Page 60 of Rise of the Phoenix King (Crown and Crest 4)

I move the chair, my eyes never leaving Camellia. Pranmore extends the ward that was protecting me, creating a curtain that separates the room in half—Camellia on one side and me on the other.

“If Camellia truly shows up, it won’t hold for long,” Pranmore warns. “She’s too powerful.”

I swallow, my mouth going dry as I nod.

Lawrence and Pranmore leave, hesitating in the doorway for several seconds.

The princess smiles once the door shuts, transforming Della’s plain face into one of cruel beauty. “Hello, Henrik.”

“What have you done?” I whisper.

“You recognized me immediately,” she purrs. “How?”

“I don’t know.”

The princess’s eyes grow intense, taking on that half-mad sheen I’ve become so accustomed to in the last few months. “We have a connection. You feel it, don’t you?”

“If we had a connection, it was severed when you took your last breath.”

“I’m alive, Henrik.”

“You’re dead.”

She shakes her head. “Iwasdead. I’ve returned.”

“Why?” I hold my breath, hoping I can make her talk as I once did in the Palace Eloudore gardens.

“Death doesn’t appeal to me,” she says with a sigh. “It’s sofinal.”

“You cheated it for a brief time, but at what price?”

Camellia smiles. “You care, don’t you? You wish you didn’t, but there’s that chivalrous vein that runs through your heart that you simply cannot suppress. You hate me, and you love Clover. But you’re worried about me all the same.”

I don’t answer.

Her eyes move to the pennant on my arm, and she gasps, “Lawrence made you duke marshal?”

Slowly, I nod.

“Because of me?” She suddenly giggles. “Because of mygolems?”

“Camellia…”

How can a dead princess be as vexing as a live one?

“You’re very welcome,” she says.

“Why go to all the trouble of smuggling golems into the cities? Are you planning a war?”

“You want me to divulge my plan, don’t you?” She laughs again. This time, it’s a throaty, seductive sound.

I lean back when she rises. Before my eyes, Della melts away, leaving an illusion of Camellia in her place. Her once-golden hair is the darkest black, and her blue eyes are the color of onyx. She was beautiful in life, but now she’s a creature of dark myth—the kind of monster capable of luring men to their deaths with the barest tilt of her lips.

I leave the chair, disliking her looming over me.

She toys with Pranmore’s ward, pressing her lips together with amusement as the magic sparks against her finger.

“Adorable.” She lifts her disconcerting eyes to mine. “If you want me to whisper sweet secrets in your ear, I’m afraid you’ll have to come to me.”

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