Reza was fighting the dead creature, but the creature moved erratically, still falling apart.
At last Mishah and I reached him, ready to take the crown. Mishah didn’t wait a single second. She raised her sword up and rushed at him without even uttering a word to me. He turned to the side, eyes flashing as he recognized the former kitchen girl he tortured in the forest, now a rebel, coming for him. Reza met her blade easily, and reached out a hand to touch her, but she spun away.
“I would have killed you in the woods, had I known you were such an infiltrating little rat,” he spat, charging for her.
I knew I should have been attempting to take the crown, but my mother’s bangles called to me, as if I couldn’t turn away from them. I unclipped the bag from his horse, lifting the flap, searching through it but couldn’t find the bangles at all. Instead, there was only the dagger I had pulled from Queen Azari’s vault.
I had forgotten we’d ever taken it. I unsheathed the Queen’s golden dagger, advancing on the Viceroy and Mishah.
Meanwhile, Mishah had managed to unseat the Viceroy from his horse, and he appeared singularly focused on making her regret that decision.
He strode toward her, his sword raised, black vines bursting up from the earth and surrounding her. She fell backward and swore, bringing her sword up to meet his in a violent crash before he could slice her in two.
Armed with a weapon now, I knocked into him, surprisingly throwing him off his balance. I was hoping to dislodge the crown from his head, but from this angle, I saw why that wouldn’t have worked.
It wasn’t just gracing his head; the very gold of Queen Azari’s crown was fused to his skull, like thorns sinking into his skin. Just like the ancient fae King’s crown melted into Reza’s chest, he’d joined his flesh with one too.
He flipped over, getting to his feet with a too-wide smile on his face.
“I was waiting to see if you’d come find me, little cat. Now I get to break you all over again.”
I flushed hot with anger, with the knowledge that what he did to me still burned within my bones. Still made sweat bead across my forehead and my stomach twist in knots.
“You didn’t break me,” I said, my voice ringing out across the battlefield, so much stronger and self-assured than I felt.
“No? I can still remember the delicious feeling of your bones snapping under my hand. Do you know my magic feeds off that? The Court of Salt feeds off not just power, but fear. It contaminates and corrupts everything. It’s a heady magic all in itself.”
“I’m more than just a body,” I spat at him. “More than magic you can use. You’d need to break so much more than my bones to destroy me.”
“I look forward to that challenge.” He surged forward, a scimitar in his hand arcing toward me. But before he could reach me, Mishah slammed into him, knocking him once more to the ground and stabbing him in the shoulder, staking him to the dirt.
“Mishah!” I screamed her name, but it was too late. She’d put herself within arm’s reach of him, and he laughed, a deep throaty sound, even as her sword had pinned his body to the earth. He reached his hands up and gripped her face, a wide smile sliding across his.
She screamed, her hair shooting through with white, her skin creping like paper.
I shoved her off him, severing the connection of touch between them. But she was still rolling on the ground, gripping her face in agony.
Bile rose in my throat at seeing her drained, feet twisted, face in her weathered hands. And then my blood was filled with consuming rage.
I never had magic that could fight, that could do battle, that could protect. My magic was for finding things, and there was one thing yet that was not found. I remembered what I had done with the rebels after we’d taken the crown, how I had found their weaknesses, ways to fight them.
Show me how to kill him.
My golden threads burst free, as if I had unleashed them with my rage.
He won’t take from us again.
They clustered around the dagger in my hand, and then the golden points of King Rusul’s crown in the Viceroy’s chest.
Thebladenearly slipped from my fingers as I realized what I needed to do.
I charged forward, doing the same as Mishah, and thanking the River she’d managed to stake Reza to the ground when she’d had the chance. I straddled his chest, a leg on either side, ignoring his amused stare.
“Going to kill me, then?” His white teeth glinted in the sun. “I don’t think you have it in you to draw blood, cat.”
“Going to drain my magic? You know you’ll never find the door in the Mountain without me. You’ll never findanythingwithout me.”
His face darkened as I pressed the blade into his neck. “I don’t need to drain you. I’ll suck the life out of every single one of your rebel friends until you find that door. Or I’ll make you mindless, and keep your powers intact, so you’ll be an empty vessel for me, an empty tool. I should have done that in the first place.”
