Page 61 of Black Crown

“Anything interesting?” I mumbled.

He stretched the collar of my chemise and kissed my shoulder. “Nothing.”

I sighed and turned to kiss him, threading my hands through his black hair. He pulled me close, the blankets tangling between us. The worst thing about the sleeping roster was that it didn’t allow time for playing cards or dancing the maypole. And Romantic-Ryn definitely wanted a repeat of our game-time in Gemond.

Although, perhaps not in a tent in the middle of an army.

I brushed my tongue against Tyrrik’s one last time and then pulled away to breathe. Because that was important and oddly easy to forget when I was kissing my mate.

I peeled back the blankets and got on my hands and knees. Focusing, I slowed my breathing and concentrated. I blinked as my eyes narrowed to slits and the objects in the dark tent gained definition.

Using my Drae eyes, I quickly located my aketon and hose.

“You’re getting faster,” Tyrrik said, followed by a yawn.

At least I was getting better at something because that something certainly didn’t feel like my Phaetyn veil and Drae shield. I was still too slow at getting them in place if they were down, and still I had to focus to keep them up. “Thanks.”

Tyrrik’s eyes were already closed when I ducked out of our tent. I kept my night vision going and focused on my sense of smell. I’d always found scent easiest to engage; something about it felt more instinctive to my Drae form. Tyrrik said the nose and ears were most instinctive, followed by the eyes. My fangs came and went as they liked, usually in response to anger or the deep yearning low in my stomach I now knew meant I wanted to practice making Drae babies.

Iwasgetting the hang of the eyes now, so next up was talons. I’d wait until the perfect moment then flick out a blue blade. Maybe opening a letter in a meeting. Or chopping up a chicken roast. I had plans. Big plans.

I followed my Drae sense of smell, picking up Tyrrik’s pine and smoke scent immediately. We were camped at the base of a mountain, still within the Gemond ranges. We hadn’t encountered another forest since that first night, just small copses of trees here and there, but I preferred the open space. It meant I could see everyone at once, and when our food supplies ran low, there was still a coating of dirt on the valley floor to grow vegetables.

I traced Tyrrik’s scent to a rock a short way up the mountain, which put me at eye level with the tent tops. Tyrrik always found the best spots. I smiled when I saw the blanket he’d left out for me.

Sitting cross-legged on the flat rock, I scanned the sleeping army, spotting the sentries in their usual places around the perimeter while some of them stood guard part way up the mountainside as I did.

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. Flexing my mind muscles, I cast my Phaetyn power outward. With my next breath, I opened my eyes and directed the moss-green veil over the tents beneath me, stretching it all the way across the valley. Right. Good. Our tent was central, so I pushed the veil out to the right first, stopping at intervals when my mind felt strained. I kept at it, propelling the blanket-of-invisibility until it reached the outskirts of the right flank.

I paused to catch my breath. What did the sentries think when they peered up and found half of their comrades gone? I mean, we’d warned them after the first time, but still, seeing it had to be strange.

“Okay, Ryn,” I grunted, wiping away the sweat trickling down the side of my forehead.

Keeping the right side of the veil where it was, I took a mental hold on the other side, still in the middle of the encampment, and began to nudge it toward the left. I’d been covering more and more of the army each night. But when they were like this, all in one neat andmuchsmaller spot, covering them seemed almost achievable. Half an hour to concentrate? I could get almost eighty or ninety percent. No problem.

Zarad was drilling the army daily, forcing them to congregate into a small space in case Draedyn attacked. I was the limiting factor because I wouldn’t have thirty minutes to erect my defense.

I panted, my nudges to the veil much more like shoves by now—out, out, out.

I trained my eyes on the glistening edge to the left. This invisibility cloak felt like it was about to snap and was still short of covering the army.Nope. It’s all good. Just hold it here for a bit.I could usually push it a little more after that—like leaning down to stretch the backs of my thighs.

I breathed in and out, focusing on the veil.

When the tension dissipated slightly, I shimmied the power to cover more of the left flank and held it there again, shifting the veil out another few feet when it relaxed. On the next hold, the tension didn’t dissipate. At all.

I rolled my neck and told myself I should try again. Maybe at the end of the night. I brought the veil inward until I was the only thing inside its protection and then glanced over the army. I was getting better. I’d have to find a way to practice while we left the mountains. Our small envoy party would be leaving in the morning for Azule.

Al’right. Next.

Placing both hands on the ground, I focused on a tiny shrub wedged between two boulders before me. Building the pressure like water held back by a dam, I let the moss-green Phaetyn power accumulate inside my hands without release, staring at the shrub. The dam burst, and the power exploded from my fingertips. I grinned as a thick, pointed root as tall as Tyrrik shot out from the ground like a spear.

Druman-killing-root-practice done. Cracking my knuckles, I shifted my butt on the rock and then adjusted my blanket. Think fast, Ryn. I held my Phaetyn veil in place, reached for my blue Drae tendrils of power, and whipped them around my head until I’d coiled them into a solid covering.Diamond shell, diamond shell, diamond shell.I could practically feel my power getting tougher.

With my Phaetyn cloak and diamond helmet, I was invisible to everyone and everything. And I was thankful for that invisibility because my helmet and cloak had to look absolutely, freakin’ ridiculous.

I continued to focus on my powers, on keeping them solid and tuning out everything else around me: soft sighs, not-so-soft snores, the scrape of boots on stone as the sentries moved about, the fluttering of the tent flaps.

Then I dropped all of it, the cloak and the helmet.