A Crown of Cursed Hearts (Kingdom of Blighted Thorns #3)

36. Tempest

36

TEMPEST

I should sleep. I’d need my strength and all my wits if I was going to swallow my court’s core tomorrow. Aunt Vera hadn’t given many clues about what I could expect. Perhaps she would tomorrow, or she didn’t know. Without a true elder, there was no one to guide me.

I would step into the void blindly.

Others had done it before me, and I’d do all I could not to disappoint them.

I sat on the edge of the bed. So much to do and so little time to do it. The feeling that Ivenrail, High Advisor Adwarin, and Kerune were on their way to Lydel with a vast army swarming beside them kept slamming through me. How would I take all the clues I’d been given and bunch them together into something that could restore balance to this world? The weight of everyone’s expectations for me threatened to drag me to the ground, and I wasn’t sure I was strong enough to get back to my feet.

Leaving the bed, I limped across the room, stopping only to stare at the carved wooden dragon sitting on the low table in front of a sofa. It remained motionless, and I’d concluded I’d imagined it moving. Something like that wasn’t possible. It was a pretty gift, something he’d made, and I loved it because it reminded me of Seevar. I lifted it and tipped it this way and that, but it remained as frozen as the people lining the streets of Lydel.

I placed it back on the table and I would’ve gone to Drask, but he slept on his perch, his head tucked beneath his wing. He also needed to rest.

Slumping on the sofa, I stared at the coals rippling red, orange, and gold below the fireplace grate, my mind blurring.

I dozed . . . And woke, my arms jolting outward. The coals hadn’t changed in the fireplace, telling me I’d only slept a short time. Yet I felt refreshed.

The riddle kept swarming through my mind, stinging each time I tried to put it aside. Iasar and Amronth wouldn’t have gifted it to me if I didn’t need to solve it.

A blade will be forged in light, torn away from thorn’s blight,

And veiled beneath the gaze of eternal right .

At the fortress, the beginning of the riddle had flashed through my mind when I stared into the winged dreg’s eyes.

This must refer to the Blade of Alessa, the only blade that might be able to kill the king.

Others kept mentioning it in random ways, and if I knew the fates—though who truly did? —they were teasing me with it.

I couldn’t make any sense of the next lines that mentioned something held by trees, but the bit after that pointed to finding something. Maybe I was wrong to assume this meant the blade. I should share the riddle with my aunt and seek her insight.

Iasar and Amronth hadn’t told me to keep it a secret.

Split between realms where the horizon meets the world beyond,

Half 'neath stars where dreams unspoken are drawn.

It waits where a blood-red sun does sink;

In dawn’s embrace—it's there you must seek.

Where was this realm and how could I get there?

Blade of Alessa. Blade of Alessa. I’d read a bit about it in Ember’s Shadow , the book Reyla had.

I tipped my head back and stared at the ceiling.

Did I dare?

I had to get answers, and I’d bet anything that book had them.

I flitted to the hallway outside Reyla’s door and crept close to the panel, pressing my ear against it, listening. When I didn’t hear movement, I used magic to unlock the door and eased inside.

Sneaking into my friend’s room to spy felt wrong, but what else could I do? We’d gone from best friends to me doubting her, though I could blame the doubt on Madrood.

Someone betrayed me. It couldn’t be Reyla.

Could it?

With my heart a thunderstorm in my ears, I closed the door, locking it once more. The click jarred through me, making my heart come to a quick halt before it fluttered like the fairy pinned to wax in Ivenrail’s bedroom.

I shoved down a swallow and moved slowly into the sitting room.

Someone sucked in a breath, the sound coming from near the fireplace that danced with merry flames.

Tiptoeing closer, I peeked over the back, finding Reyla sound asleep on the cushions with the flames flickering across her pretty features. When I was thirteen and built like a sword with all its sharp edges and not a hint of softness, when my dark hair seemed dull in comparison to her reddish blonde, and when I lamented that no guy would ever want me, I’d envied my friend. Her beauty drew people to her like a fledgling dragon called to the warmth of a sunbeam toasting the corner of its pen.

It was only as I got older that I could appreciate what I had rather than what I didn’t. The strength of my arms. My endless resolve. My determination to do what was right.

Through everything, this woman had been my steadfast friend. Even when she and Kinart were together, she’d make time for me, offering moments when we’d sit and chat or play a game of dice at the bar. Times when she’d lay her head on my shoulder and tell me she loved me.

And here I was, creeping around her room because, for the first time, I wasn’t sure I trusted her.

Fuck it. I’d look for the book and when I didn’t find it, which I was certain I wouldn’t, I’d leave. She’d never know I was here.

I turned away from her and hobbled across the sitting area and through the open bedroom door, rushing to the closet where I suspected she’d left her pack.

There. It slouched in the back below racks of pretty dresses and simple tunics and pants, a complete wardrobe created by Vera’s magic to make my friend feel at home.

My pulse thrummed in my throat as I hurried over to the bag and stooped down in front of it.

I could leave now and tell myself she’d never had the book. Or I could find out if there was something bigger going on here than faulty vision.

I unfastened the top and eased the fabric open.

I was leaning forward when Reyla came up behind me.

“What are you doing?” Sadness clung to her voice.