Page 85 of The Crown of the Dark Prince
His face paled as he rubbed his chest with one hand.
“Then you know that on the day I arrived in this kingdom, I stood at the center of an earthquakeI caused.You know I killed an entire room of people without lifting a finger. And you know that I am the only being to ever survive the bite of a Hydraxan.”
Gertrand swallowed hard, the bob in his throat rocking.
I paused at the threshold, glancing back over my shoulder. My voice dropped, seething with quiet menace.
“Tell me, Gertrand. Are you more afraid of what the Dragon will say to you, or whatIwill do to you if another hair on her head is touched?”
His head dropped, his silence answer enough.
The door slammed shut behind me as I left, stomping through the castle without caring who saw me or what they thought. That magic still pulsed wildly in me and a single thought echoed in my head.
Camilla wouldn’t survive in that dungeon.
Which meant I would have to break her out.
And I was going to need some help to get her out successfully.
Chapter Twenty Four
Caldrius wasn’t in his room when I searched it, and the embers in the hearth had long since gone cold. The silence of the space gnawed at me, the faint scent of ash lingering in the air. The bed remained neatly made, the curtains drawn, as if he hadn’t disturbed the room, as though he hadn’t been there for days.
My frustration swelled with each passing moment. I didn’t have time for this. Camilla needed my help as soon as possible, and Caldrius might be the only one who could give me the answers—or the means—necessary for me to save her.
I stormed through the echoing halls of the castle, my boots slapping against marble as I made my way toward Hyrax’s throne room. The massive doors loomed ahead of me, their ancient wood carved with twisting vines and bones, yet when I pushed through them, the chamber beyond was empty. My pulse quickened, impatience bleeding into something sharper. Something frantic. I was running out of time.
“Where are you?” I whispered to the vast emptiness, my voice swallowed by the cavernous room.
Retracing my steps from when Caldrius had given me a tour, I hurried through the dim corridors, chasing the faint flicker of lantern light asit danced against the walls. The castle felt different tonight—hollow. The torches sputtered weakly, as though even their flames had grown tired. The shadows were darker, and the marble walls felt colder. I glanced toward the massive windows as I passed, where the starlight bled in silver streaks across the floors. It was beautiful in an eerie, unsettling way. Too quiet. Too still.
When I finally stepped out of the castle, the chill of the night sank into my bones. I broke into a run, skidding down the hillside toward the woods Caldrius had mentioned before—the cursed trees where the Undone roamed. The world blurred around me as I sprinted, every thud of my boots punctuated by the pounding of my heart.
“Caldrius!” I called from the edge of the woods, my voice ringing into the abyss. A biting wind curled around me, slicing through the leathers I wore, carrying with it a damp, metallic scent that made my stomach twist.
Nothing.
No answer.
I swallowed, my throat dry. The trees stretched ahead of me, their dead limbs tangled like a nest of skeletal fingers clawing at the moonlight. The air here was heavy, pressing against my chest, and the cold… it wasn’t natural. It wasn’t the cold of winter or even of death—it was the kind of cold that seeped into your soul, something that whispered of misery and madness.
Nothing good waited for me in those woods
“Caldrius?” I called again, softer this time.
The silence that followed was absolute.
My stomach dropped, fear threading through me. I stepped forward on instinct, testing the ground beneath me as though it might shift beneath my feet.
The silence deepened.
I could feel it now—something watching me. A presence, oppressive and suffocating, curling like smoke in the shadows.
“Okay,” I muttered under my breath, my voice trembling despite my effort to sound steady. “You can do this.”
I took another step into the trees, then another. The moment my foot crossed that invisible threshold into the wood, it was like the world closed in around me. The sound of my own breathing became deafening but no footsteps echoed, no wind stirred the branches overhead. It was like the forest itself swallowed every other sound, every breath, every trace of life.
I turned to glance behind me—only to find the path had vanished. The castle, the hillside, the world beyond these trees was… gone. All that remained was an endless, twisted forest. My pulse raced, panic flaring in my chest.
