The Bride Tournament (Hexed Hearts Book 1)(55)

The crowd murmured, heads whipping back and forth. A hundred glares speared Lady Olive but she didn’t seem to care.

“I was going to win, too. Until this harlot caught the prince’s eye and used her feminine wiles to cheat,” Lady Olive hissed at Ellie.

“Right, I cheated. You hexed people. You killed people.” Ellie folded her arms across the dried blood on her gown. “And your precious mother—if she was even your mother to begin with, killed Meera. So I killed Dame Lange. Though, she was already dead.”

“You bitch!” Lady Olive screamed. The black feathered mask flew from the string around her neck in a flash of silver sparkles. “I will kill you.”

Silver-gold light shot from her hands heading straight toward Ellie. Gerard raced forward but Ellie was faster and slammed into the ground as the power hit the podium and exploded in a thousand shards of white painted wood.

Pierce shoved Lady Olive to the marble floor as she welled up more power in her hands. A mirror flew from her pocket and skittered toward Ellie. Lady Olive’s beam of magic hit the ceiling, and a chunk of stone plummeted to the ground. The crowd screamed.

“The mirror!” Ellie called to Gerard as she raced for the object of dark magic.

Lady Olive screamed and tried to blast her again, but Ellie’s bloodied fingers closed around the hilt of the frame at the last second and jerked it up to ward off the blow of silver-gold light.

The beam slammed into the glass. The mirror shattered. A powerful wave of sound and light exploded outward from the epicenter and slammed everyone back.

“Stupid whore!” Lady Olive shouted in utter hatred. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”

“Don’t you dare speak to her that way!” Gerard roared. His voice bounded around every corner in a flash of golden sparks. He was done staying silent. That was his future wife she was harassing. He didn’t wait for permission from his father. This woman had murdered and hexed her way into the tournament. She was no queen. “For your crimes against the crown, you are sentenced to death. Immediately.”

Gerard slammed his palms forward, releasing his pent-up rage. Power flung from his body in a tumult of brilliant light. Golden flames flicked across the marble floor in a straight line, connecting with Lady Olive’s dress before the woman could even blink. Pierce jumped back.

Lady Olive shrieked; the shrill sound morphing from human to animal as flesh melted from bones. Her facade transformed in the inferno, taking on her real appearance. Wrinkles sprouted from a once beautiful face and blonde hair turned gray, exposing the woman’s true self.

Yellow flames reached the ceiling in a tower of heat, spiraling and whipping as if trapped in a wind tunnel. Most of the crowd covered their ears, as did Ellie, though it failed to block out the haunted sound of Olive’s dying screeches.

Anger rolled from Gerard. He never so much as twitched while Olive liquefied. The crowd too, didn’t move, as if everyone was too afraid to attract his rage. People coughed as oxygen thinned.

The lead-lined windows at the top of the throne room splintered. Screams erupted and the inferno blazed outward in one last attempt to engulf the room. Ellie shielded her eyes.

Crack!

The panes tumbled to the marble floor and shattered like eggshells. A cloud of black smoke shot to the rafters.

Cold air funneled through the broken windows and the smell of burnt flesh dissipated. Whispers flew across the hall like the hisses of a thousand snakes. Everyone stared at Olive’s remains.

Nothing more than a sad pile of black ash.

Ellie rushed toward the remains but he pulled her into his body, rubbing her back.

“She stole my pendant. I think she was wearing it. I swear I saw the snap of a blue flame under her gown.”

The petite pile of ashes stirred, shifted…and a crow burst heavenward.

Screams erupted. Ellie yanked free from his hold and reached for the animal, but it shot through an opening in the ceiling. She dropped to her knees beside the cinders and tunneled her fingers through the remains, only to pull away with blackened hands.

No necklace. No ice-blue pendant carrying Ellie’s power. He pulled her up and wrapped his arms around her. “You don’t need magic, Ellie.”

She touched her bare neck. A slender cut would be the only evidence of the magic she once carried. A streak of soot colored her collarbone.

Caw!

He looked skyward as the crowd gasped. One lone black bird, slender and resplendent, soared on the breeze.

A glint of blue in its beak.

She survived.

“I hope you choke on it,” Ellie whispered to the moonlit night.

“Don’t worry, it won’t work for her,” he said. Emblems of the old magic only worked in the hands of their true masters, their bloodline. Lady Olive, evil and powerful though she was, would never bend the pendant’s will.

It would kill her if she tried.





Chapter Sixteen



Gerard cleared his throat. Ellie heard him above the concerned audience and turned toward him. I love him.

All at once, her emotions broke the surface of her anger and Ellie cried without a sound. Tears eclipsed his masked face and she saw nothing, heard only the gasps and tones of the crowd’s voices.

They must be so mad at the way I’ve lied to their prince. At the way I played them. Cheated. Broke the rules.