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

63. Vexxion

63

VEXXION

I bolted upright in bed and touched the empty blankets beside me, finding them warm but chilling much too quickly.

Fury? I whispered in my mind.

She didn’t reply.

Something dreadful had happened to her. I knew it.

Where are you, Fury? I asked. Answer. Please.

Stone cold silence echoed in my mind.

Closing my eyes, I reached out to her and was stunned to find her far from here.

Bledmire.

I flitted to the aerie, startling the dragon penned within the stall Glim used when we stayed here. Hushing it, I backed to the gate.

Show me if you can’t tell me. I barked.

An image of the dungeon appeared in my mind, the very cell where Ivenrail had hung me so many times to deal out his version of punishment. The same cell where he’d murdered my mother.

Through her eyes, I watched as Kerune paced back and forth on the stone floor in front of her. He paused and waved a blade in her face, a snake about to strike.

I flitted, landing behind him and snapped out my threads, coiling them around his throat, jerking them tight.

Fury’s eyes widened, but she didn’t call out.

A quick glance suggested she hadn’t been injured—yet.

I sent power roaring toward Kerune, but it slid around him. Warded. He’d quickly discover I was as well. Each attempt would drain us slower than an attack on someone with lesser magical defense.

Kerune dissolved my threads and spun to face me, gouging up with his blade. The cold stone walls of the dungeon pulsed as if they closed in around us. A trick of the mind I ignored.

Renewing my threads, I swiped a band of them out to trip him, but he leaped, tumbling up over my head to land behind me.

Our ragged breathing echoed in the room, punctuated only by Tempest’s struggles to break his magical bindings.

“Welcome,” he said with a smirk, stalking toward me. “So nice of you to arrive in time to watch the show. I was about to slice your sweet little mate to pieces.”

His taunt meant nothing. I’d end him now and rescue my fury.

“Try,” I growled.

His smile barely slipped, and the twitch of his right jaw told me he was about to strike. He stabbed with power, a drift of smoke, not anything tangible. Mist-wielder? I hadn’t known that about him. He was wise to keep this skill hidden.

I deflected his mist with my threads, slicing through it. It dissipated as I stepped through the strands, striking out at his throat with the long knife I’d magicked into my hand.

He regarded me with a twisted smile, his eyes dark pools of malice. My grip tightened on my dagger's hilt. I’d gut him the second I got the chance, then burn him to ashes.

I sent my threads to Fury, and they grappled with her bindings while Kerune and I circled each other.

I should’ve killed him years ago when he poked me with magic. Older than me, he’d been strong back then, more powerful than me.

Could I strike him down now?

Kerune lunged forward with a feral growl. Our blades met with a sharp clash that echoed in the room. I parried his attack, smacking him with my threads.

Toying with him.

He reeled backward and swiped his hand across his face, grimacing at the blood on his fingers.

“Can’t hurt me easily now, can you?” I snarled, still struggling with my threads to break the ties pinning Fury to the wall.

“Once you’re tied beside your mate, I’ll play with her, and you can watch,” he sneered, snapping out again with a clump of mist.

I flitted to the right and whipped him with my threads, adding flames that caught the back of his tunic on fire.

His mist engulfed him, extinguishing the fire, but he winced when he moved. Good. I’d blistered his skin. I hadn’t hoped for more than that.

He lunged at me, his blade striking up. I latched onto his wrist and twisted. His hoarse cry of pain rang out, and his mouth thinned with rage. A flit, and he came up behind me, again driving his blade toward my flank. I whipped threads around his upper arms and snapped them tight before flinging them outward, taking his arms along with them.

A sickening pop told me I’d dislocated one of his shoulders, confirmed when he bit back a groan. His mist coiled around my threads, and I let them slip away before he could scorch them. They snaked around me, poised to strike a final blow.

His smirk lost its infuriating confidence, but it would take more than a damaged shoulder to eliminate this threat. Like any of the fae, he would’ve already repaired the injury.

Moisture dripped down the wall somewhere behind me, an incessant plink that had haunted me long after I’d left this place. It drilled into my mind, and for a moment, I was back there, tied to the wall while the king lifted my chin with magic, making me watch while he tortured my mother.

Kerune flitted to my right, then deflected to the left, snapping his body around the room until his image blurred. I tracked him with my threads, letting them be my eyes, and I was rewarded when one sliced deeply into his calf.

He hobbled, telling me the poison I’d infused into the thread kept him from healing. I found grim satisfaction from the splotches of blood he left behind on the stones.

Voicing a battle cry, Kerune landed in front of me, plunging his dagger toward me with predatory swiftness. I parried his strike with threads and snapped his arm out again, jerking it from its socket, dragging out his hoarse cry.

Rather than play with him further, I struck with a series of rapid dagger slashes, cutting his arm, his thigh, and leaving a deep gouge across his chest.

With a snarl, he struck at me with his knife, and the air rang with our grunts as we blocked the other, our blades whirring through the air.

My heart thundered in my throat and sweat coursed down my face as I continued my relentless fight for survival. We were too evenly matched both in physical combat and with magic.

I needed to end this, but how?

We slammed into each other, and I shot flames into his face. Energy lit up the room, his red countering my blue. The magic traveled through our weapons, adding another layer to the battle, turning each moment into a dance on the edge of disaster.

We came together, grappling for purchase, beating at each other’s wards with our power. His mist closed in from behind me, its acrid stench scorching my lungs.

Hesitation meant death.

I focused inward, channeling pure energy from my court’s core into my outstretched hand. A burst of light erupted from me, blasting his venomous cloud apart and scattering it against the dungeon walls. The room cleared, and I sucked a deep breath of untainted air.

Kerune's eyes narrowed with frustration, he moved with blinding, magically enhanced speed, flitting to where my fury still hung from the wall .

With his blade pressed against her throat, he sneered. “Drop your dagger. Lower your wards. Or I’ll drive this knife through her, into the wall.”

Her gaze pleaded with mine, and I knew what she asked.

Let her die. Use the distraction to kill him.

I gave her a subtle shake of my head and dropped my blade and my wards.