by SM Reine
He’d never seen what Marion could do with battle magic when she was pissed—and gods, the woman was not happy.
How dare she be angry? He was the one whose life had been ruined. The one who couldn’t get Rage’s accusatory glare buried six feet deep so it would stop haunting him.
Marion had no right.
No right.
It was time to show her what he could do.
He reached his senses into the trees throughout the Summer Court. The magic was close to his own. It was in his world. He seized control of the trees and twisted them into a hammer. Konig yanked them through the walls and brought a dozen trunks down on Marion’s head.
She flattened.
The room went dark as walls and ceiling collapsed. Even he could only hear the roar of stone, the screech of fracturing metal, the blast of ocean through newly opened walls.
Half of Alfheimr was folding like a house of cards.
He leaped through the ley lines into the Winter Court—the battle ground that he intended Marion to suffer. She’d be disabled by the cold. Powerless. Frozen.
Konig yanked her limp body through the ley lines too. And a good chunk of Titania’s bedroom.
Cold slammed into them. Black night descended.
He’d torn off one entire side of the Niflheimr tower to make room for Titania’s room. It was now open to the crashing ocean—once frozen, but now a tumultuous mess of flowing ice and magma that created plumes of steam where they met. Summer was not doing any favors to the careful balance Konig had created between Autumn and Winter.
There was no sign of Marion under the pile of trees and walls.
Konig kicked a brick aside, half-heartedly searching for her. “Princess?”
A boulder erupted from the wreckage and smashed Konig in the chest. He fell again. And from the floor, he saw a bubble of energy arc over Marion, shoving all of the stones off of her.
She wasn’t even bruised.
Marion rose, floating an inch off the floor with magic engulfing her entire body, from clenched fists to floating hair to pointed toes. “So that’s how it’s going to be?” she asked.
She reached out to the Winter Court. Konig actually felt her magic scraping alongside his. Even though she wasn’t sidhe, there was still some tiny part of the Winter Court that recognized Marion as its steward—the same authority that had allowed her to wrench control of the Raven Knights from him for her purposes.
There was enough of a connection for her to summon ice from the oceans, forming a platform that she backed out onto. It got her clear of the tower. Out into nearly open air, away from Konig’s material presence.
“If you won’t stay in my tower, I can bring the tower to you,” Konig said.
He jumped out onto the ice platform. It was slick—already sweating with moisture, just because patches of steam were blasting off of the ocean. He slid a few inches before catching his balance.
It was cold out on the platform Marion had made. Very cold, even for Konig. Marion must have been suffering in just a tee and leggings, but aside from the paling tone of her skin, she wasn’t even paying attention.
Marion wavered on the edge of the ice platform, still except for the fingers of her free hand, which drew on the air with bright light. She was drawing runes. Sketching up a spell. Something nasty and ethereal, and definitely something that Konig couldn’t allow Marion to cast.
Konig thrust a fresh tower out of the hardening magma, bringing a spire up directly between Marion’s feet.
The ice platform shattered. Marion cried out as she slipped and fell.
It was a complete tower that he’d generated, from the sharp point at the apex of its roof to the tiles that curved down to deposit Marion on its uppermost balcony. Everything was magma and steel. Blades jutting out of rock. A sharp, beautiful, and deadly piece of architecture.
Marion slammed onto the balcony. Her runes dissipated on impact.
Konig leaped down beside her and brought his sword slashing across her chest.
It was a shallow cut, but it cut true. He tore a wound diagonally across Marion’s breasts. Blood gushed out, hot enough to steam, but not hot enough to avoid freezing instantly.
She gave a gasp, a cry, a scream—and it felt even better than Konig ever would have dreamed.
He rolled his mind through the fantasy of how Seth would react if he saw her disfigured. He was probably pathetic enough to take Marion anyway. To share life with a scarred, damaged shell of a fallen queen. It was such a fucking precious idea.
She wouldn’t live long enough for that.
Seth would have to deal with identifying Marion’s mangled corpse.
Konig slashed again, but she rolled out of the way, getting onto hands and knees to scramble for the railing.
He grabbed her by the hem of the shirt and tossed her back.
Or tried to, anyway.
She grabbed his wrist in a hand, and he had only an instant to see all the white runes getting burned into his flesh. They melted into his skin. Branded him with the letters of the ethereal alphabet. They dug deep, cauterizing him as they burrowed toward the marrow.
“No!”
Konig blasted the marks off of his skin, and then kicked Marion in the face.
She collapsed. He couldn’t tell if the fresh blood was from her face or the wound on her chest. He didn’t really care. His arm was burning—so much pain, so many sensitive places exposed to the cold winter wind.
Marion was trying to disfigure him too.
It was different against a sidhe. Even more insulting. Because beauty was everything to sidhe, and a damaged arm like this—assuming he couldn’t heal it—would be something for the history books, as much an aberration as having an angel on the throne beside him.
Konig would be known as a gimp king.
“Nikki!” he roared into the night. He summoned her by making the trees and wind scream her name, even as he blasted the runes off of his arm, leaving vulnerable skin underneath. He was bloody now too. His sword hand was useless.
Marion rose onto her knees, grimacing. “Don’t make me kill you, Konig. Don’t make Nikki interfere.” She lifted her bow to aim at him. She’d enchanted the arrow with more of those ice-blue runes. If they penetrated his body, he’d feel that burning in his organs.
“That will never touch me,” he snarled.
Konig’s weaker hand was worse with the sword, but not with magic. He tore the bladed banister free of the balcony’s perimeter. He aimed every point at Marion.
They flew inwards simultaneously, scything right toward her as though he were closing her inside an iron maiden.
Marion released the arrow.
It flew through the blades, missing every single one, and went straight for Konig’s shoulder.
She should have aimed for center mass, the way that Konig had taught her. It was easy to side step even the best-aimed arrow when it wasn’t going for the killing zone.
He avoided it.
She slapped her palm against the ground, and a sweet-smelling wind, like caramelized apples, vortexed around her. The blades of the banister twisted, swirled around her, and then fell.
Not before one sliced her calf. Fresh blood.
“Death by a thousand cuts,” Konig said. “Don’t you think it’s fitting? Sounds just like our marriage.”
Marion was moving too fast to respond. The sweet wind carried her to her feet at the edge of the balcony.
She jumped.
Konig didn’t need to look over the side to see where she was going. He had eyes in every speck of the Winter Court, from the steaming ocean to the starry sky, and he saw Marion slow her descent so that she landed safely on a sheet of ice. The ocean was rough; she couldn’t even stand up on that little floating island as it was tossed away from the shore. Her blood slicked the ice. Black on white.
“You called me?”
Nikki had arrived on the balcony with Heather Cobweb at her side. Both of them were staring at Konig’s arm.
&
nbsp; “Stop gawking,” Konig snapped. “Marion’s confessed to treason. She’s trying to escape. I need you to turn off her magic.”
“Where is she?” Heather asked, grabbing her bow.
“I’ll show you.” Konig turned to fog, seizing both of his subjects and taking them to the rocky beach nearest Marion.
In the dimness, he could barely make out Marion lying face down on the ice. He pulled her closer, redirecting wind and waves so that she floated in their direction.
“Turn off her magic,” Konig said again.
Nikki’s head tilted to the side in the faintest sign of puzzle. “Why?”
“She looks defeated. She’s not moving,” Heather said. “I’ll arrest her.”
“No. Don’t trust her!” Just because she wasn’t moving now didn’t mean that she was harmless. “Turn off her magic!”
But Marion was already rising onto her hands and knees, and the light of her magic poured from her eyes like tears. She whispered, “Help me.” She gathered a fistful of lightning as the plea sang out on the night.
“Do it, Nikki!” Konig ordered.
The sidhe opened her arms, and she sucked all the power out of the world.
Marion pointed her finger at Konig.
The magic sputtered. Vanished. No runes appeared.
But something else was happening, too. Konig became strangely aware of the aches in his body. His feet were tired, his muscles sore. His damaged arm hurt even worse than he’d initially thought. It was a breathtaking pain. Absolutely staggering.
He dropped to his knees, arm cradled to his belly.
“What are you doing?” he roared.
Nikki was as bright as Marion had been, since she’d taken the angel’s magic away. But she’d also taken Konig’s. He could no longer feel his connection to the surrounding world. It was just like when he’d been wandering around in Sheol—almost like he was mundane.
When he repeated himself, it was with a frantic, rising pitch. “What are you doing?”
“My understanding is that this is a traditional duel, and you agreed to a fair fight,” Nikki said impassively.
She had betrayed him too. She was in on it with Marion—whatever it was.
“Rebellion,” Konig said through gritted teeth. First Wintersong, then Rage, now Nikki. All traitors to their race. All traitors to their king.
All of them would need to die.
He turned to Heather. “Kill Nikki,” he said. Even if it meant letting Marion have her powers back.
Heather’s whole face sagged with disbelief. “Kill Nikki?” Even his future queen was weak to sentiment. Nikki had been a constant presence since their childhoods. But she was a traitor, and traitors needed to die.
Marion and her ice were drifting away now, escaping Konig. He couldn’t let her go. He couldn’t let her spread her poison anywhere else. “You heard me!”
He leaped off the rocky beach onto the ice floe.
It took three jumps to get to Marion, and she still hadn’t managed to stand. There was too much blood making everything slippery.
Konig dragged his sword behind him, and he lifted it with his left arm. He lunged with his weight rather than technique. Marion moved, but he still sliced the blade along her thigh.
The weight of the bastard sword forced its tip to jam into the ice. He couldn’t dislodge it.
He felt so sluggish, so human without access to his powers.
“Heather!” he shouted over his shoulder. If she didn’t do something about Nikki soon…
Well, there might not have been much Marion could do. Her fingers were turning blue from cold. All the spells to protect her from the climate had been taken by Nikki.
Even with blood caked to her chest, she tried to lift her bow.
“Funny, isn’t it?” Marion asked, teeth chattering. “How we can both have so much magic, but it still comes down to this—the two of us alone? You called me something… A little girl? I wonder what that makes you.” She struggled to muster the strength to draw her elbow back.
He grabbed the stave of the arrow just behind the head. Yanked it out of her grip. Marion couldn’t fight it—she lost grip instantly and fell back.
“This is how we die,” Marion murmured, staring up at Konig and the arrow in his hand. He turned it so that it was held like a dagger. “We die alone. So very alone.”
“I’m never alone. I’ve got Heather.” Even if Nikki had betrayed him. Even if the entire world betrayed him. He would always have the archer sworn from birth to protect his life.
Konig raised his arm with the arrow, prepared to stab.
Marion closed her eyes.
“Me too,” she said.
And pain exploded through Konig’s chest.
He’d been stepping forward to plunge the arrow into Marion’s breast. But he stopped, staggered, clutched at his breastbone. His fingers met a wooden shaft and metal point.
Konig looked down to see an arrow jutting through his breast. It wasn’t one of Marion’s—Marion’s arrows were white, like her bow. Custom made. A fashion statement.
This was the standard arrow that unseelie archers used.
He turned as his lung struggled to expand around the arrow. It couldn’t, he assumed. That was why he was suddenly gasping. Why he was choking on blood. Why it was so hard to look back and see that Heather hadn’t killed Nikki, but instead turned her bow on Konig.
Heather had shot him.
He formed a word with his mouth: “Why?”
And he fell.
There was suddenly no wind, no waves. Everything was absolutely silent.
“Oh my gods,” Heather whispered. Wood clattered against stone. She’d dropped her bow. “He told me to kill Nikki.” She wasn’t speaking to Konig, but to Marion. “And he killed Rage, and he was trying to kill—”
“I know,” Marion said.
“Oh my gods,” the archer said again.
Konig would have had a lot more words than that, if he could have spoken.
He reached out for his kingdoms. He reached out for the forests, and the wind, and the water, and all those other things that he should have been able to bring into himself to heal. But he couldn’t. Nikki was still neutralizing his power.
A one-two punch of assassination.
The killing blow had come from Heather.
Heather.
His childhood friend. The woman he would have made queen.
Marion’s face swam in his vision. It was her fault. She’d turned Heather against Konig—let Konig beat Marion where Heather could see, twice, making Marion look like she was a victim. Making Konig look like a villain.
He wasn’t a villain. He was angry, as any man would be when disrespected, but…
Damn it all, he was king.
He didn’t even get to feel the power of ruling the entire Middle Worlds as he died.
Marion leaned over him. “Quiet,” she said. “You’re fighting it. That will make it hurt worse.”
His chest hitched. He wanted to call her a thousand foul names, but couldn’t.
“I’d hoped it wouldn’t end like this. The Autumn Court needs a king, and I thought…” Marion bowed down, her breath warm on his cheek. “You’re a terrible king, but I’d have let you do it anyway.”
“Did you ever love me?” At least, that was what he was trying to ask. Those were the words on his mind, swirling in the blood on his tongue.
Marion didn’t respond, but he could see the reply in her desperately sad eyes. There was no faking that emotion, even for someone like her. And there was no reason to lie at that point anyway.
She traced her fingers over his forehead, brushing violet hair out of his eyes, and it felt as good as the first time they’d kissed. Except for the whole arrow-through-the-lung thing.
Marion stood smoothly, so that he could only focus his blurry vision on her legs, the slices in her leggings, the angel blood freezing on her shin. She pressed her foot on his throat. And she used it as leverage when she plunged Kon
ig’s sword into his heart.
24
“Look at this place. Just look at it!” Jaycee picked up fistfuls of computer cords and shook them at her mate. “Have you ever seen such shameful cable organization? How will IT ever sort through this? Assuming this coup ends so we can even find a handful of IT pukes willing to travel to this subzero hell-hole!”
Pierce was kneeling on the ice bridge a few meters down, gazing down into the water.
He didn’t respond to her.
It had seemed that he’d given up mourning Rage once they had the refugees to care for in the Spring Court, but a return to the place of Rage’s death had brought him low again. It probably didn’t help that he’d also lost another of his college buddies. He’d been fond of Oberon as well.
It was strange for her determined, sturdy-souled mate to be so shaken. She’d never seen it before.
But they’d never been in such a situation before.
Jaycee’s heart warmed a few degrees. She had earned the nickname Frosty through behavior as much as her maiden name, but she never had trouble thawing out for Pierce. She thawed for him when deadlines at work had him on edge. She thawed when he was worrying about the state of the Middle Worlds, even though they’d chosen not to control them explicitly so they wouldn’t have to worry. She could certainly thaw for him when he’d lost the last of his college friends.
She handed the cables to Ymir, who had come along on this visit to the Winter Court as protection. The frost giant had promised that he would punch anyone who tried to hurt them. Considering he was the oversized version of one of those wretched booger-eaters known as children, with less emotional regulation capability than the average penguin, he would likely be inadequate protection against anything.
Still, he was useful in other ways. Mostly as an errand boy. He’d been more helpful than many of Jaycee’s former interns, to be honest.
Ymir sat down to sort out cables. Jaycee went to sort out her husband.
“Talk to me,” she said, sitting beside Pierce.
He shook his head. “Nothing to say.”
“I suspect there’s quite a lot to be said.”
“Not really.” The emotions on his face spoke volumes. His fingers laced with hers. “Well, there’s one thing. I’m glad you hate children and had your ovaries cut out with a knife.”
