The Cursed Queen (The Impostor Queen #2)(54)
I cannot let this happen. I will not let this happen. As the curse bleeds through my skin, begging release, I stop trying to hold it back.
Instead, I embrace it.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
All the noise of the warriors falls silent, smothered by the rush of fire and ice in my mind, the swoop of it along my bones, its roar as it invades my very soul. I am barely aware of stepping into the ring, only that suddenly the rope isn’t there anymore. Its ashes flutter in the air around me like moths.
I am the flame. It bursts from my palms as I stalk toward Flemming, who whirls around, perhaps when he feels the heat at his back. “You will not touch her,” I say, and my voice is monstrous, teeth and claws and blades and hate made sound.
Flemming staggers away from Thyra, his arms reeling, his mouth gaping in a silent scream as I come after him, liquid fire in my veins. “Witch!” he screams.
It is the last word he ever utters. I hurl the flames, all my hurt and rage fueling an inferno that devours Flemming instantly. His cry is desperate and shrill and now it’s gone and I don’t care. I won’t stop until he is cinders at my feet. This feels good and right and savage.
I raise my head at the flash and glimmer of a dagger blade, but the mere thought of wind brings forth an icy gale that sends it flying off course, its master thrown back into the churn of warriors with his eyes frozen wide and horrified. I turn in place, glaring fire at the tribe that was so eager to kill my chieftain. “Challenge me,” I say.
Nothing has ever felt this magnificent. I laugh as a few warriors surge to the front and throw their spears. I swing my arms out, and the wind does my bidding once again—the long razor tips of the weapons fly past me on either side and into the crowd behind me. Let them all die. I don’t care that they cry. I don’t care about the terror on their faces. A moment ago they were salivating as they watched Thyra on her knees, a chieftain defeated by scheming. Not with honor. Not in a fair fight. I realize now it wouldn’t have mattered if she’d defeated Flemming—another would have stepped up, and another, and another, until one landed a lucky blow, until Thyra fell from sheer exhaustion. I don’t know what kind of chieftain nurtures a tribe that would do such a thing, but at the thought, I look up at the tiered benches where Nisse was sitting with Jaspar and the rest of his loyal entourage.
But Nisse is gone. So are his favorites. Only Jaspar remains. He stands on his bench, his eyes round. “Did you know?” I shout, violent gusts lifting my red hair, ash and cinder swirling around me. The air is filled with the scent of burning flesh, sweet and bitter.
It’s funny the small things one notices when the world is falling apart. Jaspar’s throat bobs as he swallows, his skin shining with sweat and streaked with grime in the heat and light of my curse-fire. His fists clench. He shakes his head.
I could kill him. Perhaps I should, for spreading the rumors that broke people’s faith and trust in Thyra. My heart squeezes at the thought of him burning in front of me, but I’m part of the fire now. I’ve accepted it as my own. It licks at my skin, striping it red and angry. Raising blisters. Pain surges into my awareness, along with an instinctive swell of ice to counter the heat. I wince as my blood runs so cold it feels like my bones will snap.
“No!” Jaspar roars, and I jerk my head up to see him leap off the bench and land at the edge of the fight circle, his hands up and waving as he runs past me and shouts at someone above us. I turn in that direction—battle archers are lined up behind a parapet that encircles the squat stone tower, halfway up its hulking height. “Do not fire!” he shouts, lunging forward to put himself between the arrows and me.
I turn my palms to the sky, shards of ice forming and swirling, lengthening into blades. At the sight, I smile. It is as easy as thinking cold thoughts. And now I am cold. So cold that the thought of these ice blades penetrating Krigere flesh can’t melt me. They will freeze and fall and die, and it is what they deserve. What all of them deserve.
“Ansa?”
The broken, hitching sound of my name brings me whirling around. Relief turns my ice blades to mist as I stare at Thyra’s red, heat-kissed face. Her blue eyes are filled with tears. She takes a slow step toward me, her injured left arm pressed to her body, her tunic streaked and stained with blood from her wounds. “Please stop this.”
“I can’t let them kill you.” My voice cracks. Agony makes me sway, even as the fire and ice rages inside me, seeking a target.
“It’s time to stop though. You have to stop.”
My vision is tinted with an orange glow. I stare at her through the flames.
“You’re my wolf,” she says with a tremulous smile. A tear escapes and slips down her cheek. “I need you to listen to me now.”
“Your wolf,” I whisper. I clench my fists, trying to leash the massive storm inside me along with a rising agony that’s trying to eat me alive. “I have never been anything else.”
“Oh,” she says, her voice high and shaking. “That’s where I think you’re wrong.”
I blink at her in confusion. There’s a roaring in my ears that won’t fade. “What do you mean?”
She gives me a pained look and tilts her head, her right arm rising to embrace me. “You are a great deal more than that.” She’s alive and reaching for me, and I cannot deny her. I move closer. Her arm slides around my shoulders, and she pulls me against her, so that I can smell her, fire and sweat and a hint of sweetness. Her whole body is taut and trembling.