Page 42 of Crown of Wrath

My raven wings flap hard as I carry us away from the Nothing, and I have no idea what to do.

Maeve was just beginning to heal, and her father was a large part of that. Now he’s gone. Now everyone’s gone. The Nothing has swallowed every person she’s cared at all about other than me, Darian, and Lee.

I fly back toward the cottage. There are things in that cottage that we’ll need. A few supplies, but more than anything, the Shadowed Cloak. I need to create some distance between us and the Nothing.

But what can I do? I can’t fix this. I can’t bring the people she loves so much back. I can’t bring her Da back.

I grab the cloak and put it on before picking up our packs and slinging Maeve over my back. Then I take a deep breath and fall into the void.

The darkness presses on me almost instantly. It feels like every time I come to the void, the weight is heavier. Maybe I’m weaker every time, or maybe it’s slowly convincing me to give into it.

It’s like falling into a lake with weights on your feet. The longer you stay in, the deeper you go, and the more the pressure gets to you. The time that Maeve rescued her father, I was sure that I was going to give in to it until she wrapped me in her shadows. I don’t understand how she can feel so at ease here.

I don’t stay long. Immediately, I think of a clearing that Maeve called the Shade to her on the way to Draenyth. It’s a safe place many miles from here, but one that she’ll remember.

I pull her from the void, and we land on dry and brittle pine needles that crunch under our feet. We’d been here at the beginning of summer when the winds had been hot and humid. The evenings had come later, and the winds had brought scents of flowers. Now, the wind brings nothing but a dark chill. The flowers are gone, and snow is coming. Not yet, but soon. I lay Maeve down on the brown needles that cover the clearing, and before I do anything else, I take a few long, deep breaths.

This is going to be worse than it was before. I know that. What can I possibly do to keep her from shattering? Or has she already? I’m terrified to enter her mind. She’s never truly allowed me into it. Each time, the shadows kept me on the outskirts of the forest of her inner landscape. Even when she’d been whole and in love, I’d only ever been able to stand on the edge. It was enough to talk to her, but it wasn’t close enough to understand her. I can’t truly help her heal from there.

Then again, am I strong enough to do anything? Sure, I can feel the way she helped me, but she’s stronger. And she’s… she’s human. Her emotions are strong and contagious. When she laughs, it’s hard not to laugh alongside her. When she smiles, I can’t help but feel the coldness inside me thawing.

I don’t know what to do.

I need someone to help me, but there’s no one. Just like that day that Brenna handed me the Shadowed Cloak, I can’t depend on anyone else, and there’s no room for mistakes.

I take another long breath, like I’m taking a drag from a pipe. The breath comes in low and slow. I have to do this whether I think I can or not.

Even if she may hate me when it’s all over, I have to force Maeve Arden to survive this. She cannot break.

That’s the only thing that matters.

Interlude 2

SidontheStronghadnever truly known what pain was. He had always been faster, stronger, and more capable of winning a fight. When he’d been a Youngling, the Elders had been forced to separate him when wrestling. He was too dangerous and too large. He’d never learned what it meant to be hurt.

Today, he learned what pain was.

His scales shimmer with the same silver that they always have, the power that he was born with. Magic, pure and undiluted, it’s the exact thing that the hunters are searching for. They hadn’t found him, though. They’d found his mate.

Vesper the Bright. She is… No, shewasa small dragon whose scales shined as beautifully as the dawn. Sidon had found her to be the most wonderful female he’d ever known. She was not a warrior like him. She wasn’t meant for death and destruction. Even her claws and fangs were smaller.

Instead of destruction, she brought light and laughter everywhere she went, but none of the worlds and none of the dragons will witness her light again. Memories of how she hadchanged him race through Sidon’s mind. She met him when he was a brute of a dragon. He was always in search of a fight, always looking for a new conquest. He had been what his powers had made him into, the greatest warrior the dragons had ever had.

And nothing else.

Vesper showed him that there was another side of him. She showed him he could be a leader and maybe even an Elder. He could be more than claws and fangs and flames. He could even become kind enough to be her mate. She’d seen the parts of him that had hidden beneath his reputation, and she’d become his world.

The stone in front of Sidon is shaped just as she had been. Every scale that he knows by heart is there. Her eyes stare at him as if calling for help, but there’s no way to help her any longer.

Sidon the Strong had never known pain, but now he can’t stop the tears from rolling down his silver cheek scales. He cannot stop the ripping and shredding feeling that courses through his soul.

Revenge had not cured the ache, for he had crushed all the hunters he had found.

Sleeping had not cured the ache, for he had hidden in a cave for days, his eyes rarely opening.

Dreams had not cured the ache, for all he could see when he slept was his mate.

He roars as another wave of pain rolled through his breast, like two stones are crushing his soul where he’d been bound to Vesper. Tiny flames lick the air just beyond his snout, but he has no more true fire inside him. He has spent it all in his anger.

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