Throne of the Fallen

“Lord Synton.” Vexley laughed, shaking free from his thirst. “I’ve heard many interesting tales about you. Too bad we’re both playing the game. I might have liked you, Your Highness.”

Camilla felt trapped between mountain and stone, between supernatural predators. And the deadly lagoon. The tunnel was much too narrow for all of them. If they couldn’t get past Vexley, they’d need to retreat toward Abyssus. Worse and worse.

Envy stalked closer. Fear in a handsome, male form. Camilla could suddenly breathe again.

“My brother gets a little touchy when creatures cross his wards.”

Envy pressed the queen’s vial into her palm, nudging her back in the other direction. She clutched it to her chest, taking a step back.

“How did you cross them?”

She suddenly understood what he was doing—he was distracting Vexley, catering to his vanity.

Vexley all but preened at Envy’s appeal to his ego. The idiot.

“Connections. Perhaps you don’t know the right creatures.”

Envy smiled faintly.

Between one breath and the next, Vexley attacked. His fangs scraped across her throat, liquid heat dripping down her neck. But his move had been sloppy, wild, a feral animal too mad to be strategic. Immediately he was tossed across the tunnel, the demon’s rage nearly ripping his arms off. Vexley crumpled, and Envy turned back toward Camilla.

Envy didn’t see him coming, didn’t think he’d get up. The demon was focused on Camilla, his gaze locked onto her blood.

She screamed, but nothing came out. Vexley leapt, his hands transforming into talons, his fangs lengthening. He was no longer a simple vampire; he looked like a werewolf. A beast. Some demonic being that could only be spawned in the Underworld.

He opened his fanged mouth, a roar bouncing off the tunnel walls, and he ripped Envy’s head clean from his shoulders in one brutal swipe of his teeth.

She dropped to her knees, retching. Over and over.

Vexley had killed Envy.

She couldn’t.…

She heaved, emptying the contents of her stomach, tears streaming down her face.

“CAMILLA.”

A voice bellowed behind her. She couldn’t focus. All she could do was stare at the headless body of the prince, heaving. Vexley was gone. Like he’d never been there.

It was so shocking, so unexpected, it wrenched her from her tears.

Camilla glanced around, confused. Why would he kill Envy and not take her?

She crawled to Envy’s lifeless body, shaking him.

“Get up!” she screamed. “Please. Get up.”

“CAMILLA!”

Her name was a command, issued by one she could not ignore.

She turned.

And the world flipped upside down once more.

Envy was standing there, shouting her name, over and over. His expression furious, terrified.

Camilla glanced back. There was no headless body. No vampire.

There never had been.

For the first time she noticed the pile of bones. The darkened earth. Walls splattered with entrails and God only knew what over the millennia. A circle of shimmering gemstones was embedded deep in the earth. She’d crossed them.

She looked back at Envy.

He was on the other side, pounding his fist against a wall she couldn’t see.

Hot breath caressed her neck. A tongue darted out.

She realized with growing horror that the blood had been real.

“Little deceiver, you may only pass once the tithe has been paid,” Abyssus crooned softly. “Should we take it from the prince?”

“No.”

“Mm.” Abyssus canted his head. “No. I do not enjoy that word.”

She rushed forward, nearly tripping over her feet as she tried to cross the line. It sizzled over her skin, hissing and tossed her back. She scrambled on her backside, crawling away from the ancient being who now stood over her, surveying her with growing intrigue.

He crouched in front of her, golden skin glowing.

“Did you truly believe you wouldn’t be tested?” he purred. “That you would simply walk back, be given all that you seek? We both know that’s not the way of kings. Most especially dark ones.”

Camilla froze, her mouth dry.

Abyssus had removed all their surroundings again, set them hovering in a suspended state of nothing. Darkness devoured her hands, tendrils curling over her where she remained sprawled on the ground. Or what had once been the ground.

“It’s when we’re trapped in complete darkness that our true selves are revealed.”

His otherworldly glow winked out.

“Who are you when the world fades away? What are you made of? How strong is your mind, your will, your capacity to fight? When there is nothing, who do you become?”

He was pressing her, taunting her, all the while the darkness shadowed all. Blackness was a color she knew; it had form, variation. This was the absence of all. No color. No matter. Her eyes were open—closing them didn’t make any shift in the endless void she was trapped in.

“What do you fear above all, little Fae?”

“I don’t know!”

“Mm. Look deeper.”

Then even his presence was gone.

There was truly nothing.

No spark. No life. No joy or pain. No past or present, no future she could ever hope for or dream of. No way out of this endless abyss that had swallowed the world.

But there was fear.