Crush the King (Crown of Shards #3)(9)

Lena blanched and ducked her head, like she was a tortoise trying to hide in the shell of her grubby clothes, and the coppery stench of her fear gusted through the plaza, even stronger than the smell of the magiers’ collective power.

I wondered who they were planning to turn me over to. Maeven? The Mortan king? Someone else? All sorts of horrible images and scenarios flashed through my mind, most of which involved Maeven slowly torturing me to death with her lightning.

My heart dropped, my stomach clenched, and my breath froze in my throat, but I shoved my fear and dread away and studied the magiers again, trying to figure out who was the most vulnerable. All I had to do was kill one or two to break through the line of them. Then I could run out of the alley before the others caught up with me.

A ball of fire flared to life in Ricardo’s hand, and he gave me a flat stare, as if he had guessed my plan to cut my way through the other magiers. Beside him, Lena scrambled back up onto her feet. Her cheek was still red from his slap, but she reached for her magic, and a ball of fire filled her palm as well. A few more of the magiers summoned up their fire and lightning, while the rest raised their swords.

“You’re coming with us, Your Majesty,” Ricardo purred. “Whether you do it with your face intact is entirely up to you.”

He waggled his fingers, and the fire in his palm burned a little brighter, as though it were a hungry monster that was eager to melt the skin from my bones. The hot, crackling stench of it filled the air, even more pungent than the rotten filth that polluted the plaza. Ricardo was clearly the strongest magier, although Lena was a close second, and the fire in her palm sparked almost as much as his did.

I was still holding my sword in my right hand, and I curled my left hand into a fist, then coated it with the invisible force of my own cold, hard power. Ricardo might be strong in his magic—but he wasn’t stronger than me.

“I’m not going anywhere with you,” I snarled.

He laughed, and Lena and the other magiers joined in with his chuckles. “If you want to get burned, Your Majesty, that’s fine with me,” he purred again. “It’s always so much more fun when our guests resist.”

He summoned up even more fire, but I didn’t flinch at the searing flames, so he sneered at me. “Do you really think your tearstone sword is going to stop me from scalding you? I’d heard you were arrogant, but I didn’t realize you were delusional as well.”

Like most people, Ricardo assumed that my sword was the source of my power, that the silvery tearstone blade and the blue shards in the hilt were what protected me. He was wrong.

“I don’t need my sword to destroy your magic. I can do it all by myself.” I twirled the weapon around in my hand, then lowered it to my side.

“You might be a queen, but you’re a fool,” Ricardo hissed. “Perhaps you’ll be a bit more humble after I’ve burned off the first few layers of your flesh.”

He reared back his hand and tossed his magic at me. Not enough to kill me outright, but more than enough to severely burn me. The fire streaked through the air, the flames growing hotter and stronger as they chewed up the distance between us.

At the last moment, right before his magic would have slammed into my chest, I snapped up my left hand and flexed my fingers as though I were flicking water off them. In a way, that’s exactly what I was doing. Only instead of water, I was throwing my magic at his.

The cold, hard, invisible force of my immunity slammed into his fire, shattering it like glass. The red-orange flames exploded in a roar of black smoke that boiled up and quickly wisped away in the winter breeze.

I casually brushed a stray ember off my right shoulder, snuffing it out just like I had the rest of the fire.

Ricardo’s topaz eyes widened, and he jerked back in surprise. “How did you do that? I thought you were just a mutt who could smell things.”

To most people, even my own Bellonans, I was just a mutt, a common, if condescending, term for folks with simple, straightforward powers like extra strength or speed. Even among mutts, my enhanced sense of smell was considered a weak, laughable ability, and most people thought I had only a faint spark of magic, and no real, significant power.

Those people were right—and wrong. I was a mutt, in every sense of the word, but I was also a master, someone who could control and wield a specific object or element.

And my element was magic.

I had always known that I was immune to magic and that I could destroy other people’s fire, lightning, and ice just by pitting my power, my strength, my will, against theirs. But I’d recently discovered that I could do other things with my immunity, like control where other people’s magic went or how much of it was used. I was still learning new tricks, and one day I hoped to be able to wield my immunity as easily as I did the sword in my hand.

I could have told Ricardo all that, but he didn’t deserve any explanation. No, all he deserved was to die screaming. Him and everyone else who’d been stupid enough to threaten me, trick me, and especially make me feel all that damn hope. Icy rage surged through me, freezing out everything else. Forget running away to safety. I was going to end Ricardo here and now.

So I crooked my index finger at him. “Why don’t you come over here and find out how I did that? If you’re not too much of a coward. Using a girl to trap someone is easy enough, but actually battling a Bellonan queen yourself is a bit more challenging.”