Page 9 of Infernal Crown (Cursed Darkness (DarkHallow Academy) #3)

CHAPTER NINE

LYSITHEA

His mouth is a brutal claim, a statement of ownership that chases away the last of the chilling confusion.

I kiss him back with the same desperation, my fingers digging into his arms. The Soul Scar on my back burns, a painful echo of the bond’s confusion, but Verik’s proximity is an anchor. He’s here. He’s real. He’s mine.

I pull away, breathless. The taste of him, all ash and determination, lingers on my lips.

“We need to find Dathan and Evren. Now. They need to know that what they’re feeling is because of the Soul Scar’s confusion.”

He nods but then looks thoughtful. “What did you come and see me for? You said we needed to talk.”

I sigh. “It was about this. I had a dream when Tenny came to me, wearing my face. It had a few home truths to share, about Aeliana, about the bond, about me. I have to finish this.”

“It told me a few things as well,” Dathan’s voice says behind me.

I turn and run to him, gripping his shirt. “Don’t leave me,” I blurt out. “Don’t you fucking dare leave me.”

He stares down at me with sadness, but then he smiles and pulls me into his arms. “If you truly want me, I’m here and not going anywhere.”

“I truly want you. All of you.” I pull back. “What did the book say to you?”

He looks from me to Verik, his silver eyes dark with something I can’t read. “It offered a solution. A way for you to be free of DarkHallow without dying.”

“What?”

“A sub-realm,” Dathan continues. “Built from the foundations of the academy, but separate. Your own kingdom. A place where the binding that keeps you alive wouldn’t also keep you a prisoner.”

The words hang in the air, a seductive, impossible promise. A realm of my own.

“What’s the catch?” I ask because with this damned book, there always seems to be one.

“We have to complete it first,” Dathan says. “Forge the Crown. Finish the pages. Only then can we use the spell of pure creation.”

“A spell of pure creation?” Verik’s voice is sharp with professional interest, his earlier anger forgotten. “The book showed you that?”

Dathan nods. “And it said we have to be in harmony to do it. The bond is fractured.”

“The first Nox Siren,” I say. “Her presence is confusing the bond. Blackgrove has her, but we need to hurry this along before she escapes again. Where’s Evren?”

Dathan’s jaw tightens. “He walked off. After I was a complete dickhead.”

The Soul Scar pulses, a faint, lonely ache. We’re not whole. And until we are, their Soul Scar could still choose Aeliana.

“We have to find him and make this right.”

He nods. “But first…” He steps away from me and goes to Verik, holding out his hand. “I’m sorry. I was a complete arsehole. I had no right to be such a dick to you. Your situation is difficult, I know that. Comparing it to my own is selfish.”

Verik stares at Dathan’s outstretched hand for a long, tense moment. But then he snorts, a rough, dismissive sound. “You’re lucky I don’t rip your arm off and beat you with the soggy end.” He grips Dathan’s hand, a truce forged in mutual dickishness.

“Good,” I say, breaking the moment. “You’re both idiots. Now, where’s our other idiot?”

The Soul Scar is a dull, throbbing ache, a missing piece of a puzzle.

I close my eyes and reach out, not with my magic, but with DarkHallow itself.

The academy answers me. I feel every soul within its walls.

Every student whispering in the common rooms, every ghost drifting through the corridors.

And I feel him. A shard of absolute zero, deep beneath the foundations.

“The catacombs,” I say, opening my eyes.

Turning to run out of the library, I lead the way, the path lighting up in my mind. We descend into the cold, silent depths of the academy, a maze of bone and shadow.

We find him in a circular chamber, sitting on the edge of an empty stone sarcophagus. He’s surrounded by the skeletal remains of forgotten creatures, a silent monarch in a court of bone. He doesn’t look up as we approach.

Dathan stops a few feet away, the silence stretching between them. “Ev,” he says, his voice rough. “I’m a fucking cunt. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean what I said.”

Evren finally looks at him, his ice-blue eyes unreadable. The apology hangs in the dead air, a fragile offering. He gives a slow, single nod. It’s not forgiveness. Not yet. But it’s a start. It has to be.

I step into the space between them. The air is so cold it feels solid.

“It’s not just all of us being arseholes,” I say, my voice echoing off the bone-lined walls.

“There’s a reason we’re fracturing. There’s another Nox Siren.

The first one. Her name is Aeliana, and her presence is confusing the Soul Scar.

It doesn’t know who to bond with, so it’s weakening. Making us fight.”

The ice in Evren’s eyes deepens, a storm gathering in their depths. The temperature in the chamber drops another ten degrees. He understands. The manipulation. The external force turning us against each other.

“She wants the bond,” I finish, my voice hard. “She wants you. She wants the Crown. She’s not getting any of it. I’m sorry for telling you all to fuck off. I didn’t mean it, exactly…” I chew the inside of my lip, but I have to keep going.

“It’s okay, Thea,” Dathan says. “We know you resent us for what we did.”

“No, it’s not resentment, not exactly. I would’ve done the same for you. I couldn’t bear it if something happened to one of you. I would want to keep you with me no matter the cost. But that’s the problem.”

“Why?” Verik asks, genuinely curious where I’m going with this.

“We would die for each other. The book knows this. I’m scared it’s going to use it against us and next time, one of us doesn’t make it back.”

“Let it try,” Dathan snarls. “It’s not getting another drop of anything except scorn from any of us.”

“It won’t ask,” Verik says, his voice a low grind of stone. “It’ll create a scenario where one of us dying is the only logical outcome. A choice between the lesser of two evils.”

The unspoken terror hangs in the frigid air. The book will put one of us on the chopping block and watch the rest of us squirm.

“Then we don’t give it the fucking chance,” I say, my voice echoing off the bones. “We don’t split up. We don’t make deals. We go in there, we forge the Crown, we finish the book, and we get out…” I trail off, frowning as my thoughts make no logical sense,

“What?” Evren asks, leaping off the sarcophagus to grip my hand.

“The book slit my throat, made me bleed for it. But if it needs me, why did it try to kill me? Did it know Blackgrove would tie me to DarkHallow? What is the end game here?”

Silence falls as we contemplate this.

Then Verik growls. “It wasn’t about you.”

“What?” I ask, frowning at him.

“It was about me. My willingness to use the Armageddon spell.”

“But you didn’t,” Dathan says. “You pulled it back when you realised it would kill us, and you couldn’t live without us.”

“But I was nearly there. Seconds. Because of what happened to Lysithea.”

“It manipulated you,” I murmur. “But why would it want you to use a spell that would kill everything? Including us? Why would it risk my life to push you to do this?”

“All fucking good questions,” he says quietly. “I think I need to have a chat with Tenny .”

“Not alone,” I say instantly. “We don’t know what this thing wants anymore.”

“What exactly happens when you use that spell?” Dathan asks Verik.

“Annihilation by fire of everything within a large radius. Can’t say for sure. It’s never been tested.”

“A baptism by fire, then,” I murmur, earning myself an eyeroll from the Hellfire Architect. “So, what does fire do apart from burn?”

“It purifies,” Verik says.

The word lands like a stone in my gut.

Purifies. Cleanses. Resets.

“A blank slate. It was testing what it would take for you to burn the whole fucking realm down.”

“The shithole utopia,” Dathan says, his voice strained. “It wasn’t talking about restoring an old order. It wants to start over. From scratch.”

“In a different place,” I murmur. “The sub-realm it told you about. It’s not for me, it’s for it.”

“A safe place with no opposition, no old order, no… nothing.”

“You’re wrong about it not being for you,” Evren says quietly. “It needs you to live. The rest of us…”

“Chopped liver,” Verik snarls. “A means to an end.”

“Well, fuck,” I mutter as we finally, finally figure out what the hell is going on around here.