Chapter 36
THIRTY-SIX
TAMSIN
The entry halls are designed to break you before you reach your destination.
I don’t break.
But I’m starting to feel the cost.
The Crown has been open since the courtyard battle. Minutes that feel like hours, power flooding through me in an endless torrent. I told Drayke I could hold it long enough to break Ulrik’s defenses. I didn’t mention what holding it would take from me.
My hands have started trembling. Fine tremors I can hide if I keep them moving.
There’s a headache building behind my eyes—pressure that has nothing to do with stress and everything to do with life force bleeding away.
The Crown doesn’t just amplify power. It burns through the wielder to fuel itself.
Auren walks beside me, his cold hand wrapped around mine. The contact grounds me—reminds me that I’m not alone in this nightmare of stone and shadow. His presence is a steady flame against the oppressive darkness, even though his fire burns cold where mine burns hot.
He doesn’t know how much this is costing me. I’ve made sure of that.
“Left here.” His voice is low, tactical. Even now, his strategic mind maps our path. “The throne room is at the heart of the stronghold.”
“You’ve never been here.”
“I’ve studied every intelligence report we’ve gathered over centuries.” His thumb traces across my knuckles, a small gesture that shouldn’t mean as much as it does. “Ulrik builds his spaces to project power. The throne room will be central, elevated, designed to make supplicants feel small.”
“I’m not a supplicant.”
He stops walking. Turns to face me, his golden eyes reflecting the white light of my Crown. His free hand comes up to cup my cheek, cold against my heated skin.
“No.” Something fierce burns in his gaze. “You’re not.”
He kisses me. Brief, hard, a claiming that has nothing to do with magic and everything to do with choice. When he pulls back, I’m breathing harder, and it has nothing to do with the Crown’s power drain.
Or maybe it does. Maybe everything does now.
“Whatever happens in there,” he says against my lips, “remember who you are.”
“Who am I?”
“Mine.” The word is possession and promise, demand and devotion. “You’re mine. And I don’t intend to lose you.”
My heart stutters. Not from fear. From the fierce joy of hearing him claim me so absolutely. From knowing that I would claim him with equal ferocity if I asked.
From knowing that I might not survive long enough to do it.
“Then let’s finish this.” I squeeze his hand, hiding the weakness in my grip. “So we can have what comes after.”
We move deeper into the fortress.
The throne room doors stand twice my height, carved from stone so dark, it eats my light rather than reflect it.
No guards. No wards barring our entry. Ulrik wants me to come to him. Wants to face me in the seat of his power, where eight centuries of accumulated magic might give him the edge he needs.
He doesn’t realize that his power is exactly what I came here to destroy.
I push the doors open with a burst of white fire. They swing inward with a groan of ancient hinges, revealing the chamber beyond.
The throne room is massive. Dark. The ceiling lost in shadow so complete it might stretch to infinity, the floor a single slab of obsidian polished to mirror-brightness.
Standing here feels like floating in a void—darkness above, darkness reflected below, nothing to anchor the senses except the distant walls and the throne that dominates the far end.
The throne itself is carved from black stone, shapes worked into its surface. It’s not beautiful. It’s not meant to be. It’s meant to terrify.
Ulrik rises from that throne as we enter.
He’s in human form—tall, broad-shouldered, silver hair swept back from a face carved from granite. His eyes are chips of obsidian that show nothing, reflect nothing, absorb my light the way his entire domain absorbs it. Power radiates from him in waves that press against my skin.
“The little witch princess.” His voice echoes through the chamber, deep and cold. “Come to die in my throne room. How considerate.”
I step forward, releasing Auren’s hand. The Crown blazes brighter as I move, white light pushing back the shadows—but I feel the cost of that brightness now. The Relic is hungry, and I’m what it’s feeding on.
“I came to end this.” My voice doesn’t waver, even as something warm trickles from my nose. Blood. I wipe it away before Auren can see. “You destroyed my kingdom. Killed my parents. Allied with my sister to claim what was never meant for you.”
“You think that trinket can destroy me?” Ulrik takes a step forward, and the shadows in the room surge toward him, gathering around his form.
“I am the Shadow King. I created the curse that’s been consuming your dragon’s brother for three hundred years.
I destroyed your kingdom. I will destroy you. ”
“You destroyed Valdoria,” I agree. Another step forward. Another surge of power from the Crown that costs me more than I want to admit. “You killed my parents. You tried to claim the Crown through my sister’s betrayal.”
White flames kindle around my hands. The fire feels different now—thinner, somehow. Less substantial. The Crown is burning through my reserves faster than I anticipated.
I have to end this quickly. Before there’s nothing left of me to end it with.
“But you forgot something important.”
Ulrik’s expression doesn’t change. “And what’s that?”
“The Crown wasn’t meant to be taken.” I raise my hands, and the Relic’s full power answers—blazing, devastating, tearing through me as much as it tears through the air. “It was meant to be inherited.”
I step forward again, and the shadows recoil.
“And I am its rightful heir.”