The Shadow Queen (Ravenspire, #1)(66)

Not trying to kill her. Not ripping out her heart. Smiling at her when she looked at him, though he sometimes curled his hands into fists as if fighting the urge to hurt her like he was supposed to do.

“Fool.” Irina spat the word at the mirror’s surface while her heart pounded and her palms burned.

He acted as though he wasn’t under a blood oath to fulfill the task she’d given him. As if his kingdom wasn’t on the line.

As if he could ignore her express orders without incurring any consequences.

Had he forgotten whom he was dealing with?

Irina’s hands shook with rage as she stared at Kolvanismir and Lorelai. The man who’d helped Lorelai escape wasn’t visible in the mirror’s surface. He hadn’t been since the first time she’d seen the princess.

He was of no consequence. She’d had his sketch drawn from the memories she’d found in the king’s blood. Viktor had recognized him immediately as Gabril Busche, the former head of the palace guard. She’d thought he was dead. She’d attended his funeral.

She’d be happy to attend it again.

But he didn’t matter now. She could use him against Lorelai if necessary, but she didn’t want to bear the strain of the magic that would take. Not when she’d already used so much power to create the perfect huntsman.

No, what mattered now was sending a reminder to the king that breaking an oath with a mardushka was not an option.

Not if he ever wanted to take another pain-free breath again.

Setting the mirror down on her vanity with a sharp click, she scooped up a blue velvet bag with a black ribbon drawstring. Loosening the ribbon, she poured the contents of the bag into her palm.

The moment the scraps of thistle and bone touched her skin, her magic flared, and she felt the connection to the king’s collar.

She closed her fingers over the thistle and bone, locked eyes with the mirror’s surface, and said, “Kaz`lit. May the punishment I deem worthy for his crime flood his body with pain.”

Power poured out of her, sizzling against the bits she held in her hand. She felt the heart of the thistle she’d used for the collar surge beside the heart of the wolf she’d slain to harvest its bones. She’d conquered both hearts long ago. Now it was simply a matter of using them to conquer the king’s heart as well.

And then Lorelai would die, and Irina would finally be at peace.

Maybe the king thought Irina couldn’t hurt him if she wasn’t beside him. Maybe he didn’t understand that once the heart of a living thing had been conquered by a mardushka, any object created from that heart obeyed the mardushka as well.

Or maybe he was stupid enough to think the princess’s magic would be enough to save him from the wrath of his queen.

“Kaz`lit!” She threw back her head, a vicious smile of triumph on her face as the magic connected with the hearts she’d conquered. “Flood his body with the punishment he deserves.”

The magic spilled out of her. The thistle and bone did her bidding. And when she looked down once more at the mirror’s surface, the defiant fool of a king was on his knees, his expression full of agony, as he pulled frantically at the collar around his neck.

Irina concentrated, sending every bit of rage that flooded her body straight into the collar. Let him burn from the inside out. Let him hurt in places he never knew could feel so much pain.

Let him understand the cost of betrayal.

He fell forward, his body spasming, his mouth open in a scream Irina could enjoy even if she couldn’t hear it. Talons grew from his fingertips, and she imagined the dragon’s fire in his chest scorching him, begging him to shift though his queen refused to let him.

And then the princess was there. Falling to her knees beside him. Reaching for his chest and leaving her own heart exposed.

Irina clenched the bits of thistle and bone so hard she felt them crack as she snarled, “Kill her. Kill her now, Kolvanismir. Use your talons to rip her heart out of her chest, and the agony will stop. Eldr will be saved. Just kill her.”

She pushed more agony into his body, and a stab of pain shot through her own chest in response.

The king opened his eyes and locked gazes with the princess.

There was nothing but hunger for blood on his face.

Irina smiled and used her free hand to push at the ache in her chest.

It was almost over. She’d broken him.

The princess leaned down.

The king dug his talons into the ground beneath him.

Irina gripped the thistle and bone, pushing pain into him even while her heart stuttered and her chest burned.

And then Lorelai put her bare hands against the Kol’s chest, her eyes never leaving his, and the pain that had been pouring out of the collar rebounded toward Irina like a whip.

The queen stumbled away from the vanity, her hand still clutching the remnants of her huntsman’s collar, while fire streaked through her veins and her vision began to gray.

This wasn’t possible.

It wasn’t.

First the mountain’s heart had yielded to Lorelai and now this.

It had taken Irina ten years of training, of searching out the black clan mardushkas willing to disobey King Milek’s edict and practice the darker side of their nature. Ten years to learn how to force an unwilling heart to fully submit to hers.

And yet Lorelai was doing it as if it was nothing.

Irina gasped as the fire in her veins felt like it would incinerate her where she stood. It was a wolf’s rage, a thistle’s thorns, a queen’s revenge, and a dragon’s fire.