Page 39 of Court of Bone and Amethyst

Zyren places a hand on my thigh. “I don’t think it’s possible for you to travel between realms. Not like that.”

“I am the Queen of Nightmares. I don’t think it’s out of the realm of possibility.”

“Well, you would be the first in history to do so, if it really happened.” Zyren lets out another sigh. “Try to get some rest. We have a long journey tomorrow.”

Silence falls between us, but I can’t fall back to sleep. And I can’t shake the feeling that Zyren is terribly wrong.

The next threedays pass in a monotonous torture. Freezing cold, sparse meals, exhausting magic practice, and nightly dreams that leave me even more tired when I wake in the morning than when I went to sleep the night before.

I don’t speak to Lilette again, but she’s in my dreams from afar. It feels like I am a specter in the Amethyst Palace, following her as she walks the halls and eats her meals and performs her daily prayers in the cathedral with the other priestesses. I don’t see the priest much—he seems to be leaving her alone since the monthly joining ritual is complete.

I’m torn between wondering if I’m truly seeing her, or if this is some twisted game of the forest demon. She’s extremely powerful, that much is clear. And it seems, from everyone’s haunted demeanor ever since leaving the forest, that she shows everyone their biggest shame and deepest fears. I’d made a pact with her—does that mean she can control me from afar?

I’m also tortured every day, wondering if I made the right decision. Maybe we all should have accepted our fate and died in those woods. Maybe that would be for the best, in comparison. Deep down, I hope I can somehow get out of the deal I’d made. If I can defeat Avonia and reclaim my throne, I’ll have an army to tear down that entire ice forest and the thing that lives within.

Therehas tobe a way out.

On the fourth day, we encounter a blizzard so intense that we have to detour to nearby ruins and hunker down for the rest of the day.

“How much farther to the Court of Memory?” I ask Zyren as we huddle together, shivering inside a half-crumbled stone cathedral.

“Two days,” he says.

“The only good thing about this weather is that Avonia’s army won’t follow us through it,” Owyn adds. “At least not at great speed.”

“I don’t think we can be sure of safety until we arrive at our destination,” Zyren says. “Avonia is quite determined, and there’s no telling what she’ll do to achieve her goal.”

The blizzard passes around sunset, but we stay the night in the abandoned cathedral and set out at dawn the next day. It’s clear everyone is as exhausted as I am, the mood of the company grayer than the skies overhead. We’re just passing over a frozen river when a shiver runs through the ground. At first, I think I’ve imagined it, but then another stronger tremor follows.

“What is that?” Merla asks, eyes widening.

Zyren looks around, his eyes narrowed. “I do not know.”

The third tremor nearly knocks the horses off their feet. Behind us, the surface of the frozen river cracks, and then explodes. A geyser of hot, steaming water shoots into the sky. The horses snort and bolt away from it, galloping through the deep snow.

The shaking continues, intensifying to a crescendo that feels as if the earth is splitting in two.

Then, abruptly, it stops.

And the sky turns from day to night in the blink of an eye.

“What’s happening?” I ask with a frightened squeak.

“We’ve never had an earthquake this far north,” Zyren says, his tone grim.

Owyn shakes his head. “That was no ordinary earthquake. Magic is the only thing that can explain the sky changing like that.”

I sit up straighter on my horse. “It’s the nightmares,” I whisper. “Avonia broke the ancient spell that protects our realm when she let those nightmares through. That must have upset the balance of things.”

Zyren nods. “It’s possible. But if that’s the case…”

“She’s going to tear apart Valaron trying to get to you,” Merla finishes, her gaze resting on mine.

My heart feels heavy as we gather the horses and ride on. We’re interrupted several times throughout the day by intense quakes, and the switching of night and day. I feel a frenetic force building inside of me, a feeling of wrongness. Something in the hum of the magic is off.

We stop that night for only a couple of hours, huddled in the base of a watch tower which Zyren says used to be occupied. It’s another night without much talk or magical practice, a night spent huddling beneath our saddle blankets, shivering the entire time. I feel like I’ve lost even the memory of warmth or sunlight.

When dawn breaks and we mount back up the next day, Zyren says, “We should reach the Court of Memory by sunset.”

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