Page 109 of Crown of Wrath

And into the most terrible place I’ve ever seen. It’s obviously the Keep of Shadows. The smoky quartz walls are the first tell, but the corpses that are strewn across the floors are even more obvious. Charred bodies that are little more than shaped ash lay everywhere.

“This is the Shattering?” Echo whispers in horror.

I don’t know how to answer. I wasn’t there. I didn’t witness it. “This is what happens when the High Fae go to war,” a voice I don’t know says from right in front of us.

A figure appears from the air, and I know instantly what it is. A sylph. Like Vesta. “I am Caelia, the current Watcher of the Keep. You… are Brenna’s daughter,” she says, looking at me. Then she turns to Echo and says, “You are here to claim the Throne?”

Echo nods to her. “Then follow me,” she says as she solidifies even more. Unlike Vesta, she’s not wearing clothes. She doesn’t even look human shaped. Instead, she’s more of a silhouette of a human. She has long, ethereal hair that seems to hint at being a lighter color. Her body has more curves than Vesta’s, and her face is obviously rounder. At the same time, her body is barely more than a strange refraction of the light, as if she were made of perfectly clear glass.

Her eyes are different. They hold a darkness that glows. Blacker than the shadows that hide in the corners, it draws my attention. She turns away from us and floats down a hallway. Her movements don’t disturb even a single mote of dust while every step we make sends up little whirlwinds of ash.

Watching Caelia, I’m awestruck at how well Vesta blended in with humans. Everyone knew Vesta was odd, but they’d never say that she was like Caelia. The words she uses are so similar, though. Her movements remind me of Vesta when she wasn’tpaying attention. When I asked her something complicated, she would seem to glide rather than walk.

Echo’s attention is focused on Caelia as well, but I don’t think she’s thinking about Vesta. Instead, she’s trying not to look at the corpses that are everywhere. “It has been many years since a High Fae walked these halls. It is not the place of the sylphs to deal with the aftermath of the Shattering, so we have left our former friends.”

She pauses for a moment, her gaze drifting to a body whose black gambeson wasn’t completely burned. Then she turns, following a hallway, and Echo and I struggle to keep up. “Will you be staying here?” Caelia asks.

“Not right now,” Echo says, doing her best to maintain strength in her voice. I’m sure that it’s difficult for her to be thrust into a situation like this. She’s lived in peace her entire life, and now she’s about to go to war. The aftermath of the last war is spread out in front of her like a glimpse into our future.

Except that this time, Flames and Shadows are allied.

“Do you know Vesta?” Echo asks. “She’s the only sylph I’ve ever met.”

Caelia turns to her without slowing her pace. “Vesta was Mistress Brenna’s handmaiden. She was… a friend. She hasn’t lived here since Mistress Brenna’s rule. Where is Mistress Brenna? I can smell her on you both, but she is no longer the Queen. There is no longer a Conduit. Has she returned to the void?”

Echo is about to respond when I interrupt. “We don’t know what happened to her. I was under the assumption that only death would sever the connection between a Queen and the Throne. Is that incorrect?”

Without hesitation, Caelia says, “There are other ways, though all of them seem unusual. If the Conduit goes to the void for too long, it could sever the connection. If she had been drainedof all of her power.” She hums to herself for a moment before saying, “There may be other ways, but I do not know them. Vesta would know, but I was never the scholar that she is. I prefer the logistics of running the Keep rather than seeking knowledge myself. Not every sylph can wander the world hunting for relics of the past.”

Something bothers me about Caelia. Maybe it’s that she is asking very probing questions about my mother. Maybe it’s that all sylphs are unusual, and I’m just not used to Caelia’s strangeness. Either way, my instincts tell me to keep her from finding out any truths, and I trust my instincts more than I trust an Immortal I don’t know.

The Keep of Shadows is strange compared to the Keep of Flames. It’s so dark. I wonder if it’s because no one has lived there for all these years or if that darkness has always been a part of this place.

Part of the darkness, I’m sure, is because so much has been destroyed. I see the remnants of what look to be brass candelabras laying melted and twisted on the floor rather than hanging from the ceiling. Bits of chain cling to the walls, but whatever they were connected to are gone. There’s no ornamentation. No rugs or paintings. Just smoky quartz and ash-covered corpses.

Until we enter the Throne Room. That’s when I realize that the Keep of Shadows isn’t made of smoky quartz. That smoky look is soot from the flames. In this one room, there were no fires. In this single room in a Keep that could hold thousands, everything is as it should be.

A beautiful candelabra hangs from the ceiling, still burning with fresh candles. The stone that makes up the floors, walls, and ceiling is a swirling snow-white that makes the stone opaque. Tapestries cover the walls, depicting all the dragons. Against the back wall, a Throne made of midnight black stonewhose darkness is only rivaled by the void rests against the wall. Its simplicity is exactly what I’d expect from my mother’s House.

But there is nothing dark about this place. It’s a place of beauty and light.

“So there’s another one of you,” a voice I know far too well says from a shadow. I turn around and see Gethin, his body slowly lightening as he steps out of the corner he was lurking in. His sharp face and hawk-nose stare down at us in a smirk. “Two children playing in the world of gods.”

Just like when I saw him at the Midsummer ball, he’s wearing a silver military jacket with gleaming buttons. It hangs on him like he was born for it, and as he walks, his movements are slow and sure-footed. If men were to embody a single aspect, Gethin would be the example of confidence.

Every muscle in my body is tensed as I stand in front of the person who is responsible for so many tragedies. The bodies that fill the halls here. The cracks in Cole’s mental landscape from what he was forced to do. The fear that fills the city of Draenyth. Even his son’s sorrow can be attributed to him.

He’s not wearing armor.

Flames are weak to Steel, but Shadows aren’t. Shadows win against Steel every time, according to Cole. I’ve been planning to go to war just to kill him. Now I’m standing in front of him, and there’s nothing stopping me from finishing this right now.

Shadows explode around me, all of them moving in different directions to surround him. He doesn’t move. He doesn’t even draw his sword. Instead, when the shadows grip him, that piece of his body disappears and reappears as he steps toward me. His body reforms as soon as anything touches him, as though he were made of clay rather than flesh. I force the quartz under our feet to rise and flow over him, but he simply leaves his feet behind to grow new ones mid-step. All the while, he doesn’t stop smiling.

“Little Queen, you are so young. So very young.” His words show no fear that he’s fighting for his life against the one who wears the Painted Crown and should be the strongest person in Nyth. “You’ve only begun to learn to use your powers. How could you ever expect to win a fight with me? I have lived longer than anyone else in this world, and you think you could kill me?”

Echo’s shadows move even more quickly from behind me, and where they grip him, they expand, trying to flow over his body. One wraps around his throat, and all but the thinnest bit of flesh disappears as he steps through the tendril of darkness. His head looks like it should fall off his body as it’s no longer supported by his spine, but then it all reforms, the flesh and muscles and bones re-knitting in an instant.

A crystal spear appears in my hands, and I rush toward Gethin, my Earth strength pushing my body to move faster than even Steel warriors can. The razor-sharp sapphire tip slams into Gethin’s stomach, and I feel it slide through his spine—a momentary resistance before the crystal cuts through. It’s so similar to what I’d done to Rhion to end the two confrontations with him, but Gethin doesn’t collapse. He just walks forward, his body seeming to consume the spear.

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