Protect the Prince (Crown of Shards #2)(105)

Marisse laughed and lifted her hand for another strike. My mother must have seen my eyes widen because she wrapped her arms around me, still determined to protect me.

“Mama!” I screamed. “Mama!”

My mother tightened her grip on me. “Use . . . your magic . . .” she mumbled. “Save . . . yourself . . . Evie . . .”

More sharp hailstones punched into my mother’s back, making her scream again. She pitched forward, and we both tumbled to the ground. My mother fell on top of me, still trying to protect me, and her warm blood oozed over my neck and chest, even as my body sank deep into the wet snow.

A bolt of cold purple lightning slammed into my mother’s back, making her scream again. Marisse wasn’t finished with us.

Wave after wave of power blasted into my mother. My right hand was trapped in between our bodies, but I wrapped my left arm around my mother’s back, even though the lightning froze my skin. For several seconds, I screamed along with my mother, but then I forced myself to grit my teeth and grab hold of my immunity.

Somehow, I managed to push back against the magier’s icy lightning. Oh, my hand and arm were still frostbitten, horribly so, but the magier’s lightning didn’t freeze the rest of my body, like it was doing to my mother.

Desperate, I squeezed my mother even tighter, trying to share my immunity with her, trying to shield both of us with my magic. But she was already more dead than alive, thanks to that gruesome wound in her chest, and I could feel the magic freezing what little life she had left.

My mother drew back, and her gray-blue eyes filled my vision. Blair eyes, tearstone eyes, just like mine. She opened her mouth to say something, but all that escaped was a soft sigh, and she pitched forward, her head dropping down to my shoulder.

That’s when I knew she was dead.

Tears streamed down and froze on my face, and a sob rose in my throat, but I choked it down and focused on my immunity. I didn’t know how long I laid in the snow, clutching my dead mother and fighting back against the magier’s cold power.

Eventually, the purple lightning dissolved into a shower of ice pellets. By this point, I was half buried in the snow, with my mother’s frozen body on top of me, her arms still wrapped around me, even though they were cold and as stiff as boards. My own hand and arm were somehow frostbitten and burning at the same time, and this horrible, throbbing pain pulsed through my body with every breath.

As much as I wanted to unwrap my arm from around my mother, I forced myself to lie absolutely still. Footsteps crunched through the snow. The magier was coming to make sure we were dead.

I hadn’t realized it until now, but I’d shut my eyes during the attack, and I forced myself to crack them open.

My mother’s cold, frozen face loomed up in front of mine.

Thankfully, her eyes were closed, but her skin had turned a horrible blackish-purple, and she reeked of frosted death.

Somehow, I choked down a shrieking sob. My gaze flicked left and right, but I was buried so deep that all I could see was the snow rising up on either side of me, with the sickening sight of my mother’s frozen face in the middle. I kept lying still and quiet, scarcely daring to breathe—

Lightning zinged through the air, blasting my mother’s body off mine. I yelped and reached out, but she was gone, tossed across the clearing. I scrambled up and onto my feet and whirled around.

Marisse was standing right in front of me, an amused smile on her face. “Don’t you know? Playing dead has never worked for anyone.”

Rage surged through me at her mocking words, and my hands fisted in the folds of my dress. To my surprise, I felt something hard through the fabric, and I realized that the dagger my mother had given me in the dining hall was still in my pocket. My breath caught in my throat, but I started worming my right hand into the opening.

Marisse looked me up and down, taking in my wild, disheveled hair, my blood-and snow-crusted dress, and the bluish-purple tint to my left arm and fingers. Her eyes narrowed in thought. “What kind of magic let you survive mine?”

Instead of answering, I shifted on my feet, using the motion to hide my hand darting inside my pocket. My fingers fumbled through the fabric, but they finally closed around the dagger. I clenched the hilt.

Marisse shrugged. “I suppose it doesn’t matter, since you’re still going to die.”

She lifted her hand, and more of those damned purple hailstones started swirling around her fingertips. “Any last words, little girl—”

I didn’t wait for her to finish speaking or, worse, throw her magic at me. Instead, I yanked the dagger out of my pocket, lunged forward, and stabbed it into her heart.

Marisse’s eyes bulged, and she screamed in surprise. Her hailstones slipped through her fingers and splattered onto the ground. She staggered back, but I followed her. I yanked the dagger out of her chest, then stabbed her with it again.

And I didn’t stop.

I stabbed the magier over and over again, cutting into every part of her I could reach. She screamed and screamed and tried to throw her magic at me, but my attack was too brutal, frenzied, and vicious, and she couldn’t summon up so much as a single spark of power.

It seemed to take forever, although it couldn’t have been more than ten seconds before her eyes rolled up in the back of her head, and she dropped to the ground. I loomed over her, the dagger still clutched in my hand, but the magier’s eyes were fixed and frozen.