“That you are still living is a testament to my mercy,” she told him coldly. “Do not forget who you serve, General Taebris.”
Seb stared at her agape, but unmoving. Darion looked like he wanted to stalk over to Taebris and finish him off.
Selene’s head pounded from the energy she had just spent. It had been a rash, risky thing to do when she was already taxed from all the days of holding the light to keep Darion trapped inside the palace.
Now, she had nothing left.
With her arm throbbing, the skin’s pallor fading toward a sickly gray hue, she cradled her limb against her body and strode out of the throne room as swiftly as she dared without breaking into a desperate run.
CHAPTER 34
Darion had the urge to end Taebris for the disrespect he showed Selene.
He might have given in to that temptation, but he couldn’t ignore how urgently she had fled the room after delivering her punishing stream of light. Was she upset by her general’s insults, or had wielding her power injured her somehow?
A cool breeze blew in from the solar in her wake. Darion glanced that way and his concern multiplied. The pale sunlight that had washed over the garden outside--the light Selene had been holding for days without end--was extinguished completely now, replaced by instant, inky-black night.
Ah, Christ.“Selene.”
“Let her be,” Sebathiel said, but Darion ignored the command.
He ran out of the throne room, but she was nowhere to be found. Palace attendants gaped at him anxiously as he tore up the steps that led to the royal chambers.
The door was open. Darion rushed inside and called out her name. “Selene. Are you all right?”
No answer followed. He shut the door behind him and stalked through the main living area, past the moonlit garden and the marble table where he’d had his first taste of Selene. She wasn’t there, either.
“Selene!”
Only silence. He rushed through her enormous bedroom and down a short corridor toward a thick stone door that stood ajar at the far end.
A glow radiated from inside the small chamber. As he approached, his skin warmed and a strange hum began to vibrate in his veins, in his marrow. The fine hairs on his nape lifted, prickling with warning . . . and wonder.
Because there she was.
Seated on the floor, she leaned against a slim marble pedestal veined with gold, holding in her lap the egg-shaped treasure that was the Atlantean realm’s crystal.
Light radiated from the core of the crystal, illuminating Selene’s hands and face and hair. The glow filled the small chamber, the power so immense Darion could only stare in complete awe.
Not only for the crystal, but the woman holding it in her palms.
“This is where you’ve been keeping it.”
She said nothing, just stared at him, no doubt waiting to see what he would say, what he would do.
He took a hesitant step over the threshold. “I saw how you acted after you hit Taebris with your light. I saw the dark skies outside. Are you all right?”
“I will be,” she replied quietly.
Darion’s concern deepened as he glanced at her arms. Her skin was colorless, nearly gray. Blue veins formed spiderweb patterns that spread from her hands to her shoulders, and onto her delicate chest. Some of the breath in his lungs seized up.
“You need the crystal to heal after you use your light?”
A faint, confirming nod. “It’s more than that,” she admitted softly. “I need the crystal in order to live. I cannot be separated from it for very long before my own light--my life--starts to dim and weaken.”
The understanding hit him like a physical blow. “Your life is tied to the crystal?”
“Yes. As the last Queen of the Atlantean race, the crystals are part of me, just as I am part of them. It was my cousin, Sindarah, and her mate, Maenos, who created the crystals for our world eons ago. Your ancestors have been after them nearly as long as that.”
