My full power returning to me was a revelation. I’d spent half my life with it, and the other half without. When Yaseema had destroyed the King’s crown in Reza’s chest, I’d felt it flood back to me in waves, nearly overwhelming me on the battlefield.
Other fae from River felt it too, and I saw them spark with new, fresh energy.
And now I was steps away from fully restoring everything we had lost.
I carried us up Tirich Mir, following Yaseema’s magic and landing on an outcropping of rock that only appeared when we stepped on it.
I’d looked for the entrance myself so many times, climbing up the Mountain, searching for any sign that I could break into the prison my family was held in, but could never find it. It wasn’t lost on me that the only reason I was standing here now was because of the human girl beside me.
Steps formed in front of us leading into the Mountain, and beyond that a darkened corridor into the heart of Tirich Mir.
But I stood still, my breath suspended in the air, the crown clutched in my hand.
“Are you going to climb?”
I inhaled, my chest expanding, and took a step forward.
“What if Reza—”
“He was lying,” Yaseema said firmly. “I didn’t find anything in my research that said that Azari’s and Rusul’s crowns needed to work in concert with each other. Since Azari’s magic created the curse on the Mountain, it should be the one to unravel it.”
It requires blood.
That had been another assertion of Reza’s. Had he managed to get in my head so thoroughly I couldn’t get him out?
I wasn’t going to let his voice in anymore.
Yas took the crown from my hands and held it out to me. I realized what she wanted to do and exhaled, inclining my head and bending my knees so that she could reach. She placed it on my head with quiet gentleness.
I inhaled her, her soft lemon scent and the smell of parchment containing all her secrets. My skin prickled with awareness where she brushed it with her fingertips.
“Thank you,” I said, rising again. I grabbed her hand as we climbed up the steps, feeling her small fingers press tightly into mine. It was inconceivable that I hadn’t known her that long and now this human girl was the only one I needed beside me in this moment.
We made it to the top, where a long hallway lit with torches revealed two large stone doors.
I stopped short at seeing both doors.
They were the same, carved with ornate symbols and the stamp of the jasmine flower. The mark of Queen Azari.
“There’s two. Which one are we supposed to choose?”
Yaseema frowned, stepping forward. “There’s an inscription above them.”
She arched her head back, reading it aloud and murmuring to herself. Then she shook her head, her eyes narrowed at the stone plaque above the doors.
It wasn’t any peri language I was familiar with, and I couldn’t piece together the words.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, it doesn’t make any sense.” She mumbled to herself again, squinting at the words.
“What language is it?”
“It’s the language of the Court Queen Azari was from. I studied up on it when I worked at the Citadel.”
“Trust you to know more peri languages than I do. What does it say?”
She frowned again and a thick knot formed in my chest. I steadied my breathing and waited in the thick silence.
