Page 35 of Infernal Crown (Cursed Darkness (DarkHallow Academy) #3)

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

VERIK

Lysithea’s note slices through the air, pure and sharp. It’s a sound that has no place in this realm of fire and violence, yet it’s more destructive than any weapon. I feel it in my bones, a vibration that resonates with the obsidian cores of the golems.

Cracks span out across their molten hides. The constructs shudder, their movements becoming sluggish, their forms unstable. The obsidian inside them is turning to sand.

I seize the moment. While her song dismantles them from within, I attack their animating force. I rip the hellfire from their crumbling cores, wrestling control from my father’s ancient enchantments. The fire roars in protest, but it answers to me now. It’s my birthright.

For a single, glorious second, two towering figures of pure flame stand before us, their physical anchors gone. Then, with a final, contemptuous flick of my will, I snuff them out. They collapse into pools of cooling slag.

Silence returns, thick and heavy.

The throne room doors stand open. I stride through them, my boots crunching on shattered rock. The air inside is thick with arrogance. And sitting on my throne, looking bored, is Zarthus. My father’s former general. A hulking, ambitious brute who always thought he was smarter than he was.

He doesn’t even stand. He just smirks, showing teeth like sharpened flint. “Look what the portal dragged in,” he drawls. “Come to beg for your scraps, little prince?”

I don’t waste my breath. I let my hellfire answer for me, flames coiling up my arms. Behind me, I feel the others spreading out, a four-person army ready to take a kingdom.

Zarthus finally rises, drawing a massive, two-handed blade from the sheath on his back. “It seems a lesson in respect is overdue.”

“Stand down,” I say as Dathan raises his hands. “This arsehole is mine.”

Zarthus charges, his blade a blur of black steel. He’s all power, no finesse. A predictable brute. He swings the sword in a wide arc meant to cleave me in two. I sidestep, the blade hissing past my ear, the wind of its passage hot on my cheek.

I don’t need a weapon. I am the weapon. I send a whip of hellfire, cracking towards his face. He brings the flat of his blade up just in time, the fire splashing against it with a roar. He’s fast. But he’s a dinosaur fighting a meteor.

I slam my palm on the floor. The obsidian tiles respond to my command. A section of the floor beneath Zarthus’s feet drops away, forming a shallow pit. His charge stumbles, his balance broken for a crucial second. It’s all I need.

Hellfire erupts in my hands. I don’t throw it. I shape it into chains that whip out, wrapping around his sword arm, his legs. They sizzle against his armour, but he’s strong, tearing through the weaker links with a roar of frustration.

“Tricks!” he bellows, swinging his blade wildly. “Fight me like a demon!”

“I am,” I say, stepping into his reach. “A demon with a brain, not just brawn.”

I duck under his next wild swing and drive my fist into his gut, with a concentrated blast of hellfire that punches through his armour like it’s parchment. The smell of burning flesh fills my nostrils, acrid and satisfying.

He staggers back, clutching the smoking wound. He grins like the devil. “You’re stronger than before.”

“I’m everything I was always meant to be. And you’re just a placeholder warming a throne that was never yours.”

He lunges with fury, abandoning technique for raw aggression. His blade comes at me from three different angles in rapid succession. I meet each strike, using hellfire to create barriers that redirect his attacks, turning his own momentum against him.

The throne room becomes my canvas of obsidian and flame.

I reshape it with each flick of my wrist. Jagged pillars of black glass erupt from the floor, catching his sword mid-swing; molten chasms open beneath his feet, their edges glowing crimson like the maw of some ancient beast; the polished floor warps into a labyrinth of razor-sharp ridges that slice at his boots while I dance across them, untouched.

The air shimmers with heat distortion, casting wavering shadows across walls that pulse with veins of magma at my command.

This is what the arsehole never understood.

Power isn’t measured in brute force, but in mastery.

In bending reality itself to become your weapon.

Behind me, I hear the sounds of battle as more rebel forces descend on the palace, flooding up the stairs. Zarthus has an army a hundred times the size of ours, but there isn’t a chance in hell that they will win.

Outnumbered, but not outpowered.

“Lysithea!” I hear Dathan cry, and then a screech that hits even my Soul Scar-protected ears erupts from her lungs.

Zarthus slaps his hands to his ears, his eyes wide and bleeding.

“Dammit, hellcat!” I growl.

“Sorry!” she calls back. “Needed to get rid of a few. Even the playing field.”

I smirk. “That’s my girl,” I tell Zarthus. “She’s one in an infinite number.”

Zarthus drops his hands, fists of hellfire burning bright. “Watch me take her from you and claim her on this throne while you watch!” he snarls.

“Did you just threaten to rape my woman?” I ask. “Seriously?”

Dathan’s nightmare magic lashes out, wrapping around Zarthus’ legs, nearly toppling him. “You fucking cunt,” he spits out. “You’re going to regret that.”

I’ve had enough.

Zarthus’s threat echoes in my skull, and something inside me snaps. Something colder than rage. More final.

I raise both hands. The throne room responds instantly. Every vein of magma in the walls, every ember in the air, every spark of hellfire in this entire fucking palace, all answer to me. The rightful heir.

“You want to know the difference between a general and a king?” I ask, my voice deadly calm. “A general fights battles. A king ends wars.”

The hellfire devours. It flows from every corner of the throne room, converging on Zarthus in streams of liquid destruction. His armour melts first, dripping off him like wax. Then his skin begins to char.

He screams. It’s a beautiful sound.

Dathan turns his back to resume the fight with the rebel army.

I walk forward slowly, each step deliberate—the hellfire parts around me like a curtain. When I reach Zarthus, he’s on his knees, his flesh blackened and cracking, his eyes wild with pain and fury.

“My throne,” I say quietly. “My realm. My rules.”

I place my hand on his head. He tries to jerk away, but he’s too weak. I let the hellfire flow from my palm directly into his skull, burning him from the inside out.

His body collapses into ash that scatters across my throne room floor. I stare at the pile of grey dust that was once my father’s most trusted general, feeling nothing but satisfaction.

The sounds of battle behind me are dying down. Lysithea’s voice rings out in short, controlled bursts, each note dropping rebels like stones.

I turn to survey the carnage. The throne room is littered with bodies and ash. The remaining rebels are either dead or running. Good. Let them run. Let them spread the word that the true heir has returned, and he brought death with him.

“Status?” I call out.

“Messy but manageable,” Dathan replies. “The ones who aren’t dead are pissing themselves on their way out.”

“The main resistance is broken. Stragglers are fleeing into the lower levels,” Evren says, his knife clean despite the violence.

Lysithea walks towards me, her dress torn and singed, blood spattered across her face that isn’t hers. She’s never looked more beautiful.

“Your realm is a shithole,” she says, but she’s smiling.

“It needs work,” I admit, looking around. “We’ll start by taking out the trash.”

With a sweep of my hand, the dead bodies ignite, burning away to nothing in moments. The throne room clears of corpses, leaving only scorched stone and the faint smell of sulphur.

I turn to face the throne. My throne. The massive seat is carved from a single piece of volcanic rock, inlaid with veins of gold that pulse with residual magic. My father sat here for centuries, growing soft and complacent. I won’t make the same mistake.

“Verik,” Lysithea says, coming to stand beside me. “What now?”

“Now?” I look down at her, this small, fierce woman who followed me into hell without hesitation. “Now I claim what’s mine.”

I stride forward and sit. The throne recognises me immediately, its ancient enchantments responding to my bloodline.

Power flows through the stone, connecting me to every corner of this realm.

I feel the network of ley lines that run beneath the palace, the defensive wards around the borders, the forges still burning in the depths.

It’s intoxicating. This is what I was born for.

“How does it feel?” Dathan asks, shadows still coiling around his hands.

“Like coming home,” I reply. “Like finally being what I was always meant to be.”

“So,” Dathan says, breaking the silence. “Do we bow, or is that optional?”

“Bow and I’ll melt your knees,” I reply, holding my hand out for Lysithea. “My Queen?”

She stares at my hand for a moment. Long enough for the doubts to settle like lead in the pit of my stomach.

Then, after several excruciating seconds, she takes my hand, her small fingers wrapping around mine. The heat of my realm doesn’t touch her. The Soul Scar pulses between us, our magic intertwining like threads of fire and shadow.

“I’m not calling you ‘Your Majesty,’” she says, stepping up onto the dais beside me.

“What, not even when you’re riding my cock?” I pull her down onto my lap, and she doesn’t resist.

“Especially not then!” She settles against my chest, her head fitting perfectly under my chin. “Though I should point out that this throne is ridiculously uncomfortable.”

“It’s made of volcanic rock. Comfort wasn’t the priority.”

“Clearly.”

Dathan and Evren move to flank the throne, taking up positions like the world’s most dangerous honour guard. The image is perfect. Terrifying. This is what we are now. Conquerors.

“So, what’s the plan?” Evren asks. “You can’t leave now that you’ve reclaimed the throne."

Lysithea stiffens in my arms.

“No,” I say carefully. “I will have to remain here.”

“Then we all stay,” she says. “Okay, maybe go back for our stuff, but we can do that in a pair and get everyone’s shit sorted.”

“Is this what you really want?” I ask carefully. “To live here?”

She nods slowly. “Yes, but I’m no Queen, Verik. I need to do more with my life than sit around here.” She gestures around the throne room. “Maybe I finish at DarkHallow and take Blackgrove up on his offer to teach or something?” Her voice rises by a few octaves as her uncertainty is evident.

“That’s two more years, Thea,” Dathan says with a frown. “Can’t he just give you a job now? Then you can go back for a few hours and return?”

I stare at her as the question lingers in the air. She is at a crossroads, and as much as I want to force her to stay here with me, with us, she needs the freedom to decide for herself without us influencing her decision.