- Nikita Gill
Part Four
A MENDED CROWN
From the lost diaries of Iraklis Vidalatos
five centuries ago
Xavlin’s ambition is unlike any I have seen, god or mortal alike. He consumed his kin and amassed enough power to nearly bring our world to ruin. Though he is contained, my bloodline is the key to his prison—and should we falter, so too will the walls of his immortal prison.
All I can do is share these words.
Do not risk giving him your blood, my sons.
Stay away from the mountain.
Chapter
Thirty-Six
Alexandra spun and danced through a mosaic of sunlight and shadow, her bare feet whispering across the cold marble. The black mist followed, always watching, always shifting. Waiting. Around fluted columns and into the small alcoves that housed the statues of every Soterran king who ever lived.
Dead. Dead.Dead.
Her body ached, but her mind raced—so much to see, so much to know. And here, in this room made for dancing, she had all the space she needed to spin, spin,spinthrough the world.
“Someone stop her.”
Kassandra. She ruined everything.
Alexandra turned and turned and turned. Soldiers closed around her like a shrinking cage, stepping on those she must see, must tell, must warn, mustknow. Powerful men go too far, blind, greedy, dead, dead,dead. He’s gone, but his words live on, and now?—
Blood on the snow.
Mother didn’t know, see, warnenough,and now they’re paying the price.
“Be our voice,” they said.
“You’re all dead, dead,dead,” Alexandra sang, spinning away from the black mist.
The stalking soldiers paused and stared at each other. They thought she was broken, cracked, shattered, but she wasn’t. She was better, smarter, powerful—the most powerful. She saw everything, everything,everything.
Blood on the walls.
Blood on the stone.
The man bleed, bleed,bleeds.
She saw so much now—why had she fought it so long? This was a great power, and she would use it to destroy them.
A voice thundered through the chamber. “What is this?!”
Kings, weak kings, blind kings,greedykings.
Dead kings?
“I must see how it ends,” she said to the shadow.
