Page 33 of Infernal Crown (Cursed Darkness (DarkHallow Academy) #3)
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
LYSITHEA
“Verik!” I shriek, causing a rip tide effect in this unfamiliar dimension that knocks us all off our feet, including the three armed guards that nearly took Verik’s head off his shoulders.
“Fuck, Thea,” Dathan grumbles. “Warn a guy next time.”
“It wasn’t supposed to do that,” I groan, rubbing my head, Crown still attached and not lying dead on the ground. “Hey! It worked! But fuck, the air here is volatile.”
“It’s a hell dimension,” Verik growls. “I knew you three should’ve stayed at DarkHallow.”
If anything was going to get me on my feet and shake off the birdies flying around my head, that was it.
“Fuck that,” I snarl. “Move over there.” I gesture to the guys as the rebels get unsteadily to their feet, clearly not expecting a Nox Siren to come shrieking out of the doorway they were obviously guarding in case Verik decided to return.
Ignoring the hellfire lapping at the hem of my dress, I lean forward and open my mouth to let out the mother of all screams at the guards.
As the backlash hits, I duck and roll to the side before it can hit me again, looking up through my hair to see the guards thrown back arse over tit.
“Yes!” I call out. “I’m figuring this shit out!”
“How nice for you,” Verik drawls. “Less fun, more killing.”
“Spoilsport,” I mutter, getting to my feet.
The ground beneath my boots is scorched black rock, veined with something that glows like cooling lava.
The sky is a perpetual twilight of bruised purple and angry red, choked with the smell of sulphur and burnt magic.
It’s horrible. It’s light. I fucking love it.
Dathan is on his feet in a flash, shadows coiling around his fists.
“Killing, you say? Yes, Your Majesty.” He moves towards the first guard.
The demon’s eyes widen in terror. The guard grunts, but it’s a thin, reedy sound, cut short by a gurgle as Dathan’s shadows solidify into something sharp and final.
Evren is right behind him, moving with a grace that’s almost jarring now that he’s truly alive. He doesn’t use magic. Just a knife that appears in his hand from nowhere. He dispatches the second guard with two precise, economical movements. No wasted energy. No theatrics. Just a clean, silent end.
Verik handles the third. He doesn’t even move from his spot. He just raises a hand, and a whip of pure hellfire cracks the air, wrapping around the demon’s neck and turning him to ash before he can even register what’s happening.
The fight is over in seconds. Silence descends, broken only by the hum of Verik’s portal behind us.
“Right,” Verik says, his hellfire eyes scanning the hellscape ahead. “That’s the welcoming committee dealt with. Now for the real party. Let’s go remind them who owns this place.”
We turn to where he is looking. In the distance, an enormous palace made from magma cuts through the skyline.
“That’s home?” I ask, my voice a little breathless.
It’s a monstrosity. A beautiful, terrifying monstrosity.
Rivers of molten rock flow down its sides like waterfalls, hardening into grotesque sculptures before melting away again.
Towers pierce the bruised sky, windows glowing like a thousand malevolent eyes.
“More or less,” Verik says, already moving. “The main keep. The rebels will have fortified the main entrance. We’re not going that way.”
He leads us away from the open ground and into a network of jagged rock formations that provide some cover. The heat is intense, a dry, oppressive blanket that makes the air shimmer. My dress is definitely not practical for this climate, as my pits sweat and my hair sticks to my scalp.
“So, what’s the plan?” Dathan asks. “Storm the gates? Announce your glorious return?”
“Subtlety,” Verik grunts. “There’s a service aqueduct that feeds the lower forges. It’s a sewer, basically. But it’ll get us inside the outer walls without raising an alarm.”
“A sewer?” I wrinkle my nose. “Charming.”
“It’s a sewer that carries liquid fire, not shit,” Verik corrects. “Try to keep up.”
He stops at a cliff edge overlooking a chasm. Below, a river of fire flows sluggishly, disappearing into a grate in the palace’s foundation. The roar is deafening.
“That’s our way in,” Verik says, a wild, almost joyful glint in his eyes. “Any complaints?”
“Just one,” Dathan says with a grin. “You didn’t mention there’d be this much cardio.”
“And another,” I add. “How the fuck are we supposed to walk through fire and not get burned?”
Verik looks at me like I’ve just asked if water is wet. “Because you’re with me,” he says, as if that explains everything. Which, to be fair, it probably does.
He steps to the edge of the chasm, holding a hand out over the river of fire. The molten rock below responds to his presence, parting the fire and creating a safe path between two walls of fire.
“Satisfied?” he asks, not looking back.
“Show-off,” I mutter, but I follow him down some jagged steps to reach the fire sewer.
The path he creates is solid black rock, still radiating a fierce heat that makes my eyes water. Walls of liquid fire tower on either side of us, contained by nothing but Verik’s will. The sheer power is intoxicating. It’s a display that makes my own magic feel like a parlour trick.
We walk in single file, the roar a constant pressure against my ears. Up ahead, the grate is a monstrous thing of black iron, thick as my arm, with intricate, demonic carvings.
“How do you plan on opening that?” Dathan shouts over the din.
Verik doesn’t answer. He doesn’t even break his stride. As we approach, he raises a hand. The iron bars twist and groan, warping into a new shape, creating an opening just large enough for us to slip through one by one.
We duck inside, leaving the river of fire behind. The sound cuts off abruptly, replaced by a dripping echo of some substance I don’t want to acknowledge.
“What’s the plan for when we get inside the palace?” I whisper.
“All magic blazing,” Verik mutters back. “We are outnumbered but not outpowered. Remember that.”
His final two words chill me even in the stifling heat. I coil my shadow magic around my fists so it’s ready to strike. I clear my throat so my voice, my most formidable weapon, will ring out clear and true.
The tunnel spits us out onto a narrow ledge overlooking a cavern so vast it has its own weather system of smoke and embers.
Below us is a forge, a hellish factory floor where hundreds of demons hammer out weapons in the rhythmic clang of metal on metal.
The air is thick with the coppery tang of blood and steel.
“The armoury,” Verik breathes, his voice tight with fury. “They’re arming for a full-scale war.”
“Not for much longer,” Dathan says, his shadow stretching unnaturally long in the forge light.
Verik gives a sharp nod. He doesn’t need to give an order. We just know.
He steps off the ledge. He doesn’t fall. He plummets like a meteor, landing in the centre of the forge with an explosion of hellfire that sends demons flying. The rhythmic hammering stops. Every head turns towards him.
That’s our cue.
Dathan dissolves into the darkness clinging to the cavern ceiling. A moment later, screams erupt from the far side of the forge, resonating with pure, mind-shattering terror. Demons drop their weapons and claw at their own eyes, seeing whatever nightmares he’s conjured for them.
Evren drops silently to the floor, a phantom in the chaos. He moves through the stunned demons like a surgeon, his knife a blur of white bone that leaves a trail of silent corpses in his wake.
I take a breath, filling my lungs with the foul, superheated air. I focus on the structure of the cavern itself, the great stone pillars holding up the roof. I find their resonant frequency, which is similar to the wonky air outside, but not the same.
Then I sing a single, perfect, destructive note.
The demons inside bleed from every orifice and collapse in silent, twitching, dying heaps.
“Subtle,” Dathan’s voice drips from the shadows above. A few demons who somehow survived my song are now screaming in abject terror, clawing at their own faces as his nightmares take hold.
Verik stands untouched in the epicentre of the carnage, a king surveying his reclaimed territory.
Hellfire swirls around him. He raises a hand.
The great forges roar to life, the flames leaping to consume the fallen and their weapons, melting everything into a single, molten river.
He’s erasing them as he erased the god-book.
He turns his burning gaze towards a massive set of obsidian doors at the far end of the cavern and stalks towards them without a backward glance. He knows we’re right behind him. We’re a force of nature now.
And we’re just getting started.