Page 70 of The Sunbound Princess
Something solid.
“Nikolas!” I bellowed, grabbing onto him. We tumbled through the wind and darkness.
But it wasn’t as pitch-black as I’d first thought. Meager light strained through the air around us, revealing a massive cavern with walls that glistened like they were coated in black oil.
“Ezabell!” Nikolas roared in my ear. I spotted her several feet below us, her green gown billowing as she fell. The sunstone was gone. Her black hair whipped around her terrified face.
“Hold on!” I called to her and then cursed my stupidity. There was nothing to hold onto. No way to reach her. There was only the cavern and the fall.
Wind screamed. The oily walls appeared to pulse, as if the cavern was a living thing that sped our passage through the system of a great, evil beast. My stomach lurched as the darknessseemed to twist around us, making it impossible to tell up from down.
The curse chose that moment to surge through my veins, its fiery fingers spreading up my chest to my neck. I gritted my teeth as agony burst the dam of Ezabell’s magic.
Nikolas’s pained gasp told me he suffered too. I gripped him more tightly as a faint light appeared below us. It expanded, deep gold growing brighter with every second. We sped toward it, and a black stone floor rushed up to meet us.
I clenched my jaw, prepared for impact. Prepared for the end.
“Brace!” I shouted anyway. The golden light flared bright. The black floor filled my vision.
We jerked to a stop, suspended mid-air about twenty feet above the floor. Ezabell hung in the air just below us, her scarf long gone and her hair in a wild tangle.
I opened my mouth to call out to her when pressure wrapped around me and sucked me down. Nikolas and I clung to each other as we dropped to the floor. I turned at the last second, landing on my back with Nikolas on top of me. My teeth clicked together, and pain exploded in the back of my head.
Nikolas rolled away, groaning before he drew his knees to his chest. The curse spread up his neck like yellow spiderwebs under his skin. Pain struck me a second later. The curse blistered through me, my vision blurring.
Ezabell appeared at my side, her green skirts pooling as she grabbed my shoulder. “Dain!”
“All right,” I croaked, relief piercing my pain. “You’re all right.”
“But you’re not!” Tears filled her eyes. She glanced at Nikolas. “What is this place?”
I blinked hard, willing my vision to clear. Obsidian walls surrounded us. But I didn’t need to see them to know where we’d landed.
Viraxes’s Tower.
Slow, heavy footsteps echoed off the stone. I struggled to sit up. Ezabell slid a supportive arm behind me just as a tall, robed figure stepped into view.
“Fuck,” Nikolas muttered.
Viraxes smiled. “Nikolas and Dain. Welcome back. And how thoughtful of you to bring a guest.”
Chapter
Nineteen
NIKOLAS
Viraxes stared down at us with amusement in his pale eyes.
The expression didn’t fool me for a second. The Sorcerer of Solbarren didn’t have a sense of humor. The curse searing my veins was a painful reminder of that hard-earned fact.
How had he found us? Did he have the sunstone? Or was the stone in the temple a trick?
Ezabell rose, her face defiant as she faced off with him. “Who are you?”
I struggled to my feet even as the curse crawled into my throat and set my tongue on fire. Dain stayed kneeling beside me, a groan spilling from him as he lifted his head. Sickly yellow light throbbed in his neck.
“I don’t answer stupid questions,” Viraxes said. He walked a slow circle around us, his robes slithering over the obsidian floor. His hair was as black as the tower, the long strands secured at his nape and left to fall to his waist. I tried to turn withhim, but the curse throbbed harder, and it was all I could do to stay on my feet.
