Page 138 of Crown of Wrath

Maeve

I reach out for The Darkness’s shadows with my own. It recoils slightly, most likely not used to being touched, but it wants what I’m offering, so it doesn’t stop me from wrapping my shadows around it. Then I reach out for Valinar. There’s only one entry point now.

I pull both of us through, though I have to struggle to move The Darkness. It yields and follows my pull. When we go through the shadow into Valinar, I can’t help but smile evenwider. My mother, the literal god of Valinar, has done the only thing I’ve asked of her.

She’s rebuilt Valinar for a singular purpose. To catch The Darkness and trap it. Unlike other worlds like Nyth, Valinar doesn’t have a way to maintain its energy. It relies on the beings inside it. That’s how Calyr created it.

He also gave my mother control of it. Now, instead of a misty village, it is nothing but blindingly white light. The light comes from everywhere, so there are no shadows to escape into. None except the singular shadow at her feet.

There is no ground. There is no sky or clouds or sun or trees or buildings. It is a void, no different from the one we just left with the single difference being that there is an unending amount of light.

“Finally,” my mother says. “Do you have any idea how exhausting it is to wait here with absolutely nothing to do?”

I look from her to The Darkness, who is floating several feet away, and I try to use shadows to pull myself away from it. They don’t appear. The shadows are immediately burned away by the light coming from everywhere. Then I see that The Darkness’s fins that are typically made of shadows are non-existent here.

WHAT IS THIS PLACE?The Darkness screams into my mind, and I reflexively put my hands over my ears even though the sound is coming from inside my mind.

“It is a trap built specifically for you,” my mother says. “It has been a very long time, Darkness.”

Brenna, Daughter of Darkness. You know you are nothing compared to me. I am the Eater of Worlds, and you are nothing but a High Fae.

I don’t say anything as the monstrous creature in front of me—who is more than a little terrifying—snaps its jaws and squirms. My mother doesn’t seem to be nearly as nervous as I am, though. “Darkness,” she croons. “You’re wrong. This place was builtspecifically to contain you. I am its architect, its keeper, and in complete control of just how miserable your existence will be. If you make things simple and are patient, then we will wait together for a short time. If, on the other hand, you fight, then I will drain you until you’re no different from the rest of the swimmers in the void.”

To emphasize her point, I feel the space around both The Darkness and myself warping. Just like when I fought the Nothing, my power is stripped from me faster than I could have imagined possible.

The Darkness screams and visibly shrinks several feet in all directions.STOP! I WILL BE PATIENT!

The air stops warping and the drain on me is minimal. “Good,” my mother says. “Your imprisonment will be short-lived if everything goes according to plan. In the meantime, would you like to have a little chat? I have questions, and I’m sure you have some as well. Would you like to continue as we have in the past?”

I call upon flames to push me toward my mother, and as I get close to her, my arms lengthen, grasping onto her leg so that I can pull myself to the singular bit of shadow and the only way in or out of it.

My mother ignores me completely as I reach down to the tiny puddle of shadows at her feet. I pull myself through them into the void. Now it’s time to deal with the creature that is even more dangerous than The Darkness.

Calyr.

Chapter 71

Maeve taught us what humans could do. She showed us just how quickly they can change and grow and become more. Immortals are slow to recognize the need to evolve. Dragons are even slower. What happened isn’t surprising.

~Cole Cyrus, A History of Flame

Maeve

I appear in Calyr’s cave under Skycrest. It looks as though not a day has passed since I received the Painted Crown. Everything is black, but black under a mountain is distinctly different from the black of the void that I’ve become so used to. My Earth senses create the image for me now. Calyr is on his pile of gold and treasures, but this time, he’s not laying down. He’s sitting up and staring at me.

“Good afternoon,” I say as if I weren’t staring down the largest creature in Nyth. The torches along the walls come to life as if my words gave me away.

“Daughter of Stone,” the gold-scaled dragon says, his voice rumbling through the cave as if he were a part of this place as much as the stone is. “Why are you here?”

He was sitting on his haunches like a cat waiting for a human to feed it. Now, he leaps onto the stone floor in front of me, and there’s a distance between us. He’s not as confident. There’s a respect and maybe even a touch of fear. It’s to be expected since he knows what I’m capable of.

I was most shocked by his size when I met Calyr. Now, it’s his speed that worries me since he’s so much smaller than The Darkness. Unlike The Darkness, there’s nothing stopping him from crushing the life out of me. The last time he saw me, that cottage-sized paw could have done just that.

This time, I hope I’m ready because Calyr is going to be furious.

He prowls toward me, the dust still lingering in the air where his paws landed only moments ago. The serpentine head swivels so that he can see me better as he gets closer to me. “I come as the Queen of Earth,” I say. “I am the Conduit, and all previous Conduits were given the chance to speak with you without a price.”

He pauses, and his eyes turn bright gold as he stares past me. He’s watching the lines of the future change and shift because of my decisions today—decisions that he doesn’t quite understand. I’ve read all about his abilities inA History of Magic and Dragons. He’ll have seen me training. He’ll know my skills and speed, but he won’t know my plan.

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