Crown of Ruin

  Crown of Ruin

  Book Three - Crown of Death Saga

  Keary Taylor

  Copyright © 2018 Keary Taylor

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the author.

  First Edition: June 2018

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Taylor, Keary, 1987-

  Crown of Ruin (Crown of Death) : a novel / by Keary Taylor. – 1st ed.

  Contents

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  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

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  THE BLOOD DESCENDANTS UNIVERSE

  House of Royals Saga

  Garden of Thorns Trilogy

  Crown of Death Saga

  THE FALL OF ANGELS TRILOGY

  THREE HEART ECHO

  THE EDEN TRILOGY

  THE McCAIN SAGA

  WHAT I DIDN’T SAY

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  Chapter 1

  I want to break. To shatter. I could crumble, a million pieces scattered across the stone floor.

  But there are eyes—so many eyes. Dozens of them, hundreds perhaps. They watch me. They watch their queen.

  I’ve been under their eyes before. I’ve been studied, scrutinized. I know what they are looking for in this moment.

  I can’t crumble.

  Because right now I have to be queen of them all.

  “Get out,” I say evenly as I stare at my husband’s blank face. My stomach turns. My jaw tightens.

  I stand straight. I take one deep breath. I turn to face the masses.

  “I want everyone, and I mean everyone save Alivia, Ian, and Eshan out of this castle. But if anyone tries to leave Roter Himmel, the punishment will be one hundred years tied up in the middle of the desert where the sun never sets.”

  Eyes widen, breaths suck into lungs.

  I see it, they doubt me. If I really am the Queen. If I mean what I say.

  If I were Cyrus, I’d probably kill someone. Drag them out into the sunlight outside, watch them scream, watch them cry in agony. I would probably tear someone’s skin off, inch by inch, while everyone watched, to show them how deadly serious I am.

  But I am not Cyrus.

  I am Sevan.

  “Do you all understand me?” I ask quietly.

  No one speaks. They only watch me with wary eyes.

  “Do you understand your Queen?” I bellow.

  Some take a step back. Eyes widen. Others narrow at me.

  “Do you understand if you leave our city you will regret it for the next 36,500 days?” I threaten with an angry tremor in my voice. “Do you understand if anyone tries to travel on silent and dark feet, I will know?”

  While the majority nod their heads solemnly—most know better than to defy me, others doubt.

  I make a mental note of each of them.

  Of their own accord, my eyes drift, studying each of those that surround me. The shock of Eshan. The horror of Alivia. And the bitter anger of Ian.

  My eyes shift from him to those who look at me with doubt. And I look back to Ian.

  He looks over at them as well, and I know he gets my silent communication: take note of the doubters.

  We may not like one another, maybe we never will, but I know in this, we speak the same language when it comes to being distrustful and suspicious of others and their motives.

  Looking back at those who weren’t smart enough to take me seriously, I know that some will die.

  And I don’t care.

  Emotion wells in my eyes. Tears threaten to slip down my face.

  But I hold them in.

  I’ll burn every one of them to the ground if it means avenging Cyrus.

  “Leave,” I let the word quietly slip over my lips.

  It starts at the back, bodies work their way toward the main entrance of the castle. The guards are wary. Unsure. They feel they’re abandoning the posts they have held for centuries. But with dark, hard eyes, I stare at them.

  The great hall empties out, and slowly, the room grows quiet.

  As I watch the last of them leave, one tear slips down my face.

  I can’t breathe.

  My chest hurts.

  My feet feel like lead, a million pounds each.

  But I turn.

  Slowly, I cross the space to stand at my husband’s side.

  Cyrus.

  The man in the cage beside me laughs, something low and dark. It rumbles through the room.

  “How the tide will turn now that the King is dead,” he says. “After all this time, after all our efforts, it was so easy.”

  I feel my eyes ignite red and my teeth grind together so hard they threaten to crack.

  “Get him out of here,” I growl.

  A sound whistles through the air, one I’ve heard once before. The man in the cage howls in agony. I look over my shoulder to see him holding his neck, a thin needle sticking into his flesh.

  It’s one of those same darts Rath shot Eshan with once.

  Ian steps forward, slipping something into his pocket. He picks up the keys the guard had left on the table, unlocks the cage, and grabs the quivering man by the arms.

  I meet Ian’s eyes as he drags the man away.

  Something in them tells me he knows where he’s going, he knows exactly where to take this man.

  And I remember; Ian was once imprisoned here at the castle.

  I can’t think about the past right now. Not when here in front of me, the love of my very long, very broken life, lies dead.

  I reach forward, touching my hand to his cheek over a splash of blood.

  I can’t describe the emotions that rush through me. Relief. Longing. Completion. Utter agony. They pummel me with the force of a typhoon.

  But I feel it, even now, looking at his wrecked body—the love.

  “Cyrus,” I whisper. Just his name pulls at all the strings attached to my heart. I feel them lacing back together with his own. We are bound together, through time.

  “There…” a shaky voice says from behind me. I hear footsteps and Alivia appears in my peripheral vision. “There’s a chance.” Her voice trembles. She sounds terrified. “Before I was brought here to the castle, someone tried to kill Cyrus.” I look over at her. She looks down
at her King, her eyes filled with emotions. But it is largely pity as she looks over at me. “I watched them stake him right through the heart. I watched him die. But only moments later, he rose again. He was perfectly fine.”

  Everything in me trembles. I feel like I’m made of a million cracks. They spread, inching out over my skin, and if I move wrong or speak too loudly, I’ll shatter.

  “It’s been hours,” I say quietly as I look back down at him. The blood that covered the table has turned black, congealed. “It’s been fourteen hours.”

  I feel every one of those seconds since I last heard his voice, and then that wet thwack.

  I close my eyes.

  Cyrus, I call out into the dark recesses of my mind.

  “Cyrus said it once himself,” Alivia says. “He cannot be killed.”

  But there is that huge cavern of doubt in the tone of her voice.

  I think back through the ages, through my lives.

  “I’ve seen it before,” I say. “Attempts on his life, ones that should have been successful. But never…” I take in a shaky breath. “Never anything like this.”

  A warm hand covers my shoulder, and his presence forces out five more tears. Eshan leans into me. He doesn’t know what to say, what sixteen-year-old boy would? But his presence tells me everything he can’t voice.

  “I need you two to figure out some kind of security,” I say. My eyes rise, drifting around the great hall, not really focusing on anything. “We can’t let anyone escape Roter Himmel. We’re severely undermanned right now until we can figure out who is still loyal, but I do know whoever else was tied to this, they’re safest to try and leave. Don’t let them.”

  Alivia nods. Eshan’s eyes widen—it’s such a huge task I’ve asked of him, especially now that he is merely human. But he steps away, following after Alivia.

  It shouldn’t take Ian long to secure Cyrus’ killer in the dungeon. He’ll be able to help them shortly.

  I feel numb. I look around, and suddenly realize just how alone I am.

  Everything—everything about our world could change right now. Could already be changing.

  I’ve led beside Cyrus for thousands of years. But always—he was King. Always, he was the one who could execute what needed to be done. I never wanted the role of leader. I never thought to take the reins.

  But now… Now it is all up to me.

  I’ll do what I must to keep the kingdom together.

  Right now, I have to try. I have to hope.

  It nearly breaks me, moving him and seeing parts not attached where they should be, but I have to move him. I gather Cyrus’ body into my arms, his head set carefully in his lap. I turn to the back of the great hall, toward the passageway that leads deeper into the mountain.

  Through torchlight, I carry my husband’s mangled body. Down a long stone hallway. Around a corner. Past the upper armory. Down a spiral staircase.

  My feet and my heart know exactly where they are going, though I have never walked this path with this face. This is a place I haven’t stepped foot in for over a thousand years.

  I turn a corner into a dusty and cluttered storage room, filled with books and old suits of armor. I make my way to the very back of the room.

  Attached to the wall is a torch holder. There are six scattered throughout the room, but I walk directly to this one.

  I reach up and pull on it.

  Stone grinds against stone. A cold rush of air fills the room. A small opening appears in the stone.

  Careful not to jostle him, I step inside into the dark with Cyrus.

  Silently my feet descend the spiral staircase, dropping deeper into the side of the mountain. Above me, I hear the opening grind closed, sealing us inside where no one besides the two of us has ever been.

  Down, down, down. We spiral ever downward. I cannot see a thing in the total and utter absence of light, but my memory guides me.

  Finally, my feet meet flat ground. Soft dirt. I smell the slightly damp air. Hear water drip.

  I blindly step forward, one hand outstretched as far as I can, feeling for the wall.

  There, I find its rough surface.

  I slide my fingers back and forth. I search, and there, find the latch. I pull, and a rush of cold humidity washes over me.

  Stepping through the doorway, I put a hand out, searching for obstacles in my way. Moving carefully, I set Cyrus’ body on the table I find, and grope around for the torches. I strike a match, and the brilliant light sears my eyes for a moment.

  Squinting against the agony, I take the torch back to its place on the wall.

  I inhale the heavy, wet air, and cast my eyes about.

  Stone and dirt walls surround me, closing in a space that is roughly twenty feet by twenty feet. The far wall is roughly hewn, sloping off further back, exposing a grotto, so deep and light deprived, it’s pitch black.

  Along the walls there are tables and shelves. They’re lined with instruments and glass vials. Mummified bodies are stacked in wooden coffins against the farther wall. Small creatures and organs float in liquid along shelves. There are books on astronomy, on anatomy. Spiritual texts on God and the divine, hoodoo and voodoo.

  In the center is a fire pit and above it hangs a large hood where a chimney works its way to the outside.

  It’s a mess. There is stuff everywhere, books turned to random pages. Instruments are here and there. Maps are spread out on the floors. There’s the body of a wolf against the far wall. The smell tells me it hasn’t been dead long.

  Cyrus has been working.

  Cyrus was always a curious man.

  After he cursed us, after we moved here to the castle, he never searched for science and magic beyond what he’d already found. But he never stopped looking for a way to end the cycle of my deaths.

  Death after death—through centuries—Cyrus has fought for me.

  He has always failed. Because I know: there is no cure for what he did to us.

  But he’s been here, within the last few days, working. Trying to find a way to break my curse, just like he promised.

  I will fix this, he had pleaded.

  He’s been trying.

  The shelves bear many things, but as I walk along them, I feel at a loss. Those bodies won’t help me. Those books of prayer won’t bring him back.

  But I’ve seen Cyrus work miracles. I’ve witnessed his methods, seen him heal incredible things.

  There is always one common factor, one method Cyrus turned to every single time.

  I build a fire in the pit, the thick smoke filling the room as the air finds its way through that long unused chimney. I stoke it, hot and bright and have to shield my eyes against it.

  I wait for embers to form, wait for the logs to burn down. I kneel beside the firepit. I reach to the sides of the smoldering logs. Black ash covers my fingers. I spread it to the other side, smoothing it over my skin. Over my palms. Over my knuckles. Up to my wrists.

  Ash for renewal and hope.

  Turning, I cross the space, back to the table Cyrus rests upon.

  I straighten him. Lay out his legs, smooth down his slacks. I place his hands over his chest, and my heart hurts.

  I remember what it felt like to have those hands caress my back. Run up my thighs.

  I remember every place they’ve been, on every body I’ve worn over the centuries.

  The air catches in my throat, pain threatening to overtake me. I can’t let it. Not right now. Not when I’m his only chance.

  Gently, so gently as if he were an infant, I place my hands on his cheeks. I guide his head back to his neck, to his shoulders.

  You’ve done this before, I tell myself. Two months ago. You pieced together another person.

  It’s where all of this began. The woman who had been attacked by a vampire—no, played with. And soon after, my human, ignorant life was through.

  I slip into Logan as I carefully piece the broken and parted pieces of Cyrus together. I smooth his shredded skin. I make it look lik
e there was never anything at all that happened.

  I pull my shirt off, up and over my head, using it as a rag, and dip it in the water of the grotto. Returning to Cyrus’ side, I wipe away the blood, all traces of what happened.

  He lies there, still, peaceful looking.

  “Where are you right now?” I ask out loud.

  I always speak to the dead. I learn their stories. Tell them about myself.

  “Are you in the dark?” I wonder quietly as I clean him. “Or are you in the dreamland I’ve often found myself lost in? Am I there with you, in our memories?”

  My voice echoes here in the cavern. I sound unearthly. My voice is too big, too ancient. Old as the stones.

  “Wherever you might be,” I say, gently touching his cheek. “I need you to return.” I study his eyelashes. I’m glad his eyes are closed.

  It was his eyes I first fell in love with.

  I can’t look in them and not see life, the spark that made him so much bigger than this world.

  When next I see them, I want them to be clear, so I can say these words trapped in my throat.

  “I need to tell you something,” I continue. “I need you to know. I need you to feel it, to see it in my eyes.” I place my other hand on his other cheek. I climb on the table, straddling his body. I lean in, my hands on his skin. I touch my forehead to his.

  “Return to me, im yndmisht srtov,” I breathe into him.

  He doesn’t move. He doesn’t open his eyes. No breath gasps into his lungs.

  I shift back.