The Shadow Queen (Ravenspire, #1)(23)
Irina leaned down and said quietly, “You have just committed treason, Lady Kiffen.”
Turning to her guards, Irina pointed toward a section of the castle’s wall that stood next to the edge of the apple grove. “Put her there.”
Lord Kiffen threw himself at Irina’s feet, grasped the hem of her gown, and sobbed out, “Please, my queen. Spare my wife, and the Kiffens will be your staunchest allies. I beg of you.”
Irina shook the man free of her skirt and turned to look at the castle, its thin spires and scalloped balconies silhouetted against the dawn sky like slivers of shadows slowly crystallizing into something solid.
She’d had allies once, or so she’d thought. She’d all but secured a betrothal to the king of Ravenspire, and she had a crowd of admirers who fell over themselves to repeat every word she said as if it were precious gold. But Arlen had broken protocol to ask for her sister’s hand in marriage instead, her uncle had betrayed his eldest niece by agreeing to Arlen’s request, and the crowd of admirers had abandoned Irina for her sister because it was power they truly craved, and Irina suddenly had none.
For ten years, she’d waited. Refusing marriage requests from Morcantian dukes and earls, turning a deaf ear to her uncle’s increasing ire at his niece’s refusal to cooperate, ignoring her father’s complaints that the daughter he’d loved had abandoned him for Ravenspire, and throwing herself wholeheartedly into the kind of dark magic her uncle had long ago forbidden Morcantians to practice.
And when the opportunity came to right the wrongs, to seize the life that should’ve been hers, Irina hadn’t needed her uncle, her father, or a crowd of admirers. She’d only needed herself.
She wasn’t about to falter now.
Irina turned back toward Lady Kiffen, once again shaking off the grasping fingers of the woman’s husband as he begged for mercy. “I have heard your request, Lord Kiffen. Don’t worry. Soon, you will be the most loyal man in my entire kingdom.”
The power in her palms burned like fistfuls of live coals as she walked toward Lady Kiffen. Irina smiled as she met the woman’s defiant gaze.
She moved to the apple tree beside Lady Kiffen and grasped the closest branch. The blight had yet to reach the capital, and the apple’s tree’s heart—soft and light as a summer breeze—surged upward to meet Irina’s palm.
“Rast`lozh.” Her voice was a whiplash of strength and power.
The branches of the tree curled toward Irina, brushed against her skin, and then unfurled and stretched long slender fingers toward Lady Kiffen.
Irina stepped toward the woman, whose eyes were fixed on the apple branches as they grew rapidly, twisting into something that resembled wooden vines with clawlike twigs at the ends. The branches reached the wall, crawled along it, and then slid down to wrap themselves around Lady Kiffen.
“No! Please, I beg you.” Her husband rushed forward. A branch as thick as one of the pillars in the castle’s entrance hall wrapped around his wife’s chest, slowly lifting her off the ground as she struggled. Two more tendrils unfurled from that branch and whipped around the woman’s arms while another two branches grasped her feet and pulled until she was pinned to the wall, eye to eye with Irina, her arms and legs spread-eagled against the cold gray stone.
Slowly, the queen wrapped her palm around the woman’s neck. Lady Kiffen’s pulse beat frantically against Irina’s skin.
“If you want your wife released from her punishment, you must do one thing for me. After that, if you still wish it, I will release her and forgive her of her crime.”
“Anything, Your Highness.” His voice trembled.
The queen leaned close to Lady Kiffen and put her other hand on the branch that surrounded the woman’s chest. In one palm, she felt the thunder of Lady Kiffen’s pulse. In the other, the willing, compliant heart of the apple tree. Gathering her power, the queen whispered, “Tvor” and poured her intentions, her desires, into the word as the heat in her palms exploded into Lady Kiffen and the tree, wrapped around the heart of each, and then joined them as one.
The woman’s back arced, and the cords of her neck stood out. She opened her mouth to scream, but choked instead. Her cheeks bulged, her eyes grew wide with panic, and for one long moment, she didn’t breathe. But then, her jaw dropped open, wider than should be possible, and a perfectly formed apple slowly tumbled out of her mouth and into the queen’s hand.
Irina gave the apple to Lord Kiffen.
“Eat this,” Irina said. “And then if you want me to free your wife, I will. I swear it.”
Lord Kiffen stared at the apple, its glossy red skin glowing in the morning sunlight. He raised his eyes to his wife’s, but she was in the throes of pain again, her throat open in a silent scream as another luscious apple slowly emerged from her mouth and into the queen’s hand.
Quickly, he raised the fruit to his mouth and bit deep. His teeth pierced the skin, but instead of crisp, sweet apple, the center was fermented, and thick black rot oozed onto his tongue. He didn’t seem to notice. Instead, he chewed quickly, his eyes glazing over as he ate the apple, licking his fingers clean like a starving man afraid to leave a single bit of food behind.
Irina had two more apples in her hands, and Lady Kiffen was already stretching her jaw wide to produce a third, when Lord Kiffen finished. He stared at his hands as if he couldn’t understand where the apple had gone.