Page 6 of Infernal Crown (Cursed Darkness (DarkHallow Academy) #3)

CHAPTER SIX

DATHAN

A tremor runs through the stone beneath my feet. Not a physical shaking. It’s magical. The very air of the academy shifts, thickens. The Soul Scar on my arm flares, a sharp, possessive sting. It’s not her pain this time. It’s power. A vast, ancient power waking up and choosing a side. Her side.

It brings Evren running back up the stairs.

“What was that?” I ask slowly.

“The entire academy just bowed to her,” Verik says, his voice a low note of awe. He feels the shift in the very stones.

“What the fuck did Blackgrove do?” I growl, already moving.

“Who says it was Blackgrove?” Verik replies, but I can tell he’s thinking it too.

“It’s always Blackgrove,” I growl back.

“Whatever it was, he fixed it. Somehow. Maybe not truly, but enough. I can feel her power in the stones.” He crouches down and places his hand flat on the ground.

“We should find her,” I say, heading for the stairs.

“Why, so she can shout at us some more?” Verik asks, not moving. “Let her cool off. We are constantly hovering around her. It must be pissing her off when she can’t stand the sight of us right now.”

“We have grovelling to do,” Evren whispers. “But not now.”

“Yeah, well… look at how well the last time I had to stay away from her turned out?”

“You are such a child,” Verik murmurs. “Spoilt to the core. Your parents must’ve really fucking doted on you as a child.”

My temper flares as he talks about my parents. “They fucking threw me out of the Nightmare Realm. Some fucking doting that was.”

“Oh, because you decided to follow your own path? To come here and cause chaos instead of following in their footsteps? Poor fucking you. That was your damn choice. Me? I got exiled by a rebel force that forced my parents out of power. So, think yourself damn fucking lucky, you cunt.”

My temper flares. My nightmare magic erupts before I can control it, a wave of pure, concentrated terror aimed at his fucking face. The air between us fractures.

But Verik doesn’t flinch. His hellfire meets my nightmare head-on, a collision of rage and flame that sends sparks cascading across the stone floor. The impact rocks the tower, ancient bones rattling in their alcoves.

“Enough,” Evren snaps, throwing his cold magic at us, which hits Verik’s heat and causes a small storm that drenches us with ice rain. His voice cuts through our magical pissing contest like a blade. “You’re both acting like spoiled children.”

I pull my magic back, but the rage still burns in my chest. Verik’s hellfire gutters out, leaving scorch marks on the floor between us.

“She needs us,” Evren continues, his ice-blue eyes boring into both of us. “All of us. Not this petty bullshit.”

I know he’s right. But the mention of my parents, the casual dismissal of what that banishment cost me... it’s a wound that never quite heals. “I liked it better when you were mute,” I hiss at him.

He glares at me and gives me the finger before he spins on his heel and stalks out of the tower.

“Oh, well fucking done,” Verik snipes. “Way to go, arsehole.”

I clench my jaw so tightly it aches. Ignoring Verik, I go after Evren, catching up to him at the bottom of the stairs.

“Ev, I’m sorry. That was mean?—”

He blasts open the doors to the tower with his magic and strides out into the cold. “Fuck you,” he growls. “Fuck all of this.”

“Not you as well,” I snap. “Fine. Fuck off. We are better apart than together anyway.”

The words hang in the air between us like a poisonous cloud. Evren stops walking, his shoulders rigid. He doesn’t turn around, but I can see the frost spreading from his feet, creeping across the ground in sharp, angry patterns.

“You don’t mean that,” he says quietly, but there’s ice in his voice.

The truth is, I don’t. I’m angry and hurt and lashing out like a wounded animal. But admitting that feels like swallowing glass. “Maybe I do.”

He turns then, and the look in his eyes guts me. It’s not anger. It’s disappointment. Worse, it’s pity. Like he can see right through my bullshit to the scared, abandoned kid underneath.

“You’re terrified,” he whispers. “Terrified that she’ll realise what you are. What we all are. Monsters who trap people in cages because we’re too selfish to let them go.”

The words hit like a sword to the heart. Each one strips away another wall I’ve built around myself. “Shut up.”

“You think if you push us away first, it won’t hurt as much when she leaves.” His ice-blue eyes are too knowing, too clear. “But she can’t leave, Dathan. We made sure of that, didn’t we?”

My nightmare magic coils around my feet, responding to my emotional state. The shadows deepen, whispering secrets I don’t want to hear. He turns again, walking away from me, and I let him go. Verik stalks past me but turns to go in the opposite direction to Evren.

The Soul Scar burns, and I hiss as it feels like my heart just exploded. But I won’t go after them. They can all fuck off.

Come to me, and you will never be alone again.

The voice, that fucking voice in my head, rattles me. “I can’t, you dick. How about you come to me? Hmm? How about that then?”

To my shock, Tenebris Vinculum lands with a thud at my feet.

I look from it to the space where Evren and Verik disappeared, ready to shout them back.

But I don’t.

Fuck them twice.

“What do you want from me? From the god of Absolute Truth, what in the fucking fuck do you want from me?” The exhaustion in my words is a weakness, but I don’t care. I’m over this. I’m over this entire nightmare situation. I couldn’t make this shit up, and that is saying everything.

I want you to finish me.

“Oh, I’ll finish you, all right,” I growl, clenching my fist at its super creepy second eye. “You killed her.”

“She bled for me. It was her choice. Will you do the same?”

“For what? What will you do if I give you my blood? Fix this mess? Fix her?”

She doesn’t need fixing. She is exactly where she is meant to be.

“Which is where exactly?”

She accepts her role as Sovereign. She knows she is the creation of a god. Her power is growing.

“And? What does that have to do with me?”

You are part of the solution.

“Solution to what? You turning this realm into a shithole utopia?”

To giving her a place of her own. One where she can rule, one where you all can rule. One where she lives.

“She lives anyway. She’s walking around just fine.”

Ask her if she feels the same. In a century, two. Will she feel like she is alive, chained to these stones?

Gulp. When speaking in centuries, it kind of paints this picture in a whole new light.

“What do you mean, a place of her own?”

A sub-realm built on the foundation of DarkHallow.

I frown and crouch down. “Sub-realm? You mean a place adjacent to here that is a separate place but is still attached?”

Give him a medal. He’s not as stupid as he looks.

“Hey,” I growl.

Give her a sanctuary. A kingdom. A place where the laws of this realm bend to her will instead of the other way around.

The book flies open, and words appear on the page. Words that no fucker in any realm, anywhere at any time in the history, present or future should see.

The spell of pure creation. A built-from-scratch world.

Built from the bones of DarkHallow but separate from its constraints. A realm where she can be truly free while still being anchored to life.

I stand, my mind racing. It sounds too good to be true. Which means it probably is.

“What’s the catch?”

The Crown. The Forge. The completion of my pages. All must be achieved first.

“And if we fail?”

Then she remains bound to these stones until they crumble to dust. As will you all.

The threat hangs in the air like a blade. I look around the empty courtyard, feeling the weight of DarkHallow’s ancient stones, the whisper of centuries in its walls. The idea of being trapped here forever, watching Lysithea slowly fade into just another ghost haunting these halls...

“What do you need from me?”

Harmony. Your bond is fractured. You cannot do this alone.

“They’re as much to blame,” I mutter.

Maybe so, but they have cause to be hurt. Verik is right. You are acting like a spoiled child.

“Fuck. You.” I kick it away from me as I stand up, ready to leave it lying out here on the damp grass.

Case in point. The wryness is unmistakable.

I stand there staring at the smug-arse book, my pride warring with the cold reality of what it’s offering. A way out. Not just for her, but for all of us. A place where she doesn’t have to be chained to these stones on a magical life support system.

“And what happens to this realm once you are complete and she is living in another realm?”

I return this realm to a shithole utopia.

“You are a fucking cunt, you know that.”

I’ve been called worse.

“I bet.”

I consider this new information, but something just isn’t sitting right with me.

“Lysithea won’t go for it. She won’t let you return this realm to what it once was.”

She will have no choice.

“That’s the thing you don’t get about her. She will make sure she has a choice. Too many times, she’s been forced into situations without her consent. We did it to her, and I will regret that for the rest of my days. What we did to her was wrong.”

It was right.

“For you, maybe. Not for her. I won’t betray her again.”

Even though she hates you?

I scoff. “Nice try. She doesn’t hate. She is pissed off to the max with me, with all of us. But she doesn’t hate us.”

The grimoire’s pages rustle like dark laughter. You think you know her so well.

“I know her better than you do, you parasitic piece of shit.” I crouch down again. “You want to use her. We wanted to save her.”

And in doing so, you caged her. Just as I will cage this realm in truth when my purpose is complete.

“That’s different.”

Is it? You claim to act in her best interest while stripping away her choices.

I rock back on my heels, the truth burning in my chest. We did cage her. We made the choice for her because we couldn’t bear to lose her. Just like the grimoire is making choices for an entire realm because it believes it knows what’s best.

“Fuck,” I whisper.

Now you begin to understand your true purpose, Nightmare Sovereign.

I stare at the open pages, at the spell of pure creation written in flowing script that seems to move on its own. A sub-realm. A place where she could be sovereign, not just in name but in reality. Where the binding that keeps her alive wouldn’t also keep her trapped.

“A god,” I say flatly. “That is my purpose?”

Isn’t that what you wanted from the start? Why you used the Midnight Scar Soul Ritual on her? To become a god?

“Yes,” I say quietly.

You are now worthy of her.

Worthy of her. If only that were true. But this grimoire is the god of Absolute Truth. Would it lie to me? Is it even capable of lying?

I look up from the grimoire to find Lysithea standing at the edge of the courtyard, her silhouette framed by the twisted branches of a nightmare oak. She’s watching me with an expression I can’t read.

“How did you get it?” she asks.

I stand up again. “It came to me.”

“Just like that?”

“Sort of. I’m sorry, Thea. For everything we have done to you, for my part in all of this. It is my deepest regret, and if you walk away from me, I understand. I won’t stop you.”

She looks taken aback. “You won’t?”

I shake my head.

She moves closer. “Why not?”

“Because I’m done trying to dictate your life for you. You make your own choices, even if they hurt me, it’s not about me. It’s about you and what you need to do for you. If that doesn’t include me, I’ll accept that.”

Those words are the hardest words I’ve ever spoken, but it’s the truth. I know it, the book knows it, and she knows it.