Crush the King (Crown of Shards #3)(40)

Maeven was extremely strong in her lightning magic, but her brother was an even more powerful weather magier. No wonder she was so afraid of him. Power and cruelty made for a very dangerous combination, and Maximus seemed to have an abundance of both.

Still, the more I breathed in the stench of his magic, the more I could feel my own power rising up in response. My cold, hard immunity wanted to lash out and crush every last drop of hot, stinking, coppery magic crackling through his body. Perhaps I would get the chance to do that before the Games were over.

I bloody hoped so.

“Queen Everleigh,” Maximus said in a low, smooth, silky voice. “At long last, we finally meet.”

“Maximus,” I replied in a cool, clipped tone, deliberately using only his name and not his title.

He arched a perfectly sculpted golden eyebrow, and amusement flickered across his face. My slight didn’t bother him at all. He kept studying me with his hard amethyst eyes, and I got the impression that I was nothing more to him than an annoying spider, one who kept skittering just out of his reach, despite his repeated efforts to squash me under his bootheel.

I expected him to make some snide comment about the assassination attempt. Like everyone else on the terrace, he had to suspect that I was behind it, given what he had done to the rest of the Blairs. But instead of confronting me, Maximus gestured for the other Mortan royals to step forward. There were four of them.

The first was a man about my age, late twenties, who was the spitting image of Maximus. Same golden hair, dark amethyst eyes, tan skin, and sharp, angular features. He too was wearing black leggings and boots, but the Morricone royal crest was done in silver instead of gold on his dark purple tunic, denoting his lesser status. I had never seen him in person before either, but I still knew who he was—Mercer, the king’s oldest son and the Mortan crown prince.

Mercer sneered at me. I drew in a breath, tasting his scent. He too reeked of hot, caustic lightning, although the aroma was much weaker and without the bloody note that clung to his father. Mercer was powerful, but not nearly as strong as his father.

The second royal was also a man in his late twenties, with the same golden hair, tan skin, and amethyst eyes as his other relatives, although his features were a bit softer, making him far more handsome. He too was dressed in a dark purple tunic, although the Morricone royal crest was just a small symbol stitched in silver thread over his heart. Nox, one of the king’s legitimate nephews.

Nox also sneered at me, but his expression quickly wilted under my cold glare, and he shifted on his feet. The last time I’d seen Nox had been the night of the royal challenge, when I’d killed Vasilia on the Seven Spire lawn. He had seen me shove my sword through my cousin’s traitorous heart, and he at least had the common sense to be wary of me.

Nox’s gaze flicked past me, and his eyes widened and his face paled. Auster stepped forward and stared at the younger man, his hand curled around his sword. The captain hated Nox even more than I did for his role in Queen Cordelia’s death. Nox had also tortured Auster for months after the Seven Spire massacre.

I looked at Auster, who bowed to me and stepped back. He might want to kill Nox, but he would never disobey his queen, and I had given Auster strict orders not to touch Nox. Not yet.

I turned my attention to the other two Mortan royals. To my surprise, one of them was Leonidas, the teenage boy I’d spoken to through the Cardea mirror at Seven Spire. He was dressed in a light purple tunic, but the royal crest didn’t adorn his clothes, further confirming my suspicion that he was a bastard, just like his mother was.

Leonidas stared at me, a worried look on his face, as though he was still concerned that I would announce to everyone that I had spoken to him through the mirror. I might still do that, but only when it benefited me the most, and now was not that moment.

And then there was the fourth and final Mortan royal, a woman in her mid-forties. Her golden hair was sleeked back into a high, elegant bun, and the perfect amount of understated makeup brought out her pale skin and amethyst eyes, along with the rest of her beautiful features, which were as familiar to me as my own face. She was quite a bit thinner than I remembered, although her face was finally free of the ugly mark that had marred it for so long from where the king had backhanded her after one of her failed attempts to murder me.

She was wearing a lovely lilac-colored gown, and a silver choker studded with amethysts ringed her neck. Two matching cuffs glinted on her wrists, while a ring gleamed on her index finger. All the gems reeked of magic, as did the woman herself.

Maeven, the bitch who’d orchestrated the Seven Spire massacre.

Icy rage surged through me, and once again my inner gladiator longed to draw my sword and ram it into her heart, before using the blade on Nox, Mercer, and Maximus. But I forced down my rage, just as I had the rest of my emotions.

This was supposed to be a civilized meeting, and I would not be the first one to break protocol and reveal it for the sham it truly was. Maximus had thwarted my assassination attempt, and I couldn’t afford another failure right now. Once you started losing at courtly games, it was hard to stop the bleeding, much less get back onto your feet and actually win anything.

“I’m sure you know my son Mercer and my nephew Nox,” Maximus said, breaking the silence.

“Of course.” I kept staring at Maeven. “I know all the Morricone royals. Even the bastards like Maeven and Leonidas.”