Page 72 of The Cursed Crown

She screamed, sharp pain shooting down nerve endings she never knew she had. It was worse than breaking a bone. “Fuck!” she yelled, bending in two under the pain.

The water had reached knee level.

Rydekar, already at her side, ran a hand on her back. “It takes time, but wings can heal.” He looked grimly at their legs. “So long as we don’t drown. Is the door spelled?”

Rissa managed a half smile. “Maybe. Good thing I’m on the other side.”

One of Rydekar’s eyebrows wiggled, but she was too busy trying to direct her vines to the handle.

It took several tries, as she couldn’t see what she was doing, but the door finally unlatched.

Her limp wing bent behind her back, vines curling around it in an attempt to hold its broken bone in place.

“Looks like it hurts like a bitch,” the Bone Queen said, tossing her a deep golden flask.

“A healing potion?” Rissa uncorked it.

Sura shook her head. “Whiskey.”

That would do. She sipped some of the amber liquid inside before handing it back. Rydekar intercepted it, and finished off the rest.

They set off after Dorin, empty hall after empty hall, finding nothing but dark rooms and the occasional corpse, until they finally reached the great throne room where Rydekar held his court.

The immense room, also curtained off, was packed; most of the members of court and tons of lower folk had been gathered here. They sat close together, hands bound, while warriors marked by the sea patrolled between their ranks, weapons at the ready.

Rissa snarled, eyes set on the two thrones. Hers and Rydekar’s.

A pale child with sea-green braids and coral eyes was occupying hers, and Dorin sat next to her. Between them, Havryll stood, a hand on the child’s shoulder.

She wore a dark stately robe, and a red crown too big for her small head.

“I’m glad you’re here.” The child’s voice was clear as crystal and just as cold. “We can talk of where these little kingdoms of yours are heading, going forward.” The child stood. “My husband Dorin will rule in my name when I’m away. You’ll kneel to me and answer to the Sea Lands, or your end will be that of those who defied me. You met some of them on your way.”

And to think Rissa had believed Tharsen was psychotic.

“Your husband?” Rydekar grimaced. “You’re nine, Nyla.”

He knew the little girl, then.

The little girl laughed. “I was born before Mab, before any of you. Iamthe sea.”

He shook his head in disbelief. “You’re delusional. And you!” He pointed to his father. “How can you do this? She’s achild. Has your thirst for power taken whatever honor you might have had left?”

Dorin didn’t grace him with an answer.

“I would have preferred it to be you,” Nyla said. “But you never seemed interested. Now, I see why.” The coral eyes narrowed on Rissa, as though she were an interloper.

“I’m not interested because you’renine. And insane.”

“Enough. Kneel or die,” the child said, almost bored.

“The seelie lands will never answer to the sea!” Sura replied.

“Nor the unseelie kingdom,” one of Rye’s men added.

The child sighed. “Fine.”

Never one to let an enemy land the first blow, Rissa launched herself forward, Rye in her wake.

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