Crush the King

by Estep, Jennifer

  “But you came here anyway,” I snarled. “Why? To kill me so you could take back your strix?”

  Leonidas’s eyes widened. “No! Of course not! You won her fair and square. Besides, she’ll be much safer with you than she would ever be with me.”

  Lyra let out a loud squawk, clearly disagreeing. I eyed the strix, wondering if she might burst out of her cage to defend Leonidas. I was surprised she hadn’t done that already, but the strix remained behind the bars, so I turned back to the boy.

  “If you didn’t come for Lyra, then why are you here?”

  Leonidas wet his lips. “Uncle Maximus made me come. He was furious that he lost Lyra in the kronekling tournament, and he knows that I’m the only one she’ll listen to. He told me to come here, kill you, and bring Lyra to him.”

  I could hear the underlying threat in his words. “Or else?”

  He wet his lips again. “Or else he would hurt my mother. And me too.”

  Maximus had once hit Maeven because she’d failed to kill me, and I had seen the dark, ugly impression his ring had left behind on her face. I had also seen how he snapped his fingers at Mercer and Nox and ordered them around like they were his servants instead of his son and nephew. And of course I knew how disposable the members of the Bastard Brigade were to him. But I hadn’t thought the Mortan king would be so heartless as to order a teenage boy to kill me, even if that boy was another one of his bastard relatives. Just when I thought Maximus couldn’t surprise me anymore, he sank to an even lower level of depravity.

  I couldn’t keep myself from asking the obvious question. “Hurt you how?”

  A shudder rippled through his body, and the scent of ashy heartbreak surged off him, along with strong notes of pain, anger, and misery. The emotions were even sharper than my sword at his throat.

  “You don’t want to know,” he whispered.

  No, I didn’t want to know. Given what Maximus had done to that strix earlier, I could well imagine the horrible tortures he would coldly inflict on whoever displeased him.

  “So your uncle sent you here to kill me,” I murmured. “Well, you did a poor job of it, since my sword is at your throat.”

  Leonidas lifted his chin and straightened a bit, despite the blade at his neck. “I don’t care what you do to me. But please, please don’t hurt Lyra. She didn’t know I was coming, and she has nothing to do with any of this. So don’t hurt her. Please?”

  Well, at least he was polite, even if he had tried to kill me. But the boy was right. The strix had nothing to do with Maximus.

  “I’m not going to hurt Lyra. I would never do anything like that. But what about your mother? Does Maeven know about this?”

  Leonidas shook his head a tiny bit. “I don’t think so. Uncle Maximus summoned me to his tent and gave me the daggers and the mission himself. Mercer was there, but my mother wasn’t, and I didn’t see her before the guards escorted me out of camp and across the bridge to Fortuna.”

  Of course she hadn’t been there. Maximus wouldn’t have wanted Maeven to try to stop him from sending her son off to die.

  I had already killed several members of the Bastard Brigade, strong, seasoned adults who had a lot more training and magic than Leonidas did. Maximus had to know that I would most likely best the boy, but he had sent his nephew here anyway. Why? Did he want Leonidas dead for some reason? But if that was Maximus’s goal, then why not just cut the boy’s throat like he had the strix’s earlier?

  Or maybe Maximus simply wanted me to live with the guilt of killing the boy. Although as soon as I had that thought I dismissed it as ridiculous. Maximus didn’t feel guilt, and he wouldn’t expect others to indulge in the emotion, especially not a queen like me.

  The Mortan king could have had any number of reasons for sending the boy here to die, but Leonidas’s familiar features and amethyst eyes made me think about Maeven.

  Maybe Maximus wanted to punish Maeven for failing to kill me so many times before. Maybe he was even hoping that my killing Leonidas would enrage Maeven enough that she would finally figure out a way to successfully murder me.

  Dahlia had said that Maeven loved her children, and this evening Maeven had shown far more worry and concern for Leonidas than I’d expected.

  After all these months of battling the bitch, I could finally do something to hurt Maeven the way she’d hurt me. I could finally take something away from her the way she’d taken so much away from me.

  I could kill her son and send his body back to her in bloody pieces.

  Maybe I was a horrible person for even thinking such an awful thing. Maybe the mere idea made me just as cruel and heartless as Maximus. But the longer I looked at Leonidas, the more I could hear the screams of Isobel, the cook master who’d been like a second mother to me, along with Cordelia, Madelena, and my murdered cousins ringing in my ears, and the more I could see Maeven smiling while the turncoat guards cut down everyone on the Seven Spire lawn, including the children.

  So many dead, bloody, broken children.

  Leonidas must have seen the play of emotions on my face, because he straightened a bit more. “I don’t care what you do to me,” he repeated. His voice didn’t waver, but I could smell his dusty resignation. “But please don’t hurt Lyra. Please?”

  His last word came out as a low, ragged whisper, and tears filled his eyes. The tears, along with the sharp scent of his worry, made me think that he wasn’t crying for himself, but rather at the thought of all the horrible ways I could torture his beloved strix.

  In that moment, I realized that I couldn’t do it.

  I couldn’t kill this boy in cold blood, not even after he’d halfheartedly tried to kill me. That was a line I just couldn’t—wouldn’t—cross, not even to get my much-desired revenge on Maeven.

  I let out a tense breath, backed away from him, and lowered my sword. “I’m not going to hurt you or Lyra.”

  Leonidas stayed stiff and frozen up against the support pole. Suspicion filled his face. “But you thought about it.”

  “Yes. I thought about it.”

  He frowned and cocked his head to the side. The quizzical look and bobbing motion reminded me of how Lyra had studied me earlier. The strix was still in her cage, peering through the bars at us.

  “Then why didn’t you go ahead and kill me? Uncle Maximus would have. So would Mercer and Nox.” He paused. “And my mother. None of them would have hesitated.”

  “I know. But that’s not the kind of person, not the kind of queen, I want to be.”

  As soon as I said the words, I realized how true they were—and how wrong I had been about my Regalia strategy.

  An assassin’s arrow and wormroot poison were Mortan games. I might be able to engage in such plots, but my heart wasn’t truly in those sorts of sly machinations, which was one of the reasons my efforts to kill Maximus had failed so far.

  I needed to change my strategy to play to my strengths. That meant focusing on the things Serilda and Xenia had taught me—how to fight and how to spy. That’s how I had won my crown, and that’s how I would keep it, along with my life.

  “My mother would say that makes you weak,” Leonidas said in a chiding, singsong voice, as if he were repeating something he’d been told many times.

  “I am not weak,” I snapped. “I will do what I must to protect myself and my kingdom. But there is a difference between being strong and being cruel, and killing you would just be cruel.”

  Leonidas’s frown deepened, as if he couldn’t understand why I wasn’t killing him anyway, despite my explanation. Then again, I doubted the boy had seen anything other than cruelty in his life, so I couldn’t blame him for not understanding the concept of not indulging in it.

  Leonidas opened his mouth, probably to ask another question, but then his eyes widened, and the scent of his surprise washed over me.

  That was all the warning I had before I was attacked—again.

  * * *

  My gladiator training, survival instinct, or maybe even
luck took over, and I whirled to my right, barely avoiding the knife that whistled past my body. I whipped up my sword and turned to face my enemy—

  And ran straight into someone’s fist.

  Well, I supposed it was less about my running into their fist and more about them actually hitting me, but pain exploded in my jaw, my feet flew out from under me, and I landed hard on my ass. White stars winked on and off in my eyes, and everything blurred. I blinked and blinked, trying to focus and ignore the ache that radiated out from my jaw and pounded up into my skull.

  Two men and a woman were looming over me, their black cloaks marking them as Fortuna Mint geldjagers. One of the men was grinning and cracking his knuckles. He must have been the one who’d hit me, and he had some mutt strength, judging from the pain still rippling through my face.

  “Stay down.” He sneered. “Or I’ll put you down again.”

  I started to scramble to my feet, but he slammed his fist into my face again. This time, my whole body snapped back against the ground, including my head, and I groaned as a fresh wave of pain exploded in my skull.

  “That’s enough, Jerome,” the woman said. “We need her alive, remember?”

  Jerome cracked his knuckles again. “I think you mean mostly alive, Kenna.”

  She shrugged. “You know what I mean. Now get her up.”

  Jerome leaned down. I had managed to hang on to my sword, so I lashed out with it, trying to cut him, but it was a weak, awkward blow. Jerome wrested my weapon away and flung it across the tent.

  The tearstone blade banged into the table where Lyra was still sitting in her cage, then dropped to the ground. The strix didn’t make a sound at the sudden bit of violence, but her eyes narrowed, and the razor-sharp onyx tips on the ends of her feathers tilted up.

  Jerome grabbed my arm and yanked me to my feet. Then he spun me around, pulled a knife off his belt, and held it up against my neck. “You yell, scream, or do anything that I don’t like, and I will slit your throat, orders be damned.”

  I had to crinkle my nose to keep from sneezing at the rotten, oniony stench of his breath. Ugh. That was even worse than the blade at my neck.

  “Take it easy,” the other man piped up. “She’s worth too much to kill.”

  “Shut up, Darron,” Jerome growled. “You’re not in charge. I am.”

  Darron glared at the other man, lifted his sword, and moved forward, but Kenna stepped in front of him and held up her hand.

  “Forget about who’s in charge,” she hissed. “Let’s get her out of here before the guards come back and find us—”

  “Leave her alone,” a voice growled.

  Kenna and Darron whirled around, as did Jerome, who spun me around with him. Leonidas was standing in front of us, his hands clenched into fists.

  “Let her go,” he said. “Now.”

  Silence dropped over the tent. Jerome and Darron stared at the boy, but Kenna sidled toward him.

  “Hello, Leonidas,” she crooned. “Your Uncle Maximus sent us to help with your mission.”

  The smoky lie of her words filled the air. Maximus hadn’t sent her. At least, not to help the boy. I opened my mouth to tell Leonidas as much, but Jerome dug his knife into my neck. The blade nicked my skin, making me hiss with pain and blood trickle down my throat.

  “Keep your mouth shut,” he snarled.

  Leonidas glanced at me, but Kenna sidled forward another step, drawing his attention.

  “Your Uncle Maximus sent us to help you,” she repeated. “And he wanted us to give you a message.”

  “What message?” Leonidas asked.

  She smiled, but her eyes glinted with a dark, dangerous light. “That he doesn’t tolerate weakness—or especially failure.”

  She snapped up her arm and threw her knife at him. Kenna’s aim was true, and the blade was going to plunge into Leonidas’s heart—

  The knife stopped a foot away from the boy.

  Kenna frowned, wondering what was happening. So did Darron, and Jerome jerked back in surprise, dragging me along with him. My nose twitched. Instead of Jerome’s horrible onion breath, the scent of magic now filled the air.

  Leonidas’s power.

  The three geldjagers couldn’t smell the boy’s magic, but they finally noticed the power crackling in his eyes, making them burn a bright, eerie violet. They all froze.

  “You shouldn’t have lied.” Leonidas gave Kenna a grim smile. “Uncle Maximus never sends anyone to help me—only kill me.”

  He waved his hand, and the knife hovering in the air in front of him flew right back at her. The blade punched into Kenna’s chest, and she yelped with pain and toppled to the ground.

  “Kenna!” Darron shouted.

  He too drew a knife off his belt and threw it at Leonidas, who also stopped this weapon in midair with his magic. Darron rushed at the boy, raising his sword to attack. Leonidas’s eyes widened, and he lunged forward and plucked the knife out of the air, bringing it up just in time to block Darron’s sword.

  Their fight distracted Jerome, who lowered the knife at my throat a few inches. With one hand, I grabbed his arm and wrenched it and the blade away from my neck. With my other, I rammed my elbow back into his stomach. Jerome let out a loud oof! of air and staggered away. He tripped over a chest full of clothes and tumbled to the ground.

  I yanked my tearstone dagger off my belt and charged forward. Leonidas and Darron were locked together, their blades seesawing back and forth. Leonidas might have magic, but the geldjager was much stronger, and he was slowly inching his sword toward the boy’s throat.

  I couldn’t let the boy die, not after he’d tried to save me, so I buried my dagger in Darron’s back. He screamed, and I yanked out the blade, drew his head back, and slit his throat. He crumpled to the ground, bleeding out.

  I looked at Leonidas. “Are you okay—”

  A hand dug into my hair, making me yelp, and Jerome yanked me back and threw me down. My head snapped against the ground again, and more white stars exploded in my eyes.

  Jerome stepped over me, drew back his fist, and punched Leonidas in the face. The boy groaned and toppled to the ground, and Jerome kicked him in the ribs. Leonidas started coughing, trying to get his breath back after the hard, brutal blow.

  “Weak Mortan brat,” Jerome growled. “No wonder the king wanted us to kill you.”

  I blinked the stars out of my eyes again, tightened my grip on the dagger still in my hand, and staggered back up and onto my feet.

  Jerome’s hands clenched into fists, and his lips twisted into an angry sneer. “You really think you’re going to stop me with that dagger?”

  Behind him, the cage door creaked open, and two purple eyes gleamed like matches burning in the dark.

  “I don’t have to stop you,” I said, my words slurring a bit. “Lyra’s going to do it for me.”

  Jerome frowned. “Who the fuck is Lyra—”

  With a loud shriek of rage, the strix flew out of her cage, zoomed across the tent, and drove her body straight into Jerome’s. The geldjager slammed into the ground, landing flat on his back. Lyra hopped up onto his chest, snapped her beak forward, and buried it in his throat like it was a sword she was wielding.

  Jerome tried to scream, but all that came out was a choked, bloody gurgle.

  Lyra threw her head back, flexed her wings, and let out a loud, triumphant cry. Then she started raking her talons across Jerome’s body, cutting through his clothes and opening up deep, bloody gashes across his chest and stomach. In less than ten seconds it was over, and Jerome died without making another sound.

  When she was sure Jerome was dead, Lyra hopped across the ground to Leonidas, who was clutching his bruised ribs. She gently nuzzled her head against his free hand, and Leonidas reached out and hugged the bird to his side.

  “Good girl,” he rasped. “Good girl.”

  Lyra’s feathers puffed up with pride, and she snuggled closer to the boy. Leonidas didn’t seem to notice the blood coating her beak an
d talons. Or if he did, he just didn’t care that Lyra was smearing it all over him.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Was that a strix scream?”

  “The queen! Check on the queen!”

  More and more shouts rose up outside the tent. Lyra’s cries had been sharper and louder than the general camp revelry and had alerted the Bellonan guards that something was wrong.

  Instead of lunging to his feet and trying to run away, Leonidas sighed and slumped back against one of the support poles, with Lyra still by his side. “You should have gone ahead and killed me. Your people will tear me apart for this. And Lyra too.”

  The strix let out a sharp caw! and flexed her wings, as if ready to take on anyone who dared to threaten Leonidas.

  “My only regret is that I can’t save the others,” the boy continued. “I should have found some way to open their cages before I came here.”

  “Others? What are you talking about?”

  Leonidas sighed again. “The other strixes that Uncle Maximus brought to the Regalia.”

  I frowned. “You mean the ones the guards flew into the arena?”

  The boy shook his head. “No. The other strixes. The ones that Uncle Maximus . . .” He didn’t finish his thought, but he didn’t have to.

  My stomach roiled at the idea, but I pushed my disgust aside and forced myself to think about the king’s actions. Surely there was only so much blood and magic Maximus could drink and absorb at one time. So why bring that many creatures to the Regalia?

  Unless . . . he was planning to unleash all that magic.

  He’s never brought so many men and strixes to the Regalia before, Auster’s voice whispered in my mind. He has something planned, something bigger than just killing Evie.

  Auster had said that after the opening ceremonies, and we’d taken precautions to make sure we wouldn’t be taken by surprise by the Mortan guards on their strixes. But if Maximus slaughtered more strixes, then he could potentially amass enough magic to blast through our defenses, leaving his men and their strixes free to swoop down and decimate the ranks of my guards.