Page 2 of The Blood Crown

Chaos surrounded her on all sides.

The stench of sulfur was thick in the air. The short-lived relief Aurelia felt passing through the mirror emptied out of her chest.

A flash of black hair caught her eye and Ven’s profile was sharp against the moonlight of the Grey Wood. He and Karro fought back-to-back in the horde of demons that surrounded them, more of those ghastly creatures that looked nearly human. But deeper into the pines, where even her eyes couldn’t pierce the darkness, there were unearthly sounds that made her blood turn to ice in her veins.

The two Wraiths were hacking away at the demons circling them with their black blades, but Ven’s black flame and Karro’s shadows were nowhere to be found. They must have been fighting like this for hours if their magick was already depleted.

Aurelia let the thought push her frozen feet into the fray. Ven’s head whipped toward her, his nostrils flaring before his crimson eyes widened in shock, his bronzed skin paling slightly as his expression gave way to naked terror. He shoutedsomething to Karro, who spared a glance in her direction before they began fighting their way toward her.

She brandished the jeweled dagger, the weight of it familiar in her hand. The remainder of her power rippled beneath her skin, begging to be unleashed, as if the lightning she had summoned to turn the First Brother into ash had only awakened the true depth of her magick.

A cluster of demons had noticed her appearance, seeming to smell the fresh blood that still trickled from her forehead; a souvenir from when the First Brother had attacked her in the library.

She reached for the heat simmering beneath her skin, feeling it flood down her arms, pooling into her fingertips—

It guttered out as the demons shambled forward, the crackling white light nowhere to be found.

Blind panic seized her as she tried to command her magick again, willing it to obey her.

The sensation. The block on her power that she’d felt in the library when she’d been trapped in that ring of dark powder—that’s what was happening to her again.

She hesitated for a second too long, and claws ripped through the sleeve of her shadowskin gear.

Instinct took over as she struck the creature in the chest with her dagger, watching it scatter into a plume of ash as another set of claws sunk deep into her calf.

Pain cut through her senses as she was dragged across the ground, coming to a sudden halt as an inhuman shriek severed the stagnant air around her. An iron grip pulled her back to her feet. A hard chest pressed behind her, hauling her up a boulder as she fought to regain her footing.

“I’ve got you,” Ven’s deep voice rumbled.

Demons crowded below them as she scrambled for purchase on the rock, trying to take the weight off her left leg. “My magick—”

“Ours, too,” Ven answered, not taking his eyes from the mass of bodies and lumbering shadows in the distance slowly surrounding them.

“What are you still doing here?” she demanded, anger clipping her words as she fought to keep her balance. Pain lanced up her leg and she glanced down to see the tear in her gear, but below that, a set of claw marks in her skin, soaking the shadowskin with blood.

“We’re trapped. Our magick was stifled by some spell after Lanthius sealed the wards.”

Thatwas the rift she’d felt in the library, when she'd been trapped in that ring of dark powder by some ancient magick the First Brother had wielded with the ring. That awful feeling of wrongness.It hadn’t been a spell to shatter the wards and let demons pass through—it had been a spell to keep them here. Trapped in the space between the realms. Far from the protective wards of the Blood Kingdom and the thick black tourmaline walls of Ravenstone.

Karro took up the space beside her, brandishing the large broadsword that he was so fond of. Ven was on her other side with a wickedly curved blade. She gripped the hilt of her dagger tighter, swallowing back a wince of pain as she shifted her weight. And then she looked out at the expanse of demons before them—too many for them to fight their way through.

Her hand reached toward the hidden pocket of her shadowskin, fingertips finding the circle of metal tucked away. Dropping it once more, her fingers brushed against the small pouch still tied to her belt and hope flared in her chest for a bright moment.

The thought barely formed before she was untying the satchel Seth had handed her in the armory, pouring out the contents around the boulder.

Demons hissed as the grains made contact with their skin, flinching back from the stone. She sent up a silent thanks to the quiet Wraith in case she didn’t have the chance to tell him in person.

Karro looked toward the mountains, reading the sky as he said “We’re still a few hours off from dawn.”

Would the salt ring hold that long? They might be able to outrun the shambling corpses of the drugar, but it was the vast numbers of them that gave her pause.

A wet splatter hit Aurelia’s face. And dread iced over her veins as she looked to the ground, the narrow ring of salt protecting them threatening to dissolve into the black dirt of the Shades.

Ven scanned the forest. “There,” he nodded toward a narrow opening, “we cut a path that way, and we might be able to outrun them.”

No sooner had the words left his mouth than an eerie quiet passed through the wood, a hush falling over the demons surrounding them, as if they were waiting for something . . . or someone.

In the distance, a pale green glow cut through the night.

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