Page 69 of The Nymph King

“We need to keep moving,” Esa hissed.

Imani nodded, and they swept from the late monarch’s rooms.

“He’s not using any of the spaces predicted,” Imani said, her voice low enough to carry only to Esa as they hastened down the corridor. “He’s gone deeper into the palace—somewhere with more fortification, probably, where he doesn’t expect to be found.” She tracked the passage ahead, already mapping where he might have moved. They left the visible flow of the palace servants behind, slipping through a service door into a narrower passage where the noise of the ball fell away to a distant hush. It became cooler as stone closed in, and the light thinned to tight strips along the plainer walls.

Soon, the hallways became merely bare stone. Stripped of the greenery and silver that filled the upper levels, the air was quieter without the constant movement of servants and guests. No decor softened the space—only function. And beneath that, Imani sensed a magical presence familiar enough to make her slow. What was Tanyl hiding?

Imani rubbed her brow as an image that did not belong to her flashed behind her eyes: dirty glass, a narrow bed, a hand gripping carved wood.

Then it vanished.

She stopped mid-step.

Such intrusions weren’t new. Since the Divination spell bound her to Meira, memories and perceptions occasionally crossed between them unbidden. Usually, they came with no warning and disappeared before she could make sense of them.

But this one had come from somewhere nearby.

The corridor grew more pressurized as they moved deeper into the castle. Fewer doors lined the walls, and fire sconces lit them, causing their shadows to dance erratically. Imani slowed as something in the air changed, a pressure that didn’t belong to the corridor itself. It felt like a magic signature. A powerful one.

Esa felt it too, her posture stiffening beside Imani as she squinted in the dark at a closed door at the end of the passage. Imani swallowed and approached the door. She tried the handle. It jiggled in her hand but didn’t open. Pressing her palm to the wood, she felt a burning sensation on her skin and let out a small yelp.

“Stop wasting time,” Esa muttered. “Use the shadows.”

Huffing, Imani drew her wand again and forced herself to focus only on the ward around the room. The strange pressure in the corridor, the possibility of Tanyl waiting somewhere ahead, and the unexpected brush of Meira’s intrusion had already strained her too much. Sweat dripped down her brow, but she swiped it away and kept going with a deep, calming breath.

One door. One ward. Nothing else.

Darkness slipped from the Drasil and gathered against the wood.

A whoosh sounded as the wards fell away, and the door groaned before a resounding click sounded.

The door creaked.

Imani stepped forward and pushed it fully open, then stepped over the threshold.

The room beyond was bare, with only a narrow bed and a single tall, dirty window. Through the grime, it let in just enough light to define a person standing by the bed, holding onto the post.

Imani’s heart stuttered against her ribs.

Meira looked thinner than she remembered, her features sharper, her silver hair loose around her shoulders in a way that felt less styled and more neglected.

Her magic had not diminished, though. Not with the Crown of Life resting against her head. It sat on Meira as if it had always belonged, and Imani felt a sick nausea churning in her stomach.

The Crown of Life looked exactly like the one glamoured on Imani’s head. It caught the light even in that dim space, pale-gold leaves threaded with magic. The design grew from Meira’s head, too, rooted at her skull, its delicate stems and budding blooms shifting faintly as if responding to something unseen. It wasn’t ornamental or glamoured either. This was alive, and its lethal presence made it clear that taking it would lead to consequences.

She couldn’t stop staring at the Crown of Life—its leaves, its branches, the way it belonged where it shouldn’t have existed in two places at once.

There was only one. She knew that because she had one growing from her own head.

Yet Meira stood there with her own version of the Crown of Life.

A tingling sensation spread through Imani’s limbs. The same thread she had felt in flashes when the bond between them surfaced through Divination magic.

Only now it wasn’t a thread… it was all-consuming. Imani gritted her teeth and braced herself against the wall, trying to remain upright against the onslaught of magic. Meira gasped. Peeking through her lids, Imani saw her sister leaning more heavily against the bedpost, having clearly felt their connection, too.

With such a strong signature, Imani could tell Meira’s crown was real.

She had never seen Tanyl’s false crown up close, but she didn’t need to. The one growing from her own skull was alive in a way no glamour could reproduce. Its roots pressed into flesh, magic moving continuously through her. Whatever Tanyl wore had to be an imitation because the true crown already existed… but twice?