Page 128 of The Blood Crown

Nira still fought beside Agius—bloodied and gore-spattered, the screaming from inside the palace louder now as an endless sea of glowing green eyes and hunched, dark shapes poured through the broken walls. Silver and blue cloaks were strewn across the ground, bloodied and broken along with the black gear of the fallen Wraiths. Among them, the crumpled bodies of men, women . . . children. A spill of auburn curls snagged her eyes, and Aurelia clamped them shut against the depthless despair that threatened to shatter her into oblivion.

Every sense emptied from her as she looked down. The pain was so visceral, so excruciating, that she was certain she’d finda gaping, bloody hole where her heart had been ripped from her body . . . But no, Fate had not been kind enough to take her.

Numbness spread through her chest as she clawed at the dregs of her power—tearing, grasping for any thread. Begging and pleading Fate or the Unnamed or whatever god had forsaken them tonight . . .

A flicker of pale gold was the only answer, faint as a breathless gasp as it left her fingertips and disappeared into Ven’s chest.

The last of her magick.

She had spent most of her life playing a pawn in someone else’s game. Powerless. But Ven had shown her how much more she was capable of, and she would not waste what he had given her—what all of them had given her—by being a passive bystander. If she could give them a chance, even a sliver of hope, she would take that wager every single time.

Because in some matches, winning required sacrificing the queen.

Lifting her hand, she gently traced the red ink of the claiming mark along Ven's throat. And with a voice that belonged to someone else, she breathed, “I offer a blood oath.”

The words were barely a whisper, and yet they seemed to carry across the din of battle as Maloch turned, his blade poised to cleave Valea in half where she covered Karro’s body with her own.

“No—” Nira hissed.

The Wraith Commander cut through another demon as she fought toward Aurelia, but she only offered her friend, her sister, a parting glance as her gaze lifted to Maloch's ruthless face.

The sharp edge of her dagger bit into her palm. “I’ll go to your king willingly,” she uttered, “if you spare their lives.”

Maloch raised his gruesome weapon higher, and Valea’s eyes blazed with grim resolve as she waited for death.

The demon prince brought down the sharp edge of his blade, halting a foot above Valea's head as he sliced his hand, black blood welling up in his palm as his voice ripped through the night.

I accept.

Threads of black mingled with scarlet as their blood joined, clashing and churning in the air. Not the beautiful union that her blood oath had been with Ven, but something that spoke of possession and submission. Somethingwrong.

Triumph whispered across Maloch's expression, but it was tinged with something that resembled pity as the blood oath settled onto her skin, searing and burning as black bands wound across her wrists.

One by one, the demons flooding the battered remains of the courtyard disappeared—until they were nothing more than clouds of gray ash floating away in the winter wind.

Maloch stretched out a hand the color of obsidian. And the shallow rise of Ven’s chest was the last thing Aurelia saw as she was plunged into endless night.

Epilogue

Darkness unlike any she’d ever known swallowed Aurelia whole.

There was no end, no beginning as she gasped for breath in the suffocating veil of night.

No—not night. Something viscous . . . as if the darkness had substance around her.

Air filled her lungs, but there was no wind, no light, no sound in this depthless place.

She blinked—or she thought she blinked—but it made no difference here.Whereverthis was. Her body felt detached from her mind in the endless black, as if it weren’t quite her own. She touched thumb to forefinger, though she couldn’t see them in front of her—

And then she remembered—she remembered what had brought her here . . .

Her scream of agony was swallowed up by the void. And in the jarring silence that followed, a voice slithered through the oily dark.

"Hello, child."

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