Page 109 of The Crowned Queen

Araya pressed her fingers to her tingling lips as she watched him walk away. The shadows brushed one last lingering touch against her legs before they were gone too, vanishing into the ruined garden. Araya blinked hard, wiping away the last of her tears.

“I love you,” she whispered. “Fight to win.”

And then she turned her back on her mate and walked into the trees.

Chapter

Forty-One

Smoke filled the air, drifting through the shattered windows and curling around the soaring columns in gray-black tendrils. Loren coughed, his eyes burning and watering as the foul reek of scorched magic filled the air. He didn’t dare look back at the grove—would Araya’s shield protect her from the smoke? For how long? He’d never thought to make her test it. She hadn’t had time to learn her limits. None of them had. And now⁠—

Now it was too late.

Burning, the shadows hissed, their voices fracturing. They are burning the trees⁠—

“I know.” Loren kept his voice low, their fury arcing across his skin like lightning. “But we have to let them come to us.”

The Arcanum didn’t make them wait long.

They marched through the shattered doors four across, their boots striking the broken marble. Black armor caught the gray light flickering through the smoke, the golden Arcanum’s Eye blazing on every chest. Steel flashed as they saw him, blades coming up.

But Brynn didn’t even let them get close. Her fire rained down from above, the crackle of flames rising above the startled shouts of the soldiers. It crowded them together, turning the Arcanum’s march into a chaotic rush. Soldiers desperate to escape the flames broke and rushed for the door, only to find themselves trapped between the arrows raining down from above and their own men coming in behind them.

Yes, the shadows hissed, straining against his grip. Let us go. Let us fight⁠—

“Not yet,” Loren muttered.

The next soldiers came through the door with shields already raised, mages moving into position behind the wall of armor. A blast of stolen magic arced upward toward the balcony—then another. Someone above—Caela maybe—screamed, a section of the stone railing crashing to the floor in an explosion of dust and shattered stone.

Now, the shadows snarled.

“Now,” Loren agreed.

Darkness exploded outward, sweeping through the entrance hall. They poured from him like a flood breaking a dam, their vast, terrible power only amplified by the magic here. It tasted like lightning—rising to his call like an eager hound. His to command. To wield and protect⁠—

Arcanum soldiers stumbled, orderly formations breaking apart under the onslaught. One man screamed, the sound cut off abruptly as the shadows slammed him into the marble floor. Another collapsed, choking on darkness as the shadows coiled around his throat. One of the mages raised his hand—only for the shadows to wrap around his wrist and twist, the snap of bone lost among the screams.

Yes, the shadows hissed, surging forward. Yes⁠—

Loren’s heart pounded, their fierce elation pouring through him. Arrows whistled through the air again, many finding their targets. Soldiers tripped over their own dead, stumbling and falling as they scrambled for cover.

More, the shadows hissed, drunk on it. More, more⁠—

Loren gritted his teeth, reining them in before they could surge too far ahead. Somewhere beyond the smoke, Jaxon Shaw was here. If Loren overextended, let him grab control—the fight would be over before it even started.

Come in here, Loren willed him, staring at the gaping opening where the doors had once stood. Face me instead of hiding like the coward you are⁠—

“Really, Shadowbane?” A familiar voice rang out over the din. “This is where you picked for your last stand? The broken-down ruin of your family home?”

Jaxon Shaw strode through the smoke, the arrows and magic raining down on him skittering harmlessly off the shimmering shield over his head. He looked every bit the Arcanum commander, his black armor emblazoned with the golden Arcanum’s Eye and that horrible staff loose in his hand. He raised it, pointing it across the space separating them.

Abomination, the shadows hissed, recoiling. He has no right. We are not his to command⁠—

“Then fight him,” Loren commanded through gritted teeth. The taste of Jaxon’s stolen magic bloomed across his tongue like blood, tearing at his hold on them. But this wasn’t just any stolen magic. It was his and hers, taken from them against their will and bound to bone to do the bidding of a human mage. Fighting Jaxon Shaw was like fighting himself, his own power turned against him.

But Loren wasn’t going to depend on dara’el this time.

He yanked his sword free, the blade catching the gray light as he raised it, as bright and sharp as it had been twenty-five years ago.