Page 5 of Infernal Crown (Cursed Darkness (DarkHallow Academy) #3)

CHAPTER FIVE

LYSITHEA

Standing in the shadow of some kind of carnivorous plant in the Nightmare Garden, I bat at its little jaws as it tries to bite me.

“Don’t make me tell you to fuck off as well,” I say, crouching down to stare at the bioluminescent orchids.

“Hello, pretties. You are a bright spot in this shitty world.”

They shimmer a bit brighter, almost preening with the compliment, and I sigh.

“What am I supposed to do now?”

He ghosts out of the dark like he belongs to it. His mere presence doesn’t even have to be announced.

Fucker.

“Miss Lysithea,” he says. “Talking to flowers?”

“They don’t talk back,” I mutter, stroking a petal.

“Mm.” His gaze burns into my back. I don’t move. I don’t rise or turn around. I don’t even know what to say to him. Thanks for bringing me back? Thanks for tying me to this place? Thanks for fucking nothing?

“You cannot leave,” he says quietly. “So, take it with you.”

I inhale deeply and turn to stare at him. “English, please.”

“Annexation,” he says. “A temporary extension of DarkHallow’s grounds. A pocket of the academy grafted onto you. You are bound to DarkHallow. So, take DarkHallow with you.”

I go still. “That’s a thing?”

“It is now.” He reaches into his coat and brings out a stone the size of his palm. Obsidian shot through with starlight. It hums. My collar answers, a soft thrum at my throat. I hate that it feels like relief.

“What is it?”

He sits on the nearby stone bench. “The Rector’s Keystone. Founders used it during the first war to relocate sanctuaries. The rite is forgotten. I did not forget.”

“What’s the catch?” I ask, because of course there is one.

He almost smiles. “Time. Cost. Blood.”

“Of course,” I repeat flatly.

“It will bite,” he says. “It requires blood, authority, and a declaration.”

He weighs the stone in his palm, then extends it. “Authority from the Headmaster of DarkHallow.” He touches the edge of the stone with his thumb. The air cracks. The Keystone drinks his sanction. “And a declaration from the de facto Sovereign of the Realm”

My laugh is hollow. “Who’s that then?”

“You,” he says.

His seriousness makes me straighten up. I rise, staring down at him as he looks up at me with no trace of sarcasm or annoyance.

“What do you mean?”

“You’re the only Nox Siren. Only one can exist at a time. You were created by a god, Miss Lysithea. That makes you… powerful. The only one with a legitimate claim to the power that built this realm and the Crown that can rule it.”

“That’s insane.”

“Is it?” His gaze is sharp, cutting through my disbelief.

“You command forces that can level this academy. You shattered a fundamental law of reality. You are bound to a god-grimoire. These are not the actions of a student, Miss Lysithea. They are the actions of a monarch. The declaration is simple. You claim what is yours. Your birthright. Your power. Your sovereignty. Speak it, and the Keystone will answer.”

I stare at the humming stone. It feels like another trap. Another cage with gilded bars. But it’s also a key. The only key that gets us to the Forge. That gets Evren his life back. That finishes this.

“And if I refuse?”

“Then you remain a prisoner,” he says without a hint of sympathy. “And your men remain here with you. The choice, as always, is yours.”

“As always? I have never been given a choice for anything.”

“Pity only gets you so far, Miss Lysithea. And it’s not a good look.”

I grimace at him, but he’s right. I’m being a weak, pitiful creature, and that’s not who I want to be. “What is your truth, Thane?” I ask quietly.

“I, too, am bound to this place.”

That hits me in the heart. “So why don’t you use this on yourself?”

He contemplates that for a moment. “I am not a Sovereign of this realm, and who says I want to leave DarkHallow?”

“What, never?”

The question hangs between us. He doesn’t want to leave. I almost understand it. This place is a cage, but it’s a familiar one. Safe, in its own fucked-up way.

I take the Keystone from his hand. It’s heavy, cold, and it thrums against my skin like a trapped bird.

I look from the stone in my hand back to him. My choice is already made. It was made the second I promised Evren his life back. “What’s the declaration?”

He meets my gaze, a flicker of something unreadable in his eyes. “You claim your title. You claim your power. You claim this realm.”

I take a deep breath. “I am Lysithea, the only Nox Siren. I claim my sovereignty. I claim this realm as mine to protect. Mine to rule.”

The Keystone flares, its light a violent, star-dusted purple. It demands the final price.

I don’t hesitate. I press the sharp edge of the stone against my palm, slicing the skin open. Blood wells up, dark and potent. The Keystone drinks it greedily, the starlight within swirling into a chaotic vortex.

It bites back. Pain, sharp and absolute, lances up my arm as the stone shatters and grafts itself to my skin, a living extension of DarkHallow and my own will.

The response is immediate. Every gargoyle, every statue, every stone, every tree, plant and animal on these grounds belongs to me.

Is me. I suck in a shocked breath as the power of the entire academy floods my senses.

I know the exact location of every secret passage, every whispering ghost. I feel the power of the ley lines beneath the stone, a deep, resonant heartbeat.

The academy is an extension of my body. My will.

“You are DarkHallow,” Blackgrove says, his voice a low rumble in the sudden, overwhelming symphony of my new senses. “And DarkHallow is you.”

He vanishes, and I stumble as he pulls on the power of DarkHallow. “Ohh,” I say slowly. “So that’s how you do it.”

He chuckles, an echoing sound all around me. “You know my secrets now, Miss Lysithea,” he whispers in my ear, making me jump.

“I won’t tell anyone. You can trust me.” The words are stupid, like he gives a flying fuck about me, but I needed to say it. Needed him to know anyway.

There is only silence. I think he has truly left, but then a whispered, “Thank you,” brushes against my conscience, and I smile sadly.

We are the same. Bound.

Except I can leave, and he can’t. But leave isn’t really true. It’s not true freedom. It means I can enter the Midnight Spire, enter the Forge, create the Crown. A new burden has been placed on me. If I leave DarkHallow, I leave it vulnerable. Too much of the magic of this place will come with me.

I shouldn’t care. I should run a fucking thousand miles and still keep running.

But running isn’t an option. Never has been.