Page 141 of The Crown of Nyx

But once the darkness hit, I went with it.

57

Rhadamanthus

Her pain tasted bitter. I’d liked her pleasure so much more.

And my shadows, they did not like hearing her cry. They wanted to soothe her, to remove her from the world that brought her so much pain.

Instead, I willed them to follow her magic onto the next place.

The shifter had died so quickly, I never even noticed death inching towards him. I might not have been the king of death—that throne was for another, hidden in the fields I ruled over—but I knew it when I sensed it.

That bastard of a false king came in so quickly, I never registeredhis presence.

I kept an eye on the Luna Fae who now appeared to be marked by the possibility of a swift, painful death. If I could stop it, I would.

For her.

I did not want to feel her pain again. I did not want to hear her broken sobs, watch as she crumbled, as I could do nothing to help her.

It was a horrible feeling. And the loneliness only made it worse.

At least, that was what I wanted to blame it on.

And not the young female who made mefeelagain.

The shadows swept us into a new part of the world, taking us away from the rainy, hidden oasis and the body of the now-dead shifter. There was nothing left for us there. And despite seeing Asael again, nothing could have prepared any of us for his revelation.

It was a secret none had bothered to share with me. Skulls that held the power of the Gods.

I knew the mates of my wife were questioning whether I knew anything about it. But much to their dismay, I was just as much in the dark as they were.

If Asael were here, I would have liked to question him further about keeping such a large secret—a dangerous, world altering thing—from me.

But he was dead, and now, unreachable. Just like the Queen’s mates should be.

The shadows separated, receding as we appeared in a dense forest. The limbs and trunks of the trees were twisted and gnarled, roots rising from the earth like the hands of the dead. The canopy of leaves was so thick, I couldn’t make out the placement of the stars to tell us which part of the Old World we’d landed in. But there were small pockets of light throughout the forest, littlebubbles of it that could have been witch light, but didn’t appear to reflect the light of the sun.

Were we in the witch lands, ripe with the old magic of the women who once protected the realm from all else?

Had we moved to a different part of the shifter lands, once ruled by the dragons?

Or were we back in the vampire lands, where the blood lords once reigned freely?

A chill ran down my spine. The small lights were blue, almost bioluminescent.They did not twinkle or disappear, steady in their glow.

“Am I the only one thinking this is weird?” the divination mage muttered. He had witch lights in his hands, though he didn’t activate them.

We formed a tighter circle around the shifter holding our Queen. She was unconscious now, and it was likely for the best. Her panic had overtaken her, and although I would never be able to relate to what she was feeling, I still felt the remnants of her emotions. They burrowed into my chest, into the cavity where my heart resided, coiling around the organ tightly.

I searched the canopy of leaves again, seeking at least a glimpse of the moon. We were still hours away from sunrise, if I had to guess, though with the way time seemed to slow in this world, I could not be sure.

“If I am right, then we are entirely alone out here,” the vampire said, her voice soft. “But I still feel as though we are being watched.”

I hadn’t noticed the feeling before, but the chill came again, and this time, I turned away from the group. We were on a long stretch of road—or, it would have been, long ago. There were cart tracks indented in the hardened earth beneath our feet. We were surrounded by the gnarled, twisted trees on two sides, and either endof the road twisted out of sight, curving around the trees into absolute darkness.

It felt…familiar, though not in the sense that I had been here before. I knew I hadn’t; spending time in this world had been the last thing on my agenda, and my rule had to take place in the Underworld.

---