

The change is profound enough to make me dizzy, circulation patterns shifting as oxygen becomes necessary rather than optional.

My skin warms as natural heat replaces the carefully maintained temperature that marked my undead state.

But the most overwhelming transformation is psychological.

The constant awareness of death that has coloured every thought for two years simply.

.. disappears. The existential weight of being technically deceased while maintaining consciousness, the careful energy management required to maintain the appearance of life, the fundamental wrongness of existence sustained through magical intervention—all of it vanishes like a nightmare upon waking.

I gasp, actually needing air for the first time since my resurrection, lungs expanding with automatic reflex that carries no trace of conscious control.

“How do you feel?” Lysithea asks after a moment.

“Alive,” I whisper, then louder with growing wonder, “Actually alive.”

I place my hand over my heart, feeling the steady rhythm that speaks of certainty rather than magical animation. “Thank you,” I manage, though the words feel inadequate for what she’s given me. Then I kiss her with all the passion that the living can muster.

The kiss tastes of silver fire and second chances. Her hands tangle in my hair, fingers tracing the pulse that hammers at my throat.

When we finally separate, the Crown crumbles to dust in her hair, its divine power exhausted.

She lets me go and crawls over to Dathan, sobbing into his chest.

Verik and I exchange a glance that speaks of our own grief. We go to her, comforting her as part of our group has been severed.

But then, he stirs. As Lysithea’s tears fall on his face, his fingers twitch against the cold stone.

Lysithea freezes mid-sob, her breath catching in her throat. She lifts her head, tear tracks shining on her cheeks in the dim light of the tower.

Dathan’s eyelids flicker.

“No fucking way,” Verik breathes, the words rough with disbelief.

Then, Dathan’s silver eyes snap open. They’re hazy, unfocused, but he’s alive. He groans, a low, guttural sound that’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard. My heart hammers against my ribs, a frantic, living rhythm that feels weird and slightly nauseating.

“Fucking hell,” Dathan rasps, his gaze finding Lysithea. “Did we win?”

A sound escapes her, half-laugh, half-sob. She throws herself onto him, burying her face in his chest. “You idiot,” she cries. “You absolute fucking idiot.”

His hand comes up, weak but determined, and tangles in her hair.

The Soul Scar on my arm burns with a fierce, triumphant heat. I look down and see the constellation of ink glowing. The bond held him. It anchored his soul when everything else was unmade. Lysithea’s grief didn’t just mourn him; it called him back.

Verik puts a hand on Dathan’s shoulder, smiling wearily.

Dathan looks from Verik to me, then back to the crying woman on his chest. A slow, familiar smirk spreads across his face. “Did you miss me?”

We didn’t just win. We got everyone back.