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I had no idea what she was talking about, but the tremble in her voice unnerved me.
The Lady Magnate fiddled with the queen’s ring, and I had the inclination to cut off her hand and to take it to the rightful owner. But violence would wait another moment. My eyes abandoned the ring to the skeletal figure tucked beneath the furs.
All hells. Ivar.
“What did you do to him? He’s why you wanted the sea fae, isn’t he?”
“I did what was needed to try to keep the Lord Magnate from withering further.”
“He’s used the ring.” I took a step closer. “It destroyed him because he was not the chosen heir. Surely you see it.”
Britta glanced at the bed. “The ring destroyed him, but he was still the safer choice. For now. Until I could free my son from the influences of darkness. By . . . by imposters who plan to rule all the magicks of every land!”
“You’ve gone mad.” My pulse kicked harder in my veins. “Ivar was never poisoned by an Elixist. He’s dying because of you.”
“Helivedbecause of me. Because of Ivar’s power the Grym bloodline will be the force to secure the East.”
“Your bloodline?” I rolled the blade in my hand, eyes narrowed. “Niall has abandoned you; he has left his father to rot in the forest.”
Britta grimaced. “He is beginning to see the truth and will cut off her influence, I know it.”
“Whose?”
“Use that clever head and figure it out for yourself. I have no place here any longer. No hope to hold on to. I will not stand by and watch the kingdom we tried to build destroyed because she sold her soul to darkness. She comes to our kingdom, infiltrates our land, all with a desire to widen her influence, not strengthen ours.”
“Queen Astrid?”
Britta’s mouth tightened. “There is a new darkness rising. Tear down the Black Palace, and new wars will begin on different shores, Kase. It is inevitable.”
What the hells was she talking about?
Britta let tears fall onto her cheeks without attempting to wipe them away as she strode to the side of Ivar’s bed. The Lord Magnate breathed in a rasp, like pebbles rattling in his lungs. Where only weeks before he’d been strong and imposing, now he was but withered bones.
Britta dropped her blade and lifted a hollow horn filled with tallow wax. “It’s over, Kase. You fight so hard to put your little memory thief on the throne, but it is cursed. A death sentence.” She offered a forlorn look at the ring. “Perhaps I should hand this to you and damn her to its power instead of my own son.”
“Britta,” I snapped, a sudden panic in my chest when she raised the candle over the bed. “Give me the ring. Let us leave, come to an accord. Malin is the true queen, and we can find peace here.”
“There are too many who do not wish her to be queen, Kase.” Britta tilted her head to one side. “What is the use in fighting?”
With a shriek of fear, Britta dropped the candle on the furs of Ivar’s bed. The flames caught hold of the oils on the skins and burst into a wall of fire.
The heat knocked me back. I hooked my arm over my face to shield my eyes at the same moment Britta screamed in pain as fire licked at her skirts, swallowing her and what was left of Ivar.
I’d killed more than I could recall, but the sounds of her cries of pain were the most wretched shrieks I’d endured. Fear, potent enough to cripple me, gripped my chest. With a desperate swipe of my hand, I took her fear of pain and death and ended her cries in a simple snap of her neck.
Fire reached for the wooden slats of the broken rooftop, the trees growing in tangles over the holes in the ruins and swallowed the bones of Felstad.
Quickly, I skidded across the floorboards and curled my hand around the ring where it had fallen out of Britta’s hand.
A broken rafter snapped and fell onto my arm as I pulled back. “Dammit.”
I swatted at the burning threads of my tunic and looked up when more wood snapped and cracked. The walls were consumed by fire, and soon, I would be too.
I sprinted out into the hallway and down the stairs. Death littered the floors of the ruins, but there was no time to inspect the faces. All I could do was hope, worthless hope, that my family, my wife, and my guild were safe.
Outside, the fire ignited the forest in a wash of violent red. I crossed the covered bridge, dodging the first skyds Valen had slaughtered, and cut through the thick brush outside the borders of Felstad.
When I broke through a lingonberry hedge, I smashed into a solid form.
