Page 22 of Crown of Wrath

I arch an eyebrow. “Beyond my clothes?”

“Yes. Beyond your clothes.” I feel a presence outside my mental landscape. A dark presence, full of salt and cedar. The Shade wants to enter my mind, to touch my soul. “I require entrance,” he whispers as he moves next to me. “I require access to the power inside you.”

The shadows disappear from my body, leaving me completely naked in front of him, and he runs a black-tinted nail down from my collarbone to my breast, slowly tracing the curve, yet never actually looking at it.

A tingling in my wrist makes me look down. The shadowy mark on my skin is moving more than normal. I look up at the Shade. “You could have asked for a debt,” I say. “And demanded entrance then.”

He stares at me for a moment before saying, “Yes, but then you could refuse, and I would not have you burn to death at my feet. Once I call in the debt, I cannot stop it. And, Maeve Arden, I worry about whether you have enough reasons to survive.”

He’s not wrong. But the void has called to me. Every time we’ve shadow walked, I’ve wanted to linger. I’ve wanted to feel that dark pressure pull the weight from my shoulders. It feels so soothing to be there, in the darkness of the void, with none of the stresses of this world. It’s freeing.

“Why did you stop coming to me, Shade?” I ask. “Why are you just now coming back to me? It’s been months.”

Something feels ridiculous about that statement, but I don’t know what it is. It’s like I should already know the answer to it, but I don’t.

“Because you refused me, Maeve,” he says. “You refused the Shadowed Crown.”

I run my finger over my forehead, remembering the way it’d looked to have the shadows over my head while I looked into the little pond that day. I shiver as the Shade glides around behind me. “Open your mind to me, Maeve Arden,” he whispers. “Do not make the same mistake twice by refusing.”

His shadow covered hands encircle my waist as he steps behind me, and this time, when he presses into my mind, I don’t resist. An image of us standing in my room fills my thoughts. Him behind me, covered in the linen of the Shadowed Cloak and me completely bare in front of him. An intricate black crown covers the Painted Crown, thin wisps of shadow form into a sparkling, shadowed tiara filled with stars that twinkle like diamonds.

“I don’t know how to be the Queen of Shadows,” I breathe.

“Trust me. Stop refusing me. Stop doubting. Give yourself to me without question.” My natural instincts war with the simplicity of what he demands. The Shade wants to use me. He wants to turn me into something that I’m not strong enough to be.

I’m already the Queen of Earth. How can I be both? And the Queen of Shadows can’t forget about the pain… and her past.

“I don’t know if I can do that,” I whisper. The image in my mind changes. The Shade moves his hand lower, his fingers pressing between my legs. His nails slowly move through the fine hair, leaving a tingling in their wake.

“You can. You’re stronger than you know, Maeve Arden. I’ve always said that. I’ve never hurt you, Maeve. I’ve never lied to you.”

Something about that statement is wrong, but I can’t remember. It’s not wrong, but it’s not right either. “Let’s go to the void now,” he whispers.

I nod.

And the shadows at our feet swallow us up.

Chapter 11

It is so much more difficult to remain aloof around Maeve. She’s a darling. Yesterday, she caught a rabbit on her own, and it took everything in me not to give her a hug. I hate that I had to criticize her instead of congratulating her. The saddest part? She expected the criticism.

~Vesta, letters to Brenna

Maeve

The void is just as wonderful as ever. It’s like floating in a river without any sound, with nothing I need to worry about. It’s nothing and everything and… and it’s the only place that I feel like I can relax. The Shade’s hand grips my wrist, and I can feel him in my mind, monitoring me as I open myself up to the darkness that surrounds us.

It floods me, filling me up in a way that I’ve never allowed it to before. The Shade is afraid, but he doesn’t pull us away from this place. When Darian had let the void into him the slightest bit, he’d almost died. I’d had to pull the shadows out of him then.

But shadows have been in my blood since I was born, and they sing to the void. It’s a song that I’ve heard so many times before, but I can’t ever remember. A soft humming. It’s a song, but it’s more than that. It’s life? And death? It calls to me like the moon calls to the wolf, like the wind to the bird.

It’s truth. My truth.

My breath is in time with it. My heartbeat. It’s the throbbing between my legs from where the Shade touched me. Even my thoughts seem to be in time with it.

It is the rhythm of the void, and I know it.

When words combine with intent, the most basic magic can be done. It is magic that transcends race, bloodline, religion, and training, because that is how this world was created. A word and a thought.

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