Page 11 of Of Nine So Bold

Horror and understanding choked me. Oh gods, I was a fool. She meant for the Voidborn to take me over, same as it had with those green-skinned men.

At a hissing sound from the queen, the Voidborn suddenly lunged. Speeding across the remaining distance, it dove straight at my chest.

I stumbled away, but there was no escape.

Fire burned across my chest as the Voidborn struck. Every nerve in my body screamed, begging me to run, to doanythingif only to flee this horror. Black smoke surged over me, and a screeching noise drowned every other sound like it wasdetermined to claw its way straight through my ears into my brain.

But as fast as the sensations arrived, another rose as well. A crystalline feeling, as if I was suddenly encased in thick quartz. Yet there was no darkness. Instead, the world was made of light that shimmered like a river of rainbows beneath a brilliant sun.

The screeching noise grew louder, like its owner was being stretched and tortured beyond what it could bear.

And then silence swallowed it whole.

The rainbow light and crystalline sensation disappeared. The throne room returned, seeming all the dimmer for the sudden loss of the brilliance that had surrounded me. For a moment, the air sparkled like glittering dust was slowly fading away.

Shivers gripped me. My eyes darted around, seeking the Voidborn. Was it in me? Was this what being possessed by those creatures felt like?

The queen stared. “Whatareyou, boy?”

Wait, what?

“You…” Rage suffused her face. “That shouldn’t be possible. That?—”

She cut off with a look like she was suddenly listening to someone speaking.

Except I couldn’t hear anybody. Even the green-skinned men around the room had gone totally silent.

What the hell had just happened?

Her eyes slid back to me, scathing. “You Erenlians think you’re so clever. Sneakingyouaway from that dying land. Planting you as the one I captured instead of your friends. Your plans won’t work. You won’t gather any information for my bitch stepdaughter, and that damned spell of yourswillfail. And then you’ll break, same as all the others. It’s only a matter of time.”

I was lost. Sneaking me away from where? When? And planting me to be captured? The Aneirans had found me, not theother way around. I’d been stupidly storming through the forest out of anger at my friends, not executing some plot to get myself separated from my treluria.

The queen truly was insane. That was the only explanation.

But then, what had that crystalline feeling been? And where had the Voidborn gone?

“You.” The queen turned her furious gaze to the green-skinned men. “Take him away.”

From either side of the throne room, the Voidborn-possessed men marched over and snagged my arms. A hissing-clicking noise left one of them, almost like a question.

The queen sneered. “Perfect.”

Without another sound, they hauled me between them toward the door.

“You should have let my creature possess you, boy,” the queen called behind me. “This death will be so much worse.”

5

GWYNEIRA

In the end, Valeria and her companions ended up stealing a carriage.

Not that I was entirely certain it counted asstealinganymore. The village where we found the black wooden carriage had been abandoned—and quickly. Doors stood open to the elements. Belongings lay scattered in the streets, rotting amid the cobblestones and mud. There were no bodies to speak of, nor any signs of what transpired to leave the place so silent and eerie.

But my imagination was only too eager to fill in the blanks.

Seated next to me on the cushioned bench, Casimir reached over and took my hand, giving it a gentle squeeze. “Your people will be avenged, princess,” he murmured so quietly that I doubted the bound soldier seated across from me could hear his words. But my vampire senses had no such difficulty, nor did Ozias where he sat next to the prisoner, holding the man’s bindings. Support radiated along my mate’s connection to me, silently echoing Casimir’s reassurances.

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