The crown's scream wasn't a soun it was a living thing that wormed its waye into Seraphine's skull and nested there. White-hot agony lanced through her temples as the vines constricted like a hangman's noose, their thorns flexing deeper with every frantic beat of her heart. She could feel them scraping against bone now, tiny hooked points catching in the grooves of her cranium. Blood ran in hot rivulets down her face, mingling with the vine's sticky sap,a viscous, amber substance that burned where it touched her skin, leaving angry red welts in its wake.her vision swam as she clawed at the living crown, fingernails tearing against the thorny tendrils. Each movement made the vines tighten further, until black spots danced at the edges of her sight. Across the throne room, the Queen of Thorns stood frozen, her usually impeccable posture broken. The jeweled dagger dangled from limp fingers, its tip dragging against the cracked marble with a sound like fingernails on slate.Stop fighting it, you stupid girl," the queen whispered, but her lips kept moving after the words ended, forming silent phrases that made Seraphine's stomach twist.The not-Pip creature unfolded itself from the dais steps with a series of sickening cracks,joints popping, tendons snapping and reforming as it rose to its full, unnatural height. Its elongated shadow stretched across the floor, merging with the other figures emerging from the darkness. Seraphine's breath caught.There were dozens of them.Some still bore scraps of clothing,a tattered soldier's uniform here, the remnants of a courtier's robe there. Their skin stretched tight over protruding bones, pulled so thin it split at the joist, revealing glimpses of blackened bone beneath. But worst of all were their mouths,crudely stitched shut with what looked like their own hair, the threads straining against whatever screamed behind them. Kaelan's grip on her wrist turned vice-like, his fingers burning with unnatural cold. When she turned, his eyes had gone completely black,no whites, no iris, just endless voids that somehow still managed to focus on her. Blood trickled from his nose, his ears, the corners of his eyes, but he made no move to wipe it away.His lips parted.Now."
Then he shoved her with impossible strength.
Seraphine's boots skidded through ichor and gore as she crashed into the queen, their bodies slamming against the obsidian throne hard enough to send cracks spiderwebbing across its surface. The impact knocked the breath from her lungs, but for one glorious second, one precious, fleeting second,the crown's grip loosened. Her fingers found the hidden blade in her boot, the one Pip had pressed into her hand weeks ago in the kitchen yard, his grin gap-toothed and infectious. "For luck," he'd whispered, before darting off to filch more sweets from the pantry.The steel flashed as she drove it upward, slicing through the thickest vine at her temple.The crown's shriek vibrated through her teeth, through her bones, shaking the very foundations of the throne room. Torches snuffed out in unison. The marble floor buckled, cracks radiating outward like a shattered mirror. From the widening fissures, skeletal hands erupted, wrapped in rotting bandages, fingers ending in curved black talons that scraped against the stone.
One. Then ten.Then too many to count.
The not-Pip creature threw back its head and,laughed, a sound like shattering stained glass. The stitched mouths of its companions twitched in grotesque unison, threads snapping one by one as something moved behind the straining flesh.Kaelan positioned himself between Seraphine and the advancing horrors, his black eyes fixed on some unseen point in the distance. More blood dripped from his pores now, forming crimson trails down his neck, soaking into his collar.Get up," he rasped,except his lips didn't move. The voice came from everywhere and nowhere, vibrating through the crumbling stone beneath them. "They're coming." The cracks spread faster, branching across walls and ceiling. Chunks of masonry rained down, revealing yawning darkness beyond. The hands multiplied, their talons finding purchase on the edges of the broken floor.
And from the deepest blackness below,from the pit where the throne's roots should have been,something enormous stirred. A sound echoed up through the cracks. Not a scream.
Not a roar.But a heartbeat.