To Kill a Kingdom(88)

I’m sick with it.

I think of the taste of her kiss, with the stories of stars roofing us. An entire galaxy watched while her body curved into mine. As she asked me to kiss her and it was all I could do to keep myself steady.

Lira angles her cheek toward me now and lets out a low breath.

Then she brings her elbow up and cracks it across my jaw.

I drop my hold on her and she pitches forward to retrieve her sword. With a mirthless laugh, I press a hand to my mouth.

“You certainly live up to your legend,” I say.

“Enough, Elian.” She points her sword between us like a barrier.

I spit blood on the floor. “It’ll be enough when you’re dead.”

When I charge again, I ignore everything but the betrayal that roars through me. I land blow after blow, striking my blade on hers. Again and again. Each attack shrieks through the air, and time seems to move all at once and yet stop dead just the same. Endless seconds and minutes, until she falls to her knees and the crystal rolls onto the floor with her.

Lira doesn’t reach for it and so neither do I. I can’t do anything but wonder how much longer she will keep the sword roofed above her head. Sheltering her from my onslaught.

She takes each blow with a dead look in her eyes. Then her elbows start to shake and her ankle finally collapses. The blade clatters to the cold floor. Lira sprawls on the ground, waiting, her expression indifferent. Giving me the opening I thought I wanted.

She squeezes her seashell necklace and I flinch. It’s like she’s teasing me with every clue I was blind to. I raise my weapon again, feeling heavy steel in my hands. I can have Cristian’s revenge. The revenge of every prince who died in the ocean and every one who may die yet. I can kill her and be done with it.

I drop my sword.

Lira heaves a breath. Sweat paints across her brow and the unsettled look in her eyes slits straight through me. I wish I had killed her. I wish she had killed me. Instead we stare at each other, and then Lira shakes her head and kicks my legs out from under me.

When I slam to the floor beside her, she lets out a frustrated sigh. “Next time you want to kill someone,” she says, “don’t hesitate.”

“Shouldn’t I be saying that to you?”

“What are you doing?” Yukiko asks. I sit up as the Págese princess scowls down at me. “She’s the Princes’ Bane.”

She says it like she thinks I might have forgotten. As though it’s a possibility that I let Lira live because I really am that stupid and not because I really am that human.

I stand and brush myself off. “I’m aware,” I say, and snatch both swords from the floor.

“She came for the crystal,” Yukiko says. “Just as we did.”

“And now she’s going to leave without it.”

Lira eyes the Crystal of Keto a few inches from where she sits hunched over on the floor. But she doesn’t even try to reach for the very thing she came here for.

“Get up,” I say.

Yukiko lurches forward. “You can’t do this,” she says, outraged. “If your crew wasn’t sleeping like corpses on the other side of this palace, they would tell you that you can’t just let her go.”

I incline my head slowly toward Yukiko. “You’re not a queen yet. Don’t think for a second that you can tell me what to do any more than they can.”

I wipe the dried blood from my mouth. I always seem to have it on me, but tonight is one of the few times it has been mine. Last time it was below the deck of Rycroft’s ship. Last time it was Lira’s.

On cue, Lira gets to her feet and watches for what I’ll do next. I don’t want to be shaken, but I am. I see her standing there, waiting for my next command like a loyal member of the crew, and the chains holding me together break like cords.

“Go back to where you came from,” I tell Lira. “Right now.”

I crouch down to scrape the crystal from the floor and Lira wavers. I see her shadow move uncertainly in the dim light. Time drags through the room like mud.

“I wish this could be the end,” she says.

It sounds more like a warning than a threat, if there was ever a difference between the two. A divination of the inevitable battle to come. I don’t answer. Instead I wait for her footsteps to disappear from the dome, and it’s only when I’m sure she’s gone that I stand.

“You can’t let her live,” Yukiko says darkly.

“She’ll have plenty of time to die.” I palm the crystal. “Right beside her mother.”

Yukiko is disbelieving. “I warned you about this,” she says. “Love is not for kings. You’ll see that soon enough when we’re married.”

“You can stop talking about marriage now,” I tell her. “It won’t happen.”

Yukiko matches my look with added sharpness. “A prince who goes back on his word? How novel.”

“I told you that I was going to give you an alternative.” Impatience seeps into my voice. “I may not want to be king of Midas, but I know I sure as hell don’t want you to be queen.”

“And what offer could you give me that would be any more appealing?”

I grit my teeth. Reactions are all Yukiko ever seems to want, and Lira took the last I had left in me. “I assume you know of Queen Galina’s affliction.”