She closed her fingers over the thistle and bone, locked eyes with the mirror’s surface, and said, “Kaz`lit. May the punishment I deem worthy for his crime flood his body with pain.”
Power poured out of her, sizzling against the bits she held in her hand. She felt the heart of the thistle she’d used for the collar surge beside the heart of the wolf she’d slain to harvest its bones. She’d conquered both hearts long ago. Now it was simply a matter of using them to conquer the king’s heart as well.
And then Lorelai would die, and Irina would finally be at peace.
Maybe the king thought Irina couldn’t hurt him if she wasn’t beside him. Maybe he didn’t understand that once the heart of a living thing had been conquered by a mardushka, any object created from that heart obeyed the mardushka as well.
Or maybe he was stupid enough to think the princess’s magic would be enough to save him from the wrath of his queen.
“Kaz`lit!” She threw back her head, a vicious smile of triumph on her face as the magic connected with the hearts she’d conquered. “Flood his body with the punishment he deserves.”
The magic spilled out of her. The thistle and bone did her bidding. And when she looked down once more at the mirror’s surface, the defiant fool of a king was on his knees, his expression full of agony, as he pulled frantically at the collar around his neck.
Irina concentrated, sending every bit of rage that flooded her body straight into the collar. Let him burn from the inside out. Let him hurt in places he never knew could feel so much pain.
Let him understand the cost of betrayal.
He fell forward, his body spasming, his mouth open in a scream Irina could enjoy even if she couldn’t hear it. Talons grew from his fingertips, and she imagined the dragon’s fire in his chest scorching him, begging him to shift though his queen refused to let him.
And then the princess was there. Falling to her knees beside him. Reaching for his chest and leaving her own heart exposed.
Irina clenched the bits of thistle and bone so hard she felt them crack as she snarled, “Kill her. Kill her now, Kolvanismir. Use your talons to rip her heart out of her chest, and the agony will stop. Eldr will be saved. Just kill her.”
She pushed more agony into his body, and a stab of pain shot through her own chest in response.
The king opened his eyes and locked gazes with the princess.
There was nothing but hunger for blood on his face.
Irina smiled and used her free hand to push at the ache in her chest.
It was almost over. She’d broken him.
The princess leaned down.
The king dug his talons into the ground beneath him.
Irina gripped the thistle and bone, pushing pain into him even while her heart stuttered and her chest burned.
And then Lorelai put her bare hands against the Kol’s chest, her eyes never leaving his, and the pain that had been pouring out of the collar rebounded toward Irina like a whip.
The queen stumbled away from the vanity, her hand still clutching the remnants of her huntsman’s collar, while fire streaked through her veins and her vision began to gray.
This wasn’t possible.
It wasn’t.
First the mountain’s heart had yielded to Lorelai and now this.
It had taken Irina ten years of training, of searching out the black clan mardushkas willing to disobey King Milek’s edict and practice the darker side of their nature. Ten years to learn how to force an unwilling heart to fully submit to hers.
And yet Lorelai was doing it as if it was nothing.
Irina gasped as the fire in her veins felt like it would incinerate her where she stood. It was a wolf’s rage, a thistle’s thorns, a queen’s revenge, and a dragon’s fire.
It was unbearable.
Releasing the thistle and bone from her shaking fingers, Irina stumbled against the wall and pushed her palm against her aching chest as the truth turned her knees to water.
She’d lost her huntsman. Lorelai had declared war against her when she’d destroyed the northern command outpost. If Lorelai was on her way to the capital, all that stood between Irina and destruction was the web of magic that lay beneath the ground and the strength of Irina’s failing heart.
TWENTY-SEVEN
You beat her. Kol stared at Lorelai, a wild light of triumph in his amber eyes. You beat Irina.
Lorelai stood beside him above the steep banks of the Silber River while Gabril scouted the area around the bend to the west where a massive bridge connected north Ravenspire with the south. Power still gathered in her palms, and she tried to feel triumphant as well. She’d done it. She’d battled the magic that poured out of the collar, and she’d shoved it back toward Irina until it was once again bearable for Kol.
Irina had fought her for him, and Lorelai had won.
She hadn’t been able to remove the collar, but still—she’d won.
Lorelai knew she should be thrilled, but instead she looked away from Kol and sagged slowly onto the damp clumps of river grass that clung to the rocky bank.
Lorelai?
She was stronger. She could beat the queen.