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

66. Tempest

66

TEMPEST

F ury! Vexxion’s cry echoed in my mind. It sunk into my skin and warmed me—though only for one instant.

The king sucked down my power, guzzling it like it was the finest wine, until he paused and tugged his thumb away. His brow creasing, he stared at my face. “You’re not her, but I taste . . .” He took a quick, startled breath. “ She cast a ward on you. Where is she?”

“I don’t know who you’re talking about.”

“Where is she?” he bellowed. “She’s mine .”

“Your daughter will never be yours.” I took slick pleasure in shouting the words in his face.

“I’ll steal the information from you, then.” His growl rang out, and his thumb smacked against my forehead again.

He drank. And drank. Slurping my power down, taking more and more, to the point he staggered. Still, his thumb remained in place, and his magic barraged my mind.

I held him back, refusing him entry, refusing to give him her name.

But he was going to drain me. Drag every bit of the goodness from deep inside me until there would be nothing left but despair and sorrow.

Don’t do this, Vexxion snarled. Do. Not. Let. Him. Do. This!

Please, Vexxion. Stay away. I built a bigger wall and sent Vexxion an image of me standing in the king’s sitting room, my body bent over the Wraithweave board.

He flitted there. I sensed it.

This provided the distraction I needed to give Ivenrail time to swallow so much of my power that I . . .

My sharp laugh barked out inside the tent, and for an instant, fear flashed across Ivenrail’s face.

Before he could jerk his thumb away, I . . .

Leaving my body behind, my mind traveled to the tapestry hanging on his bedroom wall, where I reached up to stroke the canopy behind the king and queen. I’d only remembered this part of the tapestry the day before and something clicked in my mind. A dark blue arch stretched across the top with a slice of white below, almost as if someone had purposefully cut the fabric.

Or stitched the white to leave a clue—for me.

My gaze sunk into the queen’s, and for a moment, I felt the soft stroke of fingers across my brow.

Mama?

“Deeper still lies the hidden breach,” I whispered, choking on my gasp when the white slice in the tapestry shimmered. “Through a sapphire canopy beyond Nullen reach.”

I was gently tugged from Ivenrail’s room, drawn into the image and . . .

In a blink, I stood on sand that shifted in rippling waves beneath me, all sound swallowed by this vast, treacherous world. A steep, endless wall rose behind me, and pale, milky white heat shimmered in rippling waves across the enormous plain.

Fear clutched my heart and squeezed tight enough to pulverize it, but I stilled my mind. My thoughts.

I would not be afraid.

Now that I’d found my way past the first part of the riddle, I allowed other parts to wash over me, analyzing the lines I’d figured out.

“Seek a land with a lady unjustly dethron’d,” I said, my words pinched away by this horrifying land around me, a spliced world that was neither here nor there nor anywhere in between. “My parents were unjustly dethroned,” I declared. “ I was unjustly dethron’d. I finally reached Lydel by chasing down the crow in silvery flames.”

Drask. My beloved Drask. My friend and defender.

“Deeper still lies the hidden breach. Through a sapphire canopy beyond Nullen reach.” I knew the tapestry contained a clue, but it was only this morning that I realized that the splice behind the king and queen—my parents—might give a traveler access to the ether.

I couldn’t arrive in my body, because Vexxion was right. No one would be able to pull me back .

But traveling . . .

I was taking a big chance, but I had no other choice.

Ivenrail knew I had the potential to end his torturous reign. The foreteller revealed this before she took her own life. I was sure the answers I needed were here in the ether.

My voice shook but my will remained strong. “With the Blade of Alessa, I promise I’ll right the wrong done to our world.”

I stepped out into the bleak landscape that stole hopes and dreams, my feet sinking deep, the sun hovering on the horizon stabbing my eyes. “Split between realms where the horizon meets the world beyond,” I cried. “It's there you must seek!”

The words shot out of me, and the air started swirling, snatching up sand, forming a storm unleashed by my fury. This gale would take an imperfectly perfect woman and transform her into something that could help restore the balance.

I still hadn’t figured out a few lines of the riddle, but I suspected I’d soon understand.

Everything I needed was here in the ether. I just had to find it.

And I knew how.

“Gaineos?” I roared, my words echoing, shooting across this land without dreams and ricochetting back at me. “I need a favor.”