Page 27 of Infernal Crown (Cursed Darkness (DarkHallow Academy) #3)

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

LYSITHEA

I wake up to silence.

Not the normal quiet of DarkHallow, but the deep, unsettling absence of something that’s been humming in the background of reality for so long I’d stopped noticing it. Like when a clock stops ticking and suddenly you realise how loud it was all along.

The grimoire is gone. Really, truly gone.

The thought should bring relief, but instead it leaves me feeling oddly hollow.

For weeks, that fucking thing has been the centre of everything we’ve done, the threat that shaped every decision and drove every desperate plan.

Now there’s just... nothing. Empty space where overwhelming danger used to live.

I don’t trust it.

Yet.

I’m sprawled across my bed with three men who apparently decided unconsciousness was optional after saving existence from a hell utopia.

All of us are alive. All of us are here. All of us are dealing with the aftermath of forces that should have killed everyone involved.

But alive isn’t the same as unchanged.

I wiggle my fingers, testing magical abilities that feel different without the god power flowing through them.

I had it for only three days, and yet the absence of it is remarkable.

The sensation is like wearing clothes that used to fit perfectly but now hang loose in strange places.

Still powerful, still mine, but contained within normal limits instead of stretching across universes.

I feel lighter. As if I’ve been carrying a weight I didn’t realise was there until it was gone.

“You’re awake,” Evren says.

“Hard to sleep when reality keeps shifting around you,” I mutter, sitting up carefully. Everything aches in ways that have nothing to do with physical injury and everything to do with channelling forces beyond normal comprehension. “How long was I out?”

“Six hours,” Verik answers from the end of the bed. “The instability that was affecting DarkHallow is gone. The opposition has slunk back into the shadows. We served their purpose and are no longer their enemy.”

“Yeah, well, they are mine. We didn’t do this for them. We did it to stop us all from living lives of pure hell. Are you sure that fucker is gone? Like gone-gone, this time?”

“Gone-gone. There is nothing left of the realm. I made sure to aim the epicentre of the spell directly on top of the grimoire. Tenebris Vinculum no longer is.”

“Blackgrove’s probably having fits,” I say.

“Let him,” Dathan says. He pulls me closer, his arm wrapping around my waist.

“He’ll want a report,” Verik says, his voice muffled by the pillow. “He always wants a report.”

“He can write his own,” I say. “I’m tired.”

An understatement. My bones feel like they’re made of glass, my magic a slow, thick river instead of the raging torrent it became. I run my fingers over Dathan’s arm, tracing the new patterns etched into his skin. He doesn’t flinch.

Evren gets up from the chair and comes to sit on the edge of the bed. He takes my hand, his skin warm and solid. Actually warm. A real, living pulse beats against my fingertips. He watches me with those ice-blue eyes, but the void behind them is gone.

“We’re free,” he says, the word tasting strange on his tongue.

Free from the grimoire. Free from the curse. Free from the constant threat of being unmade.

But freedom feels a lot like being adrift.

“Not exactly,” I say, a dark cloud forming over my head. “I’m still tied to this place for eternity, or I die.”

“Hey, you’re not one of us until you’ve died,” Dathan chirps.

“Uhm,” Verik growls.

“I mean it,” I interrupt. “This is serious. I’m already on my extended leave from death. I’m not taking a chance with this.”

“Then we make a new plan.”

“How? And what?” My frustration makes me snap, and I get out of bed to stalk over to the windows.

“I need to go back to my realm,” Verik says carefully. “I’m not letting those rebel fuckers rule my promised kingdom. Somehow, we have to figure out how to connect DarkHallow to that.”

“You mean we all go and live there?” Evren asks with a frown.

“Why not?” Verik snaps, also getting frustrated. “Not good enough for you?”

“Whoa, let’s all calm down a sec,” Dathan says, holding his hands up. “Verik has a point. We can probably do this.”

“Probably?” I spin around, my voice sharp. “We just fought a god book, Dathan died and came back, Evren is alive, and I had a brief and terrible stint as a god. ‘Probably’ is a bit weak!”

Verik pushes himself up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed.

The exhaustion is gone from his face, replaced by the familiar fire of a demon prince facing an impossible problem.

“It’s not about ‘probably’. It’s engineering.

DarkHallow is built on a major ley line convergence.

A nexus. My home realm isn’t connected to it… yet.”

“Yet?” I ask, moving closer. “Are you saying you can make it connect?”

He smirks, the familiar arrogance a welcome sight. “I’m saying it’s the most ambitious piece of magical architecture ever conceived. A permanent dimensional bridge anchored to this nexus. And I’m going to build it.”

“A bridge to hell,” Dathan says, stretching out on the bed like a satisfied cat. “Sounds fun.”

“The power required would be monumental,” Evren points out, his brow furrowed. “It could destabilise the academy’s core.”

“Not if we power it from my side,” Verik says, his eyes blazing with the fire of a new project.

“My realm has its own sources. We just need to establish the initial connection.” He looks at me, his gaze locking with mine, pinning me in place.

“The connection you have to this place. Your authority as Sovereign is still in place. You can open the way, and I can build the road.”

My stomach clenches. Another impossible plan. Another round of channelling forces that could rip us apart. But the alternative is being chained here forever, a gilded cage built of shadow and secrets.

“Okay,” I say, the word small but solid. “Okay. Let’s build a bridge to hell.”

Dathan laughs, a raw, triumphant sound that echoes in the quiet room. For the first time since the grimoire manifested, the future doesn’t feel like a countdown to oblivion. It feels like a blueprint.

And Verik is our architect.

Hope, sharp and painful, pierces through the exhaustion. “What materials would you need?”

“Let’s not rush this. We need to find a corresponding anchor in my realm. Another ley line convergence, a place of significant power. Then I can use your power to forge a permanent link. We graft the territories. One step and you’re in DarkHallow. The next, you’re in my kingdom.”

“So, I’d be able to leave?” I ask, the words barely a whisper.

The idea is so huge, so freeing, it feels dangerous to even say it aloud, even though this tether hasn’t affected me so far and won’t for another two years.

But still. The idea of being anchored to a place or I die, is a very dark thought.

It makes me want to resent DarkHallow and reject it.

“You wouldn’t be leaving,” Dathan says, his eyes gleaming with understanding. “You’d just be expanding your garden.”

My garden. A kingdom of hellfire and shadow, grafted onto my prison of eternal night. The sheer audacity of it is breathtaking. It’s perfect. It’s us.

“There are a million things that could go wrong,” Evren points out, ever the voice of reason.

“Yeah,” Dathan agrees cheerfully. “Sounds like a party.”

I look between them, and a real, genuine smile spreads across my face. “Right,” I say, feeling the familiar spark of a truly terrible idea taking root. “Where do we start?”

“First, we need to talk to Blackgrove. We need his permission, and we should also tell him about Tenny,” Verik says practically.

My blood turns icy. “What if he denies his permission?”

Verik shrugs. “Then we do it anyway and ask for forgiveness afterwards.”

“Will he be able to close off the link?”

Verik scoffs. “Not if I build it right. Once it’s grafted, it becomes part of the academy’s fundamental structure. Trying to sever it would be like trying to rip out the foundations. He’d destroy DarkHallow.”

“So, we’re holding the academy hostage,” Dathan says with a lazy grin. “I love it.”

“He won’t see it that way,” Evren says quietly. “He’ll see it as a hostile takeover.”

“It is a hostile takeover,” I say. “He chained me here. Now I’m adding a conservatory. I want to do this right. We don’t demand. We ask and hope to fuck he is in a good mood.”

The exhaustion that had settled deep in my bones starts to burn away, replaced by the hot, familiar thrill of this insane plan. This is what we do. We don’t accept our cages; we renovate them.

“Right,” I say, pulling on a dress and my boots. “Let’s go talk to the landlord.”

“Now?” Evren asks, surprised.

“No time like the present,” Dathan says, already getting dressed. “He’s probably wondering why we haven’t blown anything up in the last twelve hours. Best not to disappoint him.”

Verik stands, stretching until his back cracks. The arrogance is back in his posture, the architect ready to pitch his masterpiece. “He’ll see the logic in it. Expanding his territory, gaining an alliance with a hell realm. It’s a good deal.”

“You do the talking,” I state. “We don’t know what we’re talking about.”

He nods and accepts the leadership role. We are just the pretty faces that will hopefully convince Blackgrove to let us do this thing.

“The rebels… he will want them dealt with before there is a bridge directly to his academy,” I point out.

“Oh, don’t worry about that. I have plans for them.”

“Armageddon?” Dathan asks with a laugh.

“A dumbed-down version. Destroying my realm sort of defeats the object,” Verik replies.

“This is going to get ugly,” he mutters.

“Ugly is better than dead,” I point out. “Let’s go.”