“If that would weaken Irina, won’t it weaken you?” he asked.
“Look around you.” She gestured toward the rotting trees and the dry, crumbling soil. “When a mardushka uses a willing heart to do magic, there’s very little cost to either the heart or the mardushka. But when you have to overpower the heart and force your will, you drain the heart of its strength and vitality, and you drain yourself. Irina’s been forcing Ravenspire’s land to do her will for nine years, and the land is dying because of it. Irina has to be suffering the cost of that. I, on the other hand, am young and strong, and I will use the one thing in Ravenspire that isn’t dying because of the queen—the rivers.”
“Irina will know where to find you once you use your magic, won’t she?” he asked because it was clear that once again, Lorelai was willing to do the right thing even though it was going to cost her.
Her smile reminded him of the way it had felt to watch the ogres while his dragon’s heart thundered for their blood on his talons.
“Irina is going to know where to find me at the end of those five days no matter what happens with you and Eldr.”
“Where should I meet you?” He didn’t add “if I’m not dead” but the words hung in the air between them.
“It’s better if you don’t know where I’m going. I don’t need Irina to get the information out of you before I’m ready to reveal myself. Just come back here and start tracking me. You’re much faster than me in your dragon form. You’ll catch up soon enough.”
Trugg returned with the deer, and soon Kol had the animal’s heart covered in Lorelai’s blood and secured in a pouch. Before he left for the castle again, he met Lorelai’s eyes.
“Thank you.”
“Try not to die,” she said, and then she pulled her gloves on and watched him shift into his dragon and head for the capital.
NINETEEN
IT TOOK KOL and his friends a little more than a day to fly back to Irina’s castle. They’d pushed themselves, stopping only twice to drink before rising into the sky again.
He had a heart covered in Lorelai’s blood. The princess had her magic-cloaking gloves on.
Irina would be fooled. Eldr would be saved.
He would still be alive.
Skies help him, he wanted to be alive.
When they arrived at the castle, they were quickly ushered into the same room where days ago he’d pledged himself into the queen’s service with an oath that would kill him if this trick didn’t work.
“Come to me, huntsman. Your friends may stay in the hall,” Irina said.
Irina stood at the far end of the table, waiting, her eyes gleaming, her mouth curved into a tiny smile.
He walked in slow, measured steps, bowed with perfect etiquette, and then handed her the pouch. His hands were steady, but the dragon fire in his chest was blazing and the air in the room felt like it was closing in on him as Irina unknotted the rope that held the pouch closed.
She opened it, and the deer’s heart, coated with Lorelai’s blood, fell into her hands. For a moment, she closed her eyes, and white light blazed from her palm and into the heart. A slow smile spread over her face.
Her eyes snapped open. “Well done. It seems our little Lorelai was no match for you, mardushka or not.”
He took a cautious breath, the band of tension around his chest easing. It had worked. He was going to live, Eldr was going to be saved, and he owed the princess of Ravenspire a debt far greater than he would ever be able to repay.
He waited for Irina to lift the collar and send her magic into Eldr. Instead, she placed the heart on the table, wiped her hands clean on the pouch, and picked up her scrying mirror.
“Mirror, mirror, your depths I scry. Show me the princess Lorelai.” The queen stared at the opaque clouds that swirled across the mirror’s surface, her knuckles white as she gripped the mirror.
The hope that had flared within him, waned as Kol’s hearts slammed against his chest. His knees felt incapable of holding up as the mirror’s surface spun faster.
What if Lorelai had taken off her gloves? What if she’d been wrong about how the mirror found her?
What if he was about to die?
His chest burned with dragon’s fire as he fought to keep his expression calm. If he was going to die, he would face his fate with courage befitting a king.
Moments passed, but the surface of the mirror remained unchanged. Irina gently placed the mirror on the table and picked up the heart again. Kol caught himself before he sagged against the table in relief.
The heart had passed its test. The mirror had been fooled. Eldr was about to be saved, and he was going to be alive to rule it.
“One last test.” She met his gaze as she sliced into the muscle with a sharp fingernail and withdrew a single drop of blood.