Page 70 of The Cursed Crown

Roots. Tree roots twisted and curled—so many of them, where from, he couldn't tell.

"You must have had an interesting few days."

She laughed over the brouhaha. "You have no idea."

He wanted to hear every single thing, but now wasn’t the time. He asked the only question that mattered, now that he could see she was all right with his own eyes. “Khal?”

“He was hurt—he took a lance through the leg, but he healed fast enough. I had to leave him at the forbidden mountain, though. With Tharsen.” She winced. “You were right all along, about so many things. He was psychotic. He wanted to keep me locked up like a pet, occasionally suck power out of me, and oh—as if that wasn’t bad enough—make babies with me, too.”

Rydekar’s fists tightened on the reins, but his tone was light. “He sounds like a man of good sense. Locking you up isn’t the worst of ideas.”

She slapped the back of his shoulder without much heat.

“How did you get away?” he asked over the violent clash of waves.

The sea was doing its best to hinder their path, but Rissa’s roots violently twirled to the coast, despite the strength of the current.

“I stole Mab’s crown,” she yelled back. “I think Tharsen might have let me.”

Rydekar had a number of follow-up questions, but they were approaching the shores.

He would have expected to find the gates barricaded upon their arrival, but they were wide open, though not one guard, not one soldier guarded the outer ward.

His steed cantered the paved street leading up to the motte, growing tenser as they encountered no one in their path.

“Where are they?” Rofrakan’s ifrits were marching behind, with the rest of the Court of Ash, but the commander rode with Rydekar.

The Old Keep was built on an island; there was nowhere for thousands of fae to go. Unless they’d been taken underwater.

“Inside the Keep,” Rydekar guessed. “Mab built it to be impenetrable. Havryll knows that.”

Quieting the rage inside his chest was no small feat. He’d trusted Havryll. The man had climbed in his esteem in the last decade. Rydekar kept almost no secrets from him, and this was his reward?

Part of him wondered what had convinced him of Havryll’s loyalty. His great aunt’s introduction? The man’s efforts? But no—if he was truthful, it had been Nyla.

Havryll had walked in with a beautiful, bright, vulnerable toddler, and Rydekar had immediately bonded with the child.

A child he was going to have to kill.

Sea Salt

“So, there were no Antheosans on land? All along, it was Sea Land soldiers, disguised as humans?” Rissa wrinkled her nose.

No wonder she’d been so confused when she’d smelled the piles of scorched corpses in Deanon and hadn’t identified human stench.

“Why would they do this? Don’t you have an alliance with them, Rye?”

“There are several courts in the Sea Lands. We’re allied withsomeof them. As for why—I suppose you could ask Havryll, if you manage a word from him before I tear his tongue out.”

Rissa wasn’t surprised to find Keep’s doors sealed shut. She huffed a breath, eyes scaling up the stone walls. “We could climb to the bartizan?”

Dismounting his horse, Rydekar picked up a stone and threw it at the wall. It bounced away inches from it, and was projected back with a considerable force.

“There’s a reason I moved the courts here. No one can walk in once the front doors are sealed.”

Rissa bit her lip. That didn’t sound right. The Old Keep was brimming with old fae magic. She couldn’t believe her ancestors would simply build doors they could be locked out of.

She climbed off the steed and approached the doors, hand extended.

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