The Rivaled Crown (The Veiled Kingdom, #3)

by Holly Renee

The waterfall slowly flowed down into the pool below, its mist curling around us in a cool embrace. The water didn’t rush; it didn’t roar as it slammed into the waiting river. Instead, it glided over the rocks, trickling down moss and stone, as if it were desperate to meet the river once more.

Carefully, we navigated our way around the water, my footing slipping once on the slick stones, my heart racing with each step the closer we got. Then I saw it. The two trees stood where Verena had described them, their gnarled roots twisted and intertwined, thick with time and secrets. I stepped forward, reaching out my still bound hands to touch the roots, and a jolt of energy surged through my body, sudden and electric, sending a shiver up my spine. “A kingdom torn in blood; a world turned to ash.”

“What?” Torrin’s voice snapped me out of my thoughts as he moved to my side, reaching forward to touch the same roots. I didn’t look at him. Instead, I dug my fingers into the damp earth, pulling apart the mass of roots until light from the moon could filter past their cover. I pulled harder, the roots snapping and breaking in my hands, until a small and unassuming opening emerged from the earth. I dropped to my knees before it and cleared away the debris, my fingers digging into the soil, revealing tiny pebbles and dying leaves. I coughed, the air musty and not meant to be disturbed, but then it gave way, revealing the larger opening. The tunnel. Torrin exhaled sharply, his breath catching in his throat as he took a step back.

But before he could say anything else, Wren was at his back. Her dagger pressed firmly against his throat. His entire body stiffened, and it was far too late for him to grab his own weapon. “Take off his cuffs,” my sister commanded, her gaze staring straight ahead at the tunnel before me. “What the hell is this?” Torrin’s breath was ragged, but he didn’t dare move. The dagger in Wren’s grip remained steady, the sharp point pressing against his throat, forcing him to still beneath her hold. The rebellion’s council had voted; they had agreed to give me what I asked for in exchange for this information, but Wren didn’t trust them. And neither did I. Kai stood between Torrin’s men and us, leaning against the stone with his own dagger drawn limply in his hands, his magic curling faintly in the air. “Everyone calm down.” Liya moved to step forward, but Kai’s hand shot out, blocking her path. Wren’s voice was as sharp as the blade against Torrin’s skin. “Take off his cuffs.”

Wren isn’t playing today

She pressed the dagger harder, just enough to bite into his skin. “Now.” Torrin muttered a curse under his breath, then fumbled in his pocket before producing a key. He didn’t even try to meet my gaze as he held it out, and I extended my hands, the metal cuffs biting against my skin. The key scraped against the lock, a grating sound that sent a shiver of anticipation through me, and then, a click. The moment the cuffs fell away, I barely stifled a sharp inhale. Power surged beneath my skin, flooding through my veins like fire after a long winter. My magic. Wren lowered her dagger but didn’t step away from Torrin. She turned and pressed the blade into my palm instead. She trusted me to finish this. I curled my fingers around the hilt, adjusting my grip as I studied Torrin’s face. “It’s real,” he murmured, barely more than a whisper. His gaze flicked to the entrance of the tunnel, the roots still peeled away like a wound in the earth. I met his eyes then. “We’ll take it from here, councilman.” Torrin hesitated, as did Liya. “Dacre.” She tried to take another step forward, but Kai still didn’t allow her to pass. “This is what you wanted,” I answered her and pointed my dagger to the tunnel. “And I’ve given it to you. I kept my promise.”

“Wren, Kai, and I will go forward from here.” I took a small step closer to the tunnel. “I don’t trust any of you to go with us. I don’t trust you with my mate.” “I made promises too, you know?” Her gaze shuddered, and absently I wondered if she was talking about the promises they made to me in the council chambers or the promises she had once made to my mother. “And I expect you to keep them.” I nodded to Wren, and she moved to my side, farther away from them and closer to the tunnel. “Once we have Verena, we plan to escape back through this tunnel. We plan to come back to the hidden city because we have nowhere else to go, nowhere else where I can protect her.” Kai moved then, grabbing a torch from one of Torrin’s men, his grip unbothered by their protests. “We need this more than you.” I smirked at my friend despite the tightness in my chest, but then I returned my gaze to Liya. “Verena is not to be harmed.” She nodded once, and I tried to allow trust to bloom in my chest, but it wouldn’t come. “We’re not staying here,” Torrin spat as Kai passed him. “We’re not waiting in hopes that you all make it out alive. We’ll return to the hidden city, update our people.” Kai snorted. “You mean report back to his father?”

It had been years since any of us had been in a tunnel like this. Not since we were children. Not since we believed that the rebellion was something untouchable, something good. When we had run through the hidden city, searching every alcove and hidden passage, typically hitting dead ends and coming home covered in mud. I exhaled slowly, pressing my palm against the wall again. This time, I let my magic sink deeper. Heat licked against my fingers, the stone warming beneath my touch. I frowned, pulling my hand back. Kai paused ahead of me. “What is it?” I hesitated, flexing my fingers before shaking my head. “Nothing. Keep moving.” Kai didn’t look convinced, but he turned and pressed on. The tunnel twisted, curling into a narrow passage that forced us to slow as we squeezed through. The dampness increased, our leathers becoming slick with the moisture, until finally, the tunnel gave way, spilling into an open cavern.

A towering stone statue loomed in the center of the chamber, its features worn by time. I circled around it until I reached the front, taking in the woman’s face. There was nothing particularly unique about the woman, every bit of her covered in a weathered bronze, but when I looked up into her eyes, I suddenly couldn’t catch my breath. Long robes were draped across her body in bronze, her face forlorn, but it was her eyes that seemed to follow me, to see so deeply within me that my magic quivered. Wren reached out and ran her fingers over the base of the statue, tilting her head slightly. “There’s something carved here.”

“A tethered soul to shifting sands.” Wren read the words as she traced over them, each one slamming into me harder than the last until my knees threatened to buckle beneath me. “What does that mean?” Wren glanced back at me, and her eyes widened as I shook my head. “I don’t know.” I pressed my hand against my stomach, and I couldn’t control the word that thrashed through me, tormenting me.

“Are you okay?” Wren climbed to her feet, and I glanced at my sister, panic weaving through every inch of me. “We need to get to Verena.” Kai lifted the torch higher, scanning the towering cave. “There.” I followed his gaze, a small, dark opening directly above the statue’s crown. A way out. The tunnel stretched on, but we had no idea which way these tunnels led. Wren took a step back, assessing the climb, before she steadied herself with her hands upon the statue. She lifted her foot, placing it against the woman’s hand, and she appeared to be helping Wren as she climbed.

“Wait,” Kai growled. “We don’t know what’s up there. I should go first.” “I’m more than capable, Kai.” Wren groaned as she pulled herself higher, until the top half of her body disappeared from view. Kai cursed under his breath, turning toward me. “Say something.” “To Wren?” I asked as I glanced between my sister’s dangling legs and the statue. “I’d prefer not to be stabbed.” Kai shot me a glare but wasted no more time arguing. He followed her up, his movements slower, more precise. I tilted my head back, watching them disappear through the opening.

He so loved her! Can they get a book? Even just one!?

I grabbed onto the statue, my magic crackling beneath my skin and colliding with the magic that pulsed within the statue as I climbed. The statue was slick with condensation, but every place my fingers touched, heat surged through the rock. Verena. Her name whispered through me in a voice that wasn’t my own. A woman’s voice that called out for her until I reached for the opening, my skin slipping away from the stone. It stopped immediately, my head feeling too quiet as I pulled myself the rest of the way up. Wren and Kai were already crouched near the edge of the passage, our view blocked by twisting vines. Wren turned, her eyes glinting. “You’re not going to believe this.” I glanced past her, where her hands pulled at the trailing plant, and the capital city stretched before us, quiet and still beneath the stars. We weren’t in the palace yet. We were on the streets just outside my grandmother’s house.

“Look.” Wren’s hushed whisper caught my attention. I followed her gaze to the brick facade on one of the houses, and I stumbled on the cobblestone as I looked up, high above their door. A rebellion sigil had been painted in stark black against the worn brick. It appeared that someone had tried to scrub it away, fading it in certain areas, but the mark remained. I could feel my heartbeat, hear it rushing in my ears, and I quickly looked away. The rebellion had been raging for decades, a fight that had been happening even before I was born, and the flames of revolution burned bright throughout our people. But I had never witnessed something like this within the capital city. “Keep walking.” I pressed my trembling hand against Wren’s back and pushed her forward as we turned a corner. Her soft gasp filled my ears, and I pushed harder. An older man, whose hair was leeched of color and face lined with years of life, hung from the side of the building. His feet swayed in the air just above our heads, his neck turned unnaturally against the rope that held him, but it was his arm that had fear sinking through me. His left sleeve was rolled up past his withered bicep, and there, just above his wrist, was the same mark that stained the brick. I could feel Wren shaking beneath my hand, feel Kai’s magic as he tried to keep it under control, but none of us stopped. We pushed forward until my grandmother’s house emerged before us.

I hastily climbed the three wooden steps, my boots landing too loud against the worn planks. I rapped my knuckles against the door, counting the seconds in my head until finally, it opened. My grandmother stood before me, eyes widening. “Dacre.” Her voice held more trepidation than relief. I never showed up here unannounced. Her gaze flicked behind me, taking in Wren’s and Kai’s rigid postures, the way Kai’s hand hovered near his weapon and the way Wren was still looking back at the man that neither of us knew.

“What brings you here tonight?’ She smiled as she moved to the window and calmly slid the curtains closed. I started to pace, running my fingers through my hair. ”We don’t have time to explain everything, but we need⁠—” Movement. I stilled just as my grandmother’s face slid past me, and I followed it. And then, I saw him. A man sat at her small dining table, his posture tense, his eyes locked on to mine. I hardly recognized him; it had been years since the last time we saw one another. I reached for my dagger on instinct. ”Micah?” He nodded once, wiping his hand over his mouth where crumbs of bread had lingered. “Hi, Dacre.” “Micah.” Wren breathed his name as she passed me, heading straight for him. He smiled at her as he stood, but it didn’t reach his eyes. She wrapped her arms around his neck, and he buried his head in hers as if breathing her in. Kai shifted beside me, his magic thrumming slightly harder than before. “Where have you been?” Wren asked as she squeezed him tighter against her. “It’s been years, Micah.” “I know.” He nodded,

Dacre knows Micah?? That can’t be good

She wrapped her wrinkled hands around the back of one of her dining chairs, her bony fingers clenching tightly to the wood. “Why are you here, Dacre?” Micah went rigid against my sister, but he didn’t pull away. “I’ve come for Verena,” I answered hesitantly. “The king has taken her back. He has her.” There wasn’t an ounce of shock in her silver eyes as she watched me. “I know.” She nodded and pressed one of her hands to her stomach, patting there as she spoke. “The tides have risen.”

“We have to get into the palace.” I turned back to my grandmother. “We used the tunnels to get here, but I’m not sure which one leads into the palace.” “I can help,” Micah spoke as he finally released Wren. He was still looking down at her, his fingers pushing stray pieces of hair behind her ear. “I can get you into the palace.” He turned to face me fully then, and I sucked in a shocked breath as Wren no longer blocked my view of him. He stood there in my grandmother’s kitchen wearing the uniform of a guard, a king’s guard, and on his chest, the king’s crest. A symbol of his power embroidered in gold thread. Worn only by the guards sworn to his service.

Kai stepped forward, his magic crackling around him, and he reached for Wren, jerking her away from Micah. “What the hell is going on?” “This is where you’ve been?” My voice clapped like thunder. “Your loyalty is to the king?” “No,” Micah started, but I didn’t believe him. The truth was in front of me, the uniform covering his body until he became one of them instead of one of us. “I am not loyal to the king.” “It sure as hell looks like it.” I lifted my hand, motioning toward him. “Stop,” my grandmother’s voice commanded, but I was too busy watching him. “I am his prisoner, just as she is,” he spat, running his fingers through his hair. “I don’t have a choice.”

“You always have a choice, and it looks like you’ve made yours.” Kai shifted, his body blocking Wren slightly, and the only sound in the room was Wren’s slow, measured breathing. Micah didn’t move. He didn’t flinch. He just stared at me, jaw tight, and when he spoke, his voice was quieter. “You don’t understand.” I curled my hand into a fist, feeling my magic pushing against my skin, as out of control and confused as I felt. “Then make me.” Micah exhaled sharply, his gaze never leaving mine. “The king has my sister.”

I turned to my grandmother. “I thought you said that he was brought here on a ship, fled from his kingdom with nowhere else to go, no one to help him when you found him on the streets.” I remembered it vividly, the first time we had come to visit my grandmother with our mom, the two of them exchanging notes between their hands, intel for the rebellion that my grandmother somehow knew, and Micah had been here. I had felt sorry for him then, pitied him, and the tale my grandmother had woven about his past. “He did.” My grandmother nodded, not an ounce of regret in her tone. “He came from my kingdom, the kingdom of my mother before me. The kingdom of Verena’s mother before her.”

“And his sister?” “She was taken the day we arrived,” Micah said, his voice now laced with fury. “My feet hit the sand, and they pulled her away screaming.” His gaze shuddered, haunted by his past. “I didn’t see my sister again until two days after Verena was arrested.” “I don’t understand.” I looked back and forth between the two of them. “I made promises to Verena’s mother, to our queen,” my grandmother started before glancing back at Micah. “And after your mother was killed in that raid, after Verena managed to escape, I knew that I had to do something.”

“She fled to the streets, and the moment I saw her, I knew that her father would have her back within days if she was on her own.” My gaze slid back to Micah, to the way his jaw worked. “You were the one on the streets with her. That’s the reason you were suddenly gone from here, why she let us believe you ran.”

“I asked this of Micah,” my grandmother insisted. “He protected her on the streets until his protection wasn’t strong enough anymore. And when she was arrested by the guards, I feared what they would do with her once they realized who she was. I made the queen promises,” she demanded, her voice louder than before. “I sent Micah searching for her, only to find that she had already been taken by the rebellion, by you.” “That doesn’t explain this,” Wren finally spoke, and she was staring at Micah, unable to look away from his uniform. “I was arrested while trying to find Verena.”

“And that’s when I saw her inside the palace, my sister.” He looked up at me then, and all I could see was rage. “They had taken her off that ship and straight to the king. She was far too young.” He shook his head. “A royal courtesan.”

“I screamed for her, begged for them to take me in her place.”

“The guards didn’t listen.” His throat bobbed. “But the king…”

“What did he do?” Wren’s voice was careful, quiet. Micah let out a slow, shuddering breath. “He laughed and made me watch as he paraded my sister in front of me. He had her sit on his knee as he ordered his guards to drag me to the dungeons.” Micah’s voice dropped lower, his next words hoarse. “I was desperate, mad with rage, and I said the very thing that I never should have.”

“You gave him Verena.” Micah flinched. “What did you tell him?”

“I told him that I had been with her on the streets. That I protected her.” His voice was weak. “That I had been the one who gave her the rebellion mark.”

“I didn’t mean to.” His voice broke. “I tried to fight him after that. I did. But he knew exactly what to say, exactly what to do, to make me⁠—” I forced my voice to stay steady. “And what did he do to get your loyalty?” I motioned to his uniform. Micah swallowed hard. “The king made me a deal.”

“He promised to let my sister go if I helped him with Verena. Helped get her back, helped break her.”

“Does Verena know?” My fists curled at my sides, nails digging into my palms until I felt my skin break. “Does she know how easy it was for you to betray her?” Micah recoiled. “You think this has been easy? You think this is what I wanted?” Micah’s eyes widened, and I saw the desperation there, the torment. “You’re not the only one who has ever loved her, you know, but what would you have done if it was Wren?”

“Don’t you dare speak of loving her as if you have the right, as if you aren’t the one who fucking betrayed her.” My words sliced through the room like a blade I desperately wished to wield. “Don’t you dare speak of Wren.” “Where were you?” Micah shifted uncomfortably. “She spoke of you when he still held her in the dungeon, cried out your name when I’m not even sure she realized she was doing so. You damn me for what I’ve done, but where were you as she begged?”

“You were there when he tortured her?” I took a step forward, even as my chest felt like it was caving in at the image he had just painted in my mind. “You stood there, and you did nothing to stop him?” I shot forward, the table scraping across the floor as I dove for him, wrapping my hand around his throat and slamming him against the wall. “He knows,” Micah cried out, looking to my grandmother, and that only fueled my anger more. “He knows that she’s a siphon, that her magic was bound inside her.” I tightened my hand around his throat, watching as he struggled before I looked to my grandmother. “What does he mean?” “The king is a siphon,” she started,

“This is what he’s been searching for, what he’s tried to force her to become, why he wanted another heir.”

“Why didn’t she know? She has spent her life thinking she was powerless. How did she not know?” “Because it was hidden.” Her expression didn’t waver. “The queen and I bound her magic inside her so he couldn’t use her.

“When she was still small, before she could even understand what she was.” My grandmother nodded once more, and when she moved, it hit me how fragile she appeared. “He wants her for the vessel.”

“There were five vessels in the beginning. Five different kingdoms bound to control the magic they angered, but the one in the palace, it’s the only one left. It was meant for balance, to control the tithe.” Kai straightened beside me, his entire body going rigid. ”What happened to the others?” “Destroyed.” Her voice was quiet. “One by one.” “By him.” I already knew the answer. She nodded. “And Veyrith was the last one. The last kingdom that stood against him, but our kingdom fell just like the others.”

I shook my head. “Why? What does he gain from destroying them?” My grandmother’s gaze steadied on mine. “Power.”

“It’s the same thing he gains from being bound to the vessel, the thing he will gain if he manages to bind Verena.”

“The king siphoned from the vessel, siphoned the magic and the tithe that was given by the people of this land. But he took too much, demanded too much, and the vessel demanded in return. “He’s powerful, but at a cost. And that cost has finally become too profound.” She exhaled and ran her hand over her neck. “The vessel is killing him.” “He will bind Verena to it to save himself.”

I turned toward the door. “We leave now.” Micah exhaled sharply. “Dacre, wait⁠—”

There was a sharp knock at the door, and I looked away from my father to watch Micah hesitating near my door. He didn’t look at me, refusing to meet my eyes. Something was different about him. His shoulders were stiff, his posture more rigid than usual, and there was a red mark at the base of his throat, a fading imprint of fingers. “Take her,” my father demanded as he stepped back, running his hand over his mouth. Micah hesitated for half a breath before he crossed the room in two long strides. “Don’t,” I whispered as he reached for me. My voice was raw, trembling. “Please, Micah, don’t.”

Micah’s grip was steady, but it didn’t matter. I fought him anyway. I twisted, dug my nails into his forearms, anything to slow my descent into whatever nightmare awaited me. But Micah did not let go. He barely reacted as a sob clawed up my throat, and I slammed my fists into his chests. “Verena,” he growled my name under his breath, so low that I thought I imagined it, but when I looked up into his wide eyes, they bore down on me, warning me. I stopped fighting as he pulled me across the room, the cold floor biting into my bare feet, but sobs still racked through my body.

Down and down, farther than I had ever been before. The stone walls pulsed. At first, I thought it was my own unsteady breathing, my own erratic heartbeat hammering too loudly against my ribs, but the walls themselves seemed to breathe. Micah’s grip on me tightened as a massive, dark iron door appeared before us. A heartbeat that was not my own thundered in my ears. The vessel knew I was here, and it was waiting.

The massive well looked just as it had in my dream, like a wound in the earth that pulsed and churned. That same sickly green glow flowed within the vessel, flickering between shades of black and gold, as if the magic inside was constantly shifting, constantly struggling against itself. A slow exhale drew my attention away from the vessel. Across the chamber, half cloaked in darkness, stood the Sight. Her robes pooled around her feet, her hood drawn back so the sharp features of her face were revealed, her white hair glowing like moonlight.

A sudden, searing heat licked up my spine, curling beneath my ribs. My knees buckled, but Micah caught me before I hit the floor. I gasped, my fingers clutching at his arms, my vision swimming. The whispers grew louder, twining through my mind like vines creeping through cracks in stone. Its pain merged with my own, blurring the lines between us until I couldn’t remember who it had belonged to before.

It wanted me. It thirsted for my power. It was trying to take, and my magic suddenly recoiled. A low, keening sound filled the chamber. It was coming from me. I gritted my teeth, trying to resist, trying to hold myself together, but my body was weak. I was weak, and my magic… It was unraveling, slipping out of my grasp like sand through open fingers.

I found myself moving closer to the vessel, my own movements outside of my control, and my fingers dug into the cold stone edge, anchoring myself as my body trembled uncontrollably. I tried to recall what my mother had told me, tried to think of anything except the overwhelming urge to press my hand into the vessel. I wanted to feel it across my skin, inside my veins. I clamped my eyes closed and tried to block it out. But another voice cut through the air, soft but unmistakable. I opened my eyes and turned my head sharply, my movements feeling unnatural. The Sight.

“What did you say?” my father demanded. I had almost forgotten that he was in the room. I could no longer feel his presence. I couldn’t feel my fear. The Sight lifted her head fully, but she didn’t look to the king. “The tideborn.” Her voice was soft, eerily detached.