Kill the Queen (Crown of Shards #1)

by Jennifer Estep

  I also kept looking for the magier’s power. Despite the snow, I could still see that pale purple vein of magic shimmering in the air. Maybe it was my imagination—or desperation—but the longer we walked, and the deeper into the storm we moved, the brighter the magic became until it almost seemed like an arrow telling me exactly where to go.

  I didn’t know how far or long we walked. All I was aware of was the snow stinging my eyes, the wind chilling my cheeks, and the stench of magic filling my nose—

  And just like that, we stepped out of the storm.

  One moment, Sullivan and I were trudging through a blustery blizzard. The next, we were standing in a clearing in the middle of the forest. Both of us staggered to a stop and looked around, blinking in surprise.

  Oh, snow still covered the ground, but only three inches, instead of the three feet that we had been slogging through, and the wind was a faint breeze, instead of a howling gale. It certainly wasn’t warm and sunny, but I didn’t feel like I was trapped in a snow globe that someone was violently shaking anymore either.

  I glanced behind me. A few feet away, the storm raged on, like a swirling wall of white that had been erected in the middle of the forest.

  “You did it,” Sullivan whispered. “You actually led us out of there.”

  He let out a loud whoop, picked me up, and spun me around in a circle. I laughed with delight, and he spun me around twice more before setting me down. The motions made me dizzy, and I swayed toward him, grabbing the front of his coat. Sullivan wrapped his arm around my waist, steadying me.

  And then he smiled at me.

  It was the first wide, true, genuine smile that he’d ever given me, and it was even more dazzling than the sun peeking through the clouds overhead. Suddenly, I didn’t feel quite so cold anymore, and I found myself smiling back at him. At least, I thought I smiled back. I couldn’t really feel my face at the moment.

  Our breaths steamed in the air, mixing and mingling together, even as we held on to each other. Sullivan’s gaze dropped to my lips, and hunger filled his face, the same hunger that I felt. Images of all the deliciously wicked things we could do together flashed through my mind. Oh, no, I wasn’t nearly as cold anymore.

  In that moment, I made another promise to myself—I would have Sullivan. I would have him every which way I wanted him and however he wanted me. But later, when we both weren’t half frozen and the rest of the troupe wasn’t still in danger.

  I playfully tapped his chest and stepped away from him. “Did you ever doubt me, Sully?”

  “Not for one second, highness. Not for one bloody second.” He smiled at me a moment longer, then pulled his sword out of its scabbard. “Now let’s find the bastard, and end this.”

  I pulled my sword out as well, and we walked on.

  Without the snow blotting out everything else, I couldn’t see that purple vein of magic in the air, but I could still smell the magier’s power. Every few feet, I stopped, tasted the air, and oriented myself as to where the magic was coming from, just like I had inside the storm. The process went much faster this time, and Sullivan and I quickly left the clearing behind and stepped into the forest, moving from one tree to the next, and searching for the magier.

  I finished tasting the air again and was about to step forward when Sullivan lunged over, grabbed my arm, and yanked me back.

  “What are you doing?” I hissed.

  “Trap,” he whispered.

  He pointed at the ground, and I spotted a metal bear trap half hidden in the snow. The razor-sharp teeth glinted in the sunlight filtering down through the trees. I grimaced. Those teeth would have broken my ankle for sure.

  “He’s close,” Sullivan whispered. “Stay behind me, and step where I step.”

  He took the lead, creeping through the woods and scanning everything, including the ground, but we didn’t come across any more traps. Eventually, Sullivan stopped and peered around a tree. I sidled up next to him and did the same.

  A clearing stretched out for about fifty feet before the pines took over on the far side. A canvas tent had been erected in the open space, along with a stone fire pit. No one was inside the tent, and no flames flickered in the pit. The magier wasn’t here, although his footprints dotted the snow in the clearing.

  “Where is he?” I whispered.

  Sullivan shook his head. “I don’t know. Probably somewhere closer to the storm, feeding his magic into it. I’m going to double back, and see if I can pick up his trail. You stay here in case he returns.”

  I nodded, and Sullivan moved off into the forest. I looked around again, but I didn’t see the magier, so I stepped out from behind the tree and went into his camp, keeping an eye out for more traps buried in the snow. But the ground was clear, and I slipped under one of the flaps and stepped into his tent.

  A sleeping bag, a knapsack full of food, some other odds and ends. The magier had traveled light in order to catch up with the troupe, given the blistering pace that Serilda had set, but nothing in his things gave me any clue to his identity. I set his knapsack back down where I had found it and started to leave the tent when I noticed a book sticking out from underneath his sleeping bag. I crouched down and pulled it out.

  It was a red ledger.

  I opened the book, already knowing what I would find—a list of names, written in a neat, familiar hand. Serilda Swanson, Cho Yamato, Lucas Sullivan. I flipped through the pages. Paloma, Theroux, Aisha. I had wondered what Felton had been writing in his ledger the night that he, Vasilia, and Nox had visited the arena. It was another list of all the people Vasilia wanted dead.

  Including me.

  Oh, Felton hadn’t recognized me any more than Vasilia had, but he had made a small star at the bottom of one of the pages next to a final name, or rather title—the Black Swan gladiator .

  “Felton,” I growled. “You and your damn checklists. You bastard.”

  A branch cracked in the distance. I froze, wondering if I had only imagined the sound, but a second later, another branch cracked.

  Someone was coming this way.

  I tossed the ledger on top of the sleeping bag, grabbed my sword from the ground, and crept up to the tent flaps. My gaze darted from one tree to the next, but a moment later, Sullivan walked into the clearing, still clutching his sword.

  I let out a relieved breath and stepped out of the tent where he could see me. Some of the tension in his face eased, although he shook his head. He hadn’t found the magier. Sullivan opened his mouth to say something, and that’s when I saw a shadow darting through the trees, heading straight for him.

  “Look out!” I screamed.

  But my warning came too late.

  A magier dressed in a long midnight-purple coat stepped out of the trees. Bits of bright purple magic crackled on his fingertips, like snowflakes dancing on the wind, and he reared his hand back and threw his power at Sullivan. As the flakes arced through the air, they transformed into sharp, jagged needles of ice. Sullivan lurched out of the way. The ice needles punched into the tree where he had been standing, like darts sticking out of a board.

  Sullivan spun around, raised his hand, and threw his lightning at the magier, but the other man ducked behind a tree, letting Sullivan’s power scorch it instead of him. Then the magier leaned around the trunk and let loose with another wave of his icy needles, making Sullivan scramble behind another tree for cover.

  The two men exchanged blast after blast of magic, neither one able to wound the other, given all the trees in between them. I was still standing by the tent, but the magier was focusing his deadly magic on Sullivan, and he wasn’t paying any attention to me. I tightened my grip on my sword, sprinted away from the tent, and crossed the clearing.

  “No!” Sullivan shouted over the continued blasts of magic. “Don’t!”

  I didn’t know if he was talking to the magier or me, but it didn’t matter. This bastard had tried to kill everyone in the troupe. He wasn’t getting away with that.

  I dar
ted through the trees, heading toward the magier, and hoping that I could stab him in the back before he realized that I was there. He threw another blast of power at Sullivan, who cursed and fell to the ground. I couldn’t tell if Sullivan had been hit or if he had just slipped in the snow, but anger scorched through me, and I picked up my pace.

  The magier must have heard the crunch of my boots in the snow because he whirled around, snapped up his hand, and sent a wave of icy needles shooting out at me. I threw myself down and rolled to the side. Needles thunk-thunk-thunk ed into the ground all around me, sending up sprays of snow, along with the dirt and dead leaves underneath.

  None of the needles hit me, but I rolled into a tree. My left shoulder smacked into the trunk, making me growl with pain. But all these weeks training with Sullivan, Paloma, and the gladiators had taught me how to absorb a hard blow, and I scrambled back up onto my feet and kept going.

  The magier blinked, surprised that I was still running toward him. He snapped up his hand to blast me with his magic again, but I plowed into him, knocking him off-balance, and sending us both tumbling down to the ground.

  I got back up onto my knees, but I had lost my sword, and I didn’t see where it had landed. The magier snarled, scrambled up onto his knees as well, and lifted his hand, like he was going to blast me with his magic and drive his icy needles straight into my face. Even with my immunity, I doubted I would survive that, and I certainly didn’t want to find out. So I reached for the only other weapon I had—the poisoned feather that Sullivan had given me.

  I yanked the feather out of my pocket and lashed out with it. The needle on the end slashed across the magier’s palm, surprising him, and his magic dissolved into a shower of purple snowflakes. The magier hissed, but he curled his hand into a fist and punched me in the face. He must have had a bit of mutt strength as well because the blow hurt far more than rolling into that tree trunk had. Pain exploded in my left cheek, my head snapped back, and my legs slid out from under me. In an instant, I was flat on my back in the snow.

  The magier climbed to his feet, leaned down, and plucked the feather off the ground, twirling it around in his hand. “A feather?” He laughed. “What were you going to do? Tickle me to death?”

  I was too busy sitting up and trying to ignore the pounding ache in my face to answer. The magier laughed again and flicked the feather away. It landed on the snow next to my hand.

  My head was still spinning, but I could see the smear of blood on the needle. Had I not sliced him deep enough with it? Why wasn’t the poison working? Why wasn’t he dead yet?

  “Evie!” Sullivan yelled in the distance. “Evie!”

  But he was too far away, and he couldn’t help me.

  “Time to die,” the magier hissed.

  He raised his hand, and snowflakes swirled around his fingertips again. The magier gave me an evil smile, and I reached for my immunity, hoping that it would save me from his icy needles. The magier’s smile widened, and he drew back his hand to blast me with his magic.

  And then he froze—he just froze .

  He stood there, locked in place, the muscles in his neck, shoulders, and arms bunching and flexing, as though he was straining to move. A horrible, acrid stench filled the air, and the icy flakes swirling around his fingertips blackened and dropped to the ground, smoldering like bits of hot ash before melting into the snow. The magier looked at me, and I realized that his eyes were completely black, as though he was burning up from the inside out. He let out a strangled cry, and a thin trickle of black blood dribbled out of his mouth. Then he collapsed.

  The magier landed in the snow next to me. I grimaced as a few cold pellets sprayed against my face, but he didn’t move. My breath escaped in a relieved rush. Sullivan’s poison had worked, and the magier was dead.

  A shout rose up in the distance, boots crunched in the snow, and Sullivan sprinted around a tree, his sword in one hand, and his blue lightning crackling in his other hand. He hurried over and dropped to his knees beside me.

  “Evie! Are you okay? Did he hurt you?”

  “I’m fine. Just a little banged up.” I gestured at the white feather that was lying in between the dead magier and me. “What kind of poison was on that?”

  His lips pressed into a thin line. “Does it matter?”

  “No, I suppose it doesn’t. I’m just glad that I managed to stab him and not myself.”

  “Me too,” Sullivan murmured. “Me too.”

  He stared at me, his blue gaze steady on mine, and reached out with his hand. At first, I wondered what he was doing, but then his fingers touched my cheek where the magier had punched me. Despite the fact that we had been tromping through a blizzard, his hand was warm, although the feel of his skin against mine still made me shiver.

  Sullivan paused, as though he was feeling the same things that I was, then gently pressed all around the wound. His fingers lingered on my cheek a moment before he dropped his hand and sat back on his heels.

  “No broken bones,” he rasped. “Just a nasty bruise. You should put some snow on it to help with the pain and swelling.”

  I let out a bitter laugh. “Right now, I never want to see snow again, not one more flake.”

  A crooked grin lifted his lips. “Me neither.”

  I smiled back, but the motion made my face ache again, and I grimaced.

  “The storm should have stopped the second you killed the magier,” Sullivan said. “Let’s get back to the wagons, so we can get warm and tell the others what happened.”

  I nodded, and he grabbed my arm and helped me to my feet.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  We went back to the magier’s tent. I grabbed the red ledger with the troupe members’ names and showed it to Sullivan. He recognized it as an assassination list. His face darkened with anger, and he took the book from me and slid it into one of his coat pockets.

  We searched through the rest of the magier’s things, but there was nothing else of interest, so we left his camp. I thought we might have trouble figuring out where the wagons were, but Sullivan had come across the magier’s tracks during his earlier search, and we followed them back to the edge of the storm. Without the magier to power it, the blizzard had disappeared, although more than three feet of snow still covered the ground.

  Up ahead, smoke rose over the tops of the trees from the fire pits that had been set up inside the wagon circle. I pointed out the smoke to Sullivan, and we headed in that direction.

  We were almost back to the wagons when I noticed the silence.

  Snow still covered everything, so it had been quiet the whole time that we’d been walking, but given how close we were to the wagons, noises should have filled the air. Boots stomping through the snow, shovels scratching into the ice, snatches of conversation. But I didn’t hear any of those things. No boots, no shovels, no voices.

  And most troubling of all, I smelled magic in the air again.

  “Stop,” I said.

  Sullivan was a few steps ahead, since it was his turn to break the path, but he stopped and glanced over his shoulder at me. “What?”

  I didn’t see anything other than snow and trees, but someone was out here. My nose twitched. I could smell them.

  “Something’s wrong. We need to get back to the wagons.”

  We both drew our swords and quickened our pace. A few minutes later, we stepped out of the trees. The wagons stood in the center of a clearing, still arranged in a large circle. I could smell and see the smoke and the flames from the fires that were burning in the stone pits, but I didn’t spot anyone moving through the gaps in between the wagons. Not that unusual, given how cold it still was, but the smell of magic was much stronger here than it had been in the trees.

  I drew in a deep breath, tasting the air, and trying to place the scent. I had smelled this kind of magic before, and the wet fur aroma reminded me of . . .

  Lady Xenia.

  “Morphs,” I whispered to Sullivan. “There are morphs here—”

>   One second, we were alone. The next, we were surrounded.

  More than three dozen men and women appeared. Most of them stepped out from between the gaps in the wagons, while a few came out of the trees behind us. They were all shapes and sizes, but they all had three things in common. One, they were carrying spiked maces, battle-axes, and other large, heavy weapons. Two, they were wearing hip-length black jackets with two rows of red buttons running down the front in the traditional Ungerian style. And three, every single one of them had a morph mark on their neck.

  And not just any mark—they were ogres.

  My gaze moved from one mark to the next. The ogre faces peered at me, their liquid eyes blinking with curiosity, examining Sullivan and me. A few of the ogres smiled, then licked their jagged teeth, telling me exactly what they were thinking. I shuddered.

  Sullivan lowered his sword and slid the weapon back into its scabbard. I did the same. There was no use fighting against this many morphs. They would tear us to pieces in seconds.

  “Ungers,” Sullivan muttered. “The storm must have forced us into their territory.”

  The Ungers were extremely protective of their borders. People who tried to sneak into their kingdom without the proper papers or authorization were often jailed—or worse.

  One of the Ungers stepped forward. He was tall, even for an ogre morph, topping out at about six and a half feet. His black jacket strained to cover his broad shoulders, and his legs looked as thick as tree trunks. He had a strong jaw, although his nose had a lump in it, as though it had been broken long ago. His short hair was a dull copper against his bronze skin, and suspicion filled his hazel eyes.

  “Bring them,” he called out in Ungerian. “We’ll put them with the others.”

  The other men and women stepped up and brandished their weapons at us, and Sullivan and I had no choice but to step through one of the gaps and into the wagon circle.

  Well, now I knew where everyone was. They had been herded to the back of the circle in front of Serilda’s tent. Everyone looked tense and worried, and a few folks were sniffling and fighting back tears, but they all seemed to be okay.