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

CHAPTER THREE

LYSITHEA

The guys exchange glances. Guilty glances that make my stomach clench with a familiar dread. I’ve seen that look before, usually right before someone tells me something I don’t want to hear.

“Get dressed first,” Dathan says carefully, like he’s talking to someone fragile.

I grab clothes from my wardrobe, moving with deliberate normalcy.

Black dress, underwear this time to prove a point that I’m pissed off with them, boots.

The same outfit I’ve worn a hundred times before, but everything feels different now.

The fabric feels strange against my skin, like my nerve endings have been rewired.

The black lace-like patterns of the life support system are embedded into my skin, delicate tracery that winds around my neck. I catch my reflection in the mirror. The intricate designs are covered by the dress, and I breathe out in relief. Out of sight, out of mind.

“Thea?” Verik’s voice from behind me, carefully neutral.

“Coming.”

I turn away from my reflection. The girl in the mirror looks like me, but she’s changed. There’s something in her eyes that wasn’t there before. Something harder. More knowing. Like she’s seen things that can’t be unseen.

Which is probably accurate.

“Right,” I say, facing them with forced brightness. “The Forge. Let’s go save the world, shall we?”

“We should eat something first,” Verik suggests, and I can hear the concern he’s trying to hide. “You lost a lot of blood. Your body needs fuel to recover.”

My stomach growls in response, betraying me. Apparently, dying works up an appetite. Who knew?

“I’m fine,” I say automatically, but even I don’t believe it.

“You’re not fine,” Evren says quietly, and there’s something broken in his voice that makes my chest tight.

I remember fragments of it now that I’m not running on pure adrenaline. The cold creeping in from my extremities. The darkness closing in around the edges of my vision. The feeling of slipping away, like falling backwards into an endless void.

“But I’m alive, right?”

“Because we made a choice for you,” Dathan says. “A choice we had no right to make.”

“A choice that saved my life.”

“A choice that has trapped you,” Verik adds bitterly.

The weight of his words settles between us like a fifth presence in the room. They’re carrying this like a burden, the guilt of choosing my life over my freedom.

“Food,” I mutter, because going down this road now will lead to no good. I’m too angry, too violated.

The dining hall is busy but not packed. The few scattered groups don’t look our way, too absorbed in their own problems to notice ours.

We take our usual table in the back corner. The isolation feels more pronounced now, more permanent. Like the space between us and the rest of the world has grown wider.

Dathan wanders off to grab some sandwiches and returns with a loaded plate. I pick up a sandwich while the guys watch me like I might dissolve into smoke. Every movement I make seems to trigger a collective holding of breath, as if they expect me to collapse at any moment.

“Stop staring,” I mutter through a mouthful of ham and cheese.

“We nearly lost you,” Dathan says.

“But you didn’t. So stop acting like I’m made of spun glass.” But the truth is, I don’t know anything. The magic could stop working at any moment, and I could bleed out and drop dead.

“Would you have made the same choice if you’d been alive to do so?” Verik demands.

“I don’t know.”

The silence that follows is deafening as they all think the same thing. Their choice to save me took away my choice to refuse a binding that I might have, knowing the consequences. But maybe I wouldn’t have. Therein lies the problem.

We will never know.

We’re all trapped now, in different ways.

I push my plate away, the food sitting in my stomach like lead. “The Ossuary Tower. That’s where Verik made the last doorway to the Spire.”

Standing up feels like a monumental effort. My body is still recovering from being dead, and everything aches in a way that goes deeper than muscle and bone. It’s like my soul is bruised.

“Are you sure you’re ready for this?” Dathan asks as we leave the dining hall.

“Ready for what? Walking through a doorway? I think I can manage that much.”

But even as I say it, something feels wrong. The patterns around my neck are warming, pulsing faster. Like they’re responding to something I can’t see.

We walk through DarkHallow’s familiar corridors, past the gothic arches and grotesque gargoyles that have become as much a part of my world as breathing. But everything feels different now. Heavier. More permanent. These walls aren’t just the academy anymore. They feel like something else entirely.

Like a cage.

A prison.

The Ossuary Tower rises before us, bone-white stone that gleams pale against the darkening sky. We climb the spiral staircase to the top room, where we were tested and tortured and forged into something stronger. Where we chose each other over everything else.

“Here,” Verik says, pointing to the centre of the floor where scorch marks still mar the ancient stone. Evidence of his architectural magic, permanent reminders burned into the foundation itself.

“Can you rebuild the doorway?” I ask.

“Easily.” He cracks his knuckles, a habit he’s never quite shaken. “But this time, I have the blueprint for the bottom of the Spire… or the top? I think it’s upside down… regardless, I can get us directly there.”

“You’re rambling,” I mutter.

“I know,” he mutters back.

There isn’t much to say after that. His arrogance has been shattered in the face of the last few hours.

Hellfire erupts from his hands, controlled and precise despite the raw power behind it. The stone melts under his touch, reshaping itself with impossible fluidity. Reality bends around his will, folding space like origami until a shimmer appears in the air.

The doorway appears, and my blood spikes. Beyond the threshold, I can see the twisted landscape of the Midnight Spire. Melted, dark stone, scorched dead bodies, discarded weapons glinting in the violet magic, sparking randomly.

“Ready?” Verik asks, but there’s something uncertain in his voice.

I step forward without hesitation. I have to. Beyond it lies the Forge, where the Crown waits to be completed, where the grimoire can be completed, where I can bring Evren back to life. That’s all that matters. Who knows? Maybe I can bring myself back to life as well while I’m at it.

That’s all the encouragement I need.

I reach out toward the shimmering portal.

Pain explodes through my entire nervous system like liquid fire. White-hot agony that starts at my throat and spreads outward through every nerve ending. My neck burns like hell. My vision fractures into kaleidoscope shards of suffering.

I’m thrown backwards, landing hard on the stone floor. What the fuck?

But then it hits me. My body convulses as the binding rejects the attempt to leave DarkHallow with violent finality.

Every muscle seizes. I can’t breathe. There is only one thought bouncing around my head.

DarkHallow is not only keeping me alive, it’s keeping me prisoner.

I’m trapped not just by my desire to stay alive, but by the wards that surround the academy.

It’s as if a stone decided to get up and wander off. It couldn’t.

Oh, the gargoyles.

They must suffer the same fate.

“Thea!” Dathan’s voice sounds distant, muffled by the roar of magical feedback in my ears.

The pain recedes slowly, now that I’m not going anywhere, leaving me gasping on the cold stone. The doorway shimmers innocently, open and inviting, but I can’t pass through it.

“What happened?” Verik asks, helping me sit up. His hands are shaking.

I stare at the portal that might as well be on the other side of the galaxy. “I can’t leave,” I grunt.

“What do you mean you can’t leave?” Dathan demands, but there’s already understanding dawning in his eyes.

I touch the patterns around my throat, feeling them pulse with satisfied warmth. They’ve done their job. Kept me exactly where I’m supposed to be.

“The binding,” I say, and my voice hoarse. “It’s not just keeping me alive. It’s keeping me here by force. I’m part of DarkHallow, and I’m not going anywhere that isn’t classified as DarkHallow.”

“So, the underground is a separate entity,” Verik murmurs.

“Makes sense,” Derik says slowly. “Fuck, Thea. We’re sorry.”

“Never mind your fucking apologies,” I growl, rising like the fucking dead. “How are we supposed to reach the Forge?”

“Ah, yes, slight hitch, it appears,” Blackgrove says, appearing like a ghost. “I thought that might happen.”

I whirl around, fists clenched. “And you didn’t think to mention it?”

“I wanted to see first, without you having prior knowledge that could potentially block you from leaving.”

“So, you tested me? Now of all fucking times?” I’m incandescent with rage.

Blackgrove studies me with those unsettling blue eyes. “Life is a series of tests, Miss Lysithea.”

“Now what?” I demand, ignoring his blasé remark. “How am I supposed to get to the Forge?”

“That is a very good question. One we need the grimoire for.”

“The grimoire that’s in the fucking Forge?” Dathan mutters.

“The very same,” Blackgrove clips out. “Get it to come to you.”

“And then what? That thing is as obtuse as you !” I snarl.

Blackgrove’s smile is a thin, condescending line. “The grimoire is a part of you now, Miss Lysithea. A bond signed in blood. Surely you can get its attention. And if not…” He glances at the guys. “There are still three of you who are free to leave.”

I gape at him as he vanishes and spin around to face the guys. “Don’t you fucking dare leave without me!” I roar.

“Whoa,” Verik says, putting his hands up. “We weren’t going anywhere.”

“But we need the grimoire,” Evren says quietly.

His voice. His beautiful voice, with the slight lilt to it that I’ve only just noticed, calms me down as quickly as the rage ignited.

“You’re right,” I say slowly. “But how?”