Page 38 of Infernal Crown (Cursed Darkness (DarkHallow Academy) #3)

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

LYSITHEA

I wake up tangled between three warm bodies in our massive bed, the heat of the hell realm making the silk sheets stick to my skin. Outside the windows, rivers of lava flow past in their eternal dance, casting flickering shadows across the obsidian walls.

Verik’s arm tightens around my waist as I try to slip out of bed. “Where are you going?”

“Classes,” I murmur, pressing a kiss to his shoulder. “Advanced Theoretical Sorcery this morning.”

“Fuck classes,” Dathan mumbles from somewhere near my feet. “Stay here and let us worship you properly.”

“Tempting,” I admit, because it really is. The prospect of spending the day learning about dimensional theory when I’ve actually folded space with divine power feels absurd. “But I made a commitment.”

Evren’s eyes open, instantly alert despite having been dead asleep moments before. “Blackgrove’s assignment?”

“Among other things.” I extricate myself from the tangle of limbs and walk over to where I left my clothes. The Crown sits on Verik’s dresser, metal cool despite the hellish temperature. I pick it up, feeling the familiar thrum of divine power, then slip it onto my head before getting dressed.

The transformation is immediate but contained now. Power flows through me like liquid starlight, but it doesn’t overwhelm my senses the way it did when I first wore it. The Crown has adjusted itself to fit me specifically rather than trying to reshape me to fit its purpose.

“Still strange seeing you with that thing,” Dathan observes, sitting up in bed.

“Strange wearing it,” I admit. “But useful. At least I can take it off once I reach DarkHallow.”

“Back tonight,” I promise, stepping through the portal Verik created in the corner of the bedroom.

The transition from hellish heat to DarkHallow’s perpetual chill makes me shiver.

My room is exactly as I left it yesterday evening, shadows thick in the corners despite the floating candles that provide dim illumination.

The academy’s magic recognises my presence, responding to the authority that binds me to this place.

The Crown goes into the bottom of my wardrobe, hidden under spare blankets in a box designed to kill anyone who opens it that isn’t me.

With that sorted, I slip out of my room and make my way to the dining hall for breakfast. I prefer to eat here in the morning, or I feel like I’m running late.

It is already buzzing with activity when I arrive.

Most students don’t even notice me. Same old, same old.

If only they knew who walked amongst them now.

I grab coffee that tastes faintly of brimstone and a pastry, before crossing over to my usual table at the back. The isolation doesn’t bother me. In fact, I welcome it.

When I finish my breakfast, I head to Advanced Theoretical Sorcery.

This is going to be a bore, but I sit through it, making notes and trying not to fall asleep.

Professor Marrick drones on about dimensional folding theory, and I bite my tongue against the urge to correct him.

I’ve felt it firsthand, bent reality through the Crown’s influence in ways that make his neat little diagrams look like children’s drawings.

But I keep my mouth shut and take notes like a good student. No point in revealing that I’ve gained practical experience that makes theoretical knowledge almost irrelevant.

“Miss Lysithea,” Marrick calls out, pulling my attention from my notes. “Perhaps you’d like to explain how one might stabilise a portal between dimensions with significantly different magical densities?”

Every head in the classroom turns towards me.

“You’d need to create a buffer zone that gradually shifts the magical signature from one realm’s frequency to the other. The transition can’t be abrupt, or the portal destabilises.”

“Adequate,” Marrick says, though his tone suggests he expected more. “Can you elaborate on the mechanism of that transition?”

I can feel the Crown’s godly knowledge pressing against the back of my mind, offering detailed explanations of dimensional mechanics that would blow this entire class’s understanding apart. But I force myself to stick to what a third-year student should reasonably know.

“The buffer acts like a translator,” I continue. “It takes the raw magical energy from one side and converts it into something compatible with the other realm’s natural state. Like translating a language, but for magic itself.”

Marrick nods slowly. “And the structural integrity of such a buffer?”

“Would depend on the caster’s ability to maintain consistent output across both dimensional frequencies simultaneously.” I’m pulling from actual experience now, remembering how Verik’s portal felt when we crossed through it. “Any fluctuation could cause catastrophic collapse.”

“Correct.” He turns back to the board, already moving on to the next concept.

When class finally ends, I gather my things and head towards the library.

Blackgrove wants me to start the mentorship programme with one of my fellow dangerous residents from the ground floor.

I’m intrigued as fuck, and I know the guys are dying to know who or what it is.

I find Blackgrove in one of the forbidden alcoves, holding a book aloft.

“Void Wraiths,” he says without any pleasantries. “Everything they touch disappears.”

“Okay, and you have one here, living next to me?” I smile icily.

He ignores me. “They are one of the most dangerous and unpredictable creatures to exist in this realm.”

“I can see why,” I mutter, taking the book and glancing at the cover. It appears to be a compendium of Void Wraiths.

I flip through the pages, each one detailing incidents that make me more than cautious of this creature. Void Wraiths don’t kill, they erase. Creatures, places, entire sections of reality simply cease to exist when a Void Wraith is around.

“Name?” I ask, closing the book.

“Kael. He’s been here for about the same time as you.”

“What? Just locked away in his room?”

“I can hardly let him loose on this academy, Miss Lysithea. There would be nothing left.”

“So, he’s contained?”

“Quite.”

“And what am I supposed to do?”

“Use your godly powers to stabilise him.”

“Stabilise? How, exactly?”

“That is entirely your call, Miss Lysithea.”

“Are you joking?” I ask, because, what the fuck? How in the hell realms am I supposed to stabilise a creature that swallows things into an abyss?

Blackgrove’s expression doesn’t change. “I’m never joking, Miss Lysithea.”

“Right. Of course not.” I clutch the book tighter, feeling the weight of this assignment settle over me like a burden. “When do I meet him?”

“Now would be ideal.”

I follow Blackgrove through the library’s shadowed corridors, making our way to the ground floor of the residence building. We walk past my door, and I feel quite insulted. I am nowhere near as dangerous as this Void Wraith creature. Or am I to others? I guess they obviously think so.

We stop outside the door on the opposite side of the hallway to mine, a little bit further back.

“His room is specially constructed,” Blackgrove explains. “The walls are reinforced with reality anchors to prevent his abilities from affecting the surrounding structure.”

“Comforting,” I mutter.

“He knows you’re coming. I sent word this morning.”

Blackgrove places his hand against the door, and it dissolves like smoke.

Beyond lies a room that makes my eyes hurt to look at.

The space inside exists and doesn’t exist simultaneously, reality flickering in and out of focus with nauseating regularity.

I step through the doorway, and reality bends around me in ways that make my stomach lurch.

My power flares instinctively, creating a buffer between me and whatever wrongness permeates this space.

The door reappears behind me, leaving me alone with this creature.

In the centre of the room sits a figure wrapped in shadows that aren’t quite shadows.

“Kael?” I say, my voice sounding strange in this space where sound doesn’t quite work properly.

The figure’s head turns towards me. I can’t make out features through the void-stuff wrapped around him, but I sense attention focusing on me with uncomfortable intensity.

“You’re a goddess,” he says. His voice echoes, like it’s coming from multiple places at once. “Blackgrove said you’d help.”

“I’m going to try,” I promise, though I have absolutely no fucking idea how. Kael isn’t a portal or a spell gone wrong. He’s a living creature whose very existence threatens to unmake everything around him.

I take another step closer, and the void-shadows reach towards me like curious tentacles.

“Does it hurt?” I ask. “Being like this?”

“What are you a goddess of?” he asks instead of answering.

Good fucking question. The grimoire wanted me to be the goddess of Absolute Truth, but that’s clearly not it.

“I don’t know yet. Still figuring that out.”

“How can you help me if you don’t know what you are?”

“Because sometimes not knowing is better. I’m not trying to fit you into some perfect category or fix you according to cosmic rules. I’m just trying to help you exist without erasing everything around you.”

Kael’s attention sharpens, though I still can’t see his face through the darkness wrapped around him.

“Everyone else wants to contain me,” he says quietly. “Lock me away where I can’t hurt anyone. You’re different.”

“I know what it feels like when power tries to change your fundamental nature. So no, I’m not here to contain you or fix you. I’m here to help you control what you already are.”

“Control.” He laughs, the sound echoing through multiple dimensions at once. “I touch things, and they cease to exist. How do you control that?”

“We don’t control it. At least not at first. We have to create a barrier between you and everything else.”

“How? It’s been tried countless times.”

I sigh, slightly out of my depth here, but my brain is working overtime. “Double-sided, maybe. Void on your side, so the power still gets to do what it wants, but the other side is blocked. There has to be some material, some spell that counteracts your power.”

“No one has ever found it if there is one.”

“Leave it with me. I will figure this out.”

I can feel his desolation hit me hard. He had hope, and I’ve killed it by not having a solution.

I turn to leave, my mind already racing through possibilities.

My goddess power hums through my veins, searching for answers.

Somewhere in the cosmic understanding of reality’s fundamental structure, there has to be a solution.

But I come up empty.

The door dissolves again as I approach, and I step back into the normal corridor where Blackgrove waits.

“Well?” he asks.

“I need to research. There has to be something that can block his power without completely suppressing it.”

“If there were, I would have found it already.”

“Then maybe I need to create something new.” The words surprise me even as I say them. “I have access to divine creation. Maybe I can forge something that doesn’t exist yet.”

Blackgrove’s expression shifts into something that might be approval. “Ambitious.”

“You gave me an impossible task. I’m giving you an impossible solution.”

“Then I suggest you get started, Miss Lysithea.”

I cross the hallway to my room, the weight of this new responsibility settling over my shoulders. Classes, mentorship, ruling a hell realm… fun times.