Crush the King (Crown of Shards #3)(11)

I shrugged again. “That girl led me into a trap and was more than willing to trade my life for whatever gold you’d promised her. So go ahead. Melt her face off if you like. If she has to die so that I can get to you, then so be it.”

Lena gasped at my harsh tone, and fear filled her face.

“You’re bluffing,” Ricardo hissed. “We’ve all heard of Queen Everleigh and her great heroics to save Bellona from the evil Mortan empire. We all know that you’re far too noble to let me murder this girl right in front of you.”

I laughed, the sound even harsher than my words had been. “I’m not that noble—or stupid. Even if I was, you’re forgetting something important.”

“What?” he growled.

I gave him a razor-thin smile. “I told you before. I don’t need my sword to destroy your magic.”

Before he could react, I snapped up my left hand and threw my immunity at him.

Admittedly, my power wasn’t very impressive in a visual sense, since it was more like a blast of cold wind than the hot, tangible flames still burning in Ricardo’s palm. But it slammed into him like a tidal wave, snuffing out his fire and knocking both him and Lena down.

Paloma roared again, hefted her mace high, and attacked the remaining magiers, while I focused on Ricardo and Lena, who were rolling around on the ground.

“You bastard!” Lena shrieked, scrambling up onto her knees and drawing her fist back to punch him. “You were going to kill me to save yourself—”

Ricardo drew another knife out of the folds of his cloak, whipped it up, and slashed it across her throat. Lena let out a choked scream and toppled over onto her side. She clamped her hands around her neck, but blood gushed out from between her fingers.

So much blood—too much blood.

Lena stretched up one of her hands, silently begging me to help her, but there was nothing I could do. A few seconds later, her outstretched hand dropped to the ground, while her other hand slipped off her neck and landed in the blood that was rapidly pooling underneath her body. She didn’t move after that.

Ricardo scrambled to his feet and darted toward the alley, trying to escape, but I surged forward and sliced my sword across the back of his thigh, opening up a deep cut. He screamed and stumbled sideways. His boots slipped on some broken glass, and he hit one of the metal trash bins, bounced off, and landed on a pile of boards. The rotten wood snapped like matchsticks under his weight, and he ended up on his ass in the middle of the splintered debris.

I glanced over my shoulder. Paloma had killed the last of the magiers, and she came over to stand beside me.

I focused on Ricardo again. “You treacherous bastard. You didn’t have to kill that girl. She was working for you.”

Ricardo let out a harsh, mocking laugh. “Please. Lena would have stabbed me in the back the second she got the chance. She wanted all the gold we were going to get for this job. So did everyone else. It was just a matter of time before she and the others started plotting against me.” He shrugged, as though the magiers’ collective greed mattered as little to him as the girl’s life had. “So, yes, I did have to kill her before she tried to kill me.”

Maybe Xenia was right. Maybe my Bellonan gladiator heritage had made me more barbarian than queen, because his twisted logic actually made perfect sense to me. So many people had tried to murder me over the past year that I could easily understand—and even appreciate—the idea of killing someone before they tried to kill you.

“Well, you won’t be hurting anyone else.” I stabbed my sword at him. “Get on your feet. Now. You’re going to tell me who you’re working for and what they want with me.”

Ricardo looked at Paloma, who casually propped her mace on her shoulder, even though drops of blood and bits of gore were still dripping off the sharp spikes and splattering onto the ground. The magier blanched and turned his attention back to me.

For a moment, I thought he was going to do the smart thing and surrender. Then his eyes narrowed, another sneer twisted his face, and the caustic stench of his magic filled the air again. Ricardo feinted and swiped out with his knife, as though he were going to cut me, even as he lifted his other hand to blast me in the face with his fire.

I was expecting the sneak attack, and I slapped his knife away with my sword. Then I dropped to one knee, surged forward, and slammed my left hand down onto his chest.

The second my palm touched his body, I sent my immunity shooting outward, as though it were a giant, invisible fist that I was hammering straight into him. The red-hot flames crackling on his hand immediately snuffed out, but I was angry, so I hit him with my immunity again, this time focusing on the fire, the magic, burning deep inside his body. Ricardo screamed with pain and lashed out with his inner fire, trying to scorch through my cold, hard power and char it to ash, along with the rest of me.

He was strong in his magic—but he wasn’t stronger than me.

I hammered him with my immunity again. And again, and again, until the fire burning in his veins, in the very center of his black heart, started to crack and splinter. Ricardo screamed again and started beating at me with his fists, desperate to escape. He managed to hit me in the chest a few times, but the hard, heavy blows just fueled my own anger. I reached for even more of my power, even more of that icy rage deep inside me, and slammed another burst of magic into him, stronger than all the others.