Page 164 of The Queen’s Shadow

Raven

Islammed back into my own mind, and I didn’t know what hurt more - the excruciating heartache that tore through my body, or the fact that Amon had tossed me out of his mind and slammed the doors shut behind me.

Having delved into his thoughts, I now understood that the pain I had been enduring recently was a manifestation of the severe injuries Amon had suffered during his captivity. After seeing what he had been forced to do to Sabel, it did not take much for me to imagine what had been done to him, and I felt numb with shock at the thought of it.

Someone was screaming, and for a moment I thought it was me, until I opened my eyes and realized it was Kael. She was on all fours, and screaming so furiously that her voice was hoarse. She was clutching her chest as if her heart would fall out.

I watched as her mating stone slipped out from the neck of her tunic, glinting in the late morning sun. The stone that she had shared with Sabel was a cool, crisp aquamarine, and I watched in horror as it faded to black, the light of their mating bond dying before my eyes.

Without meaning to, I clutched my own mating stone, glancing down to make sure it was still green, and feeling guilty at the sigh of relief that escaped my chest when I realized it was.

For now.

Conrad was talking to me, but I couldn’t hear him. My ears were ringing, and I felt like I was moving through water.

I tried to process what I had just seen, what Amon had just said. How had we gotten here?

She was breaking him.

The amount of pain he was suffering was indescribable. His back. Every move he made had scorched fire through his body, and what he had been forced to do to Sable was shattering his mind. He had always seemed so powerful, so invincible to me, that I had never thought it would even be possible for Ash Nevra to break him. But she was.

I replayed our conversation and immediately wished I could take back what I had said. I had called him a coward. I didn’t mean that, I had been angry, and afraid, and he was telling me to leave him there. To forget about him… as if that was even an option.

He thought that because I had seen what he had done to Sabel, I would hate him. But I knew he didn’t have a choice.

It wasn’t his fault.

Beneath all the cold numbness he had tried to hide behind, I knew who he really was. He had been trying to end her suffering as quickly as possible. He had known there was no saving her and had been trying to spare her hours of torture.

The blame for what had happened to Sabel lay with one daemon, and it wasn’t my mate.

“Rayven,” Conrad was in front of me now with his hands on my shoulders. I looked up into his warm brown eyes, through the dark haze that had spread across my vision. I realized, almost as an afterthought, that my shadows were tearing through the training ring. Jeremy had crouched down in front of Kael, trying to protect her from my frenzied shades.

I was still clutching my mating stone, but my palms were itching. I could feel the burn of power as it flooded through my veins, and for a moment, I toyed with the idea of just… letting go.

I wondered how long it would take to draw Ash Nevra out of her dark cave once I started burning her entire fucking continent to the ground. She couldn’t be queen if there was nothing left to fucking rule.

My lip curled into a smile at the thought, and I knew Conrad could see the dark path my thoughts had taken.

My shadows crawled up his arms and tried to tear him away from me, but he stood firm, water spilling out from his restructium suit and curling around us in a beautiful crystalline display. I could feel the coolness of the water as it ran through my aura, almost as if his magick was trying to soothe mine.

“Easy gyaal. Yuh cyaan be lettin’ dem dark thoughts sweep yuh away.”

I continued to push against him, trying to force him off of me. “Why not?” I demanded, though I had a hard time choking out the words. Everything felt too slow; the air was too thick. “I will tear this world to pieces before I allow her to break him.” I hissed, staring at Conrad with eyes that I knew had already bled to black. He pursed his lips and moved his hands to either side of my head, giving me a fierce look.

“Yuh whole lyfe, Rayven, people call yuh a monsta, and all kinds of evil names. Yuh cyaan prove dem right. We will get him back, mi promise. But yuh need to stay strong. Yuh cyaan kill everyone to save him. Prince Amon nuh want yuh to do that.”

He was right. Amon would not want me to do that. He had basically told me to abandon him and focus on saving our people, so that they wouldn’t come to any harm. If I burned the whole world to the ground to rescue him, would he even be able to look at me the same?

“He told me to abandon him.” I whispered, and Conrad shook his head in disbelief.

“We nah guh abandon him, Rayven.” He promised me. “Dats nah guh happen.”

“He told me I needed to get used to living life without him, and focus on saving our people, so no one has to suffer Sabel’s fate again.”

Conrad glanced back at Kael, and the look on his face told me he had already suspected Sabel was dead, from the way her mate had started screaming in agony. Finally, he looked back at me, tightening his grip on my head and he shook me gently.

“Since when, Rayven, have yuh eva done what somebody else tell yuh to do? Why yuh gon start now?” He asked me fiercely, his brown eyes searching mine. I felt the darkness in my heart recede at his words, and the burning in my palms faded slightly. He was right. Just because Amon had decided to be a self-sacrificing asshole didn’t mean I had to play along. I was the fucking Queen, damn it, and if I wanted to save my mate then that was what I was going to do.