THE SUN TRACED the stone balcony with thin, golden fingers that did little to dispel the shadows spreading from the gathering twilight. Irina gripped the twisted metal balustrade with both hands and stared at the city—her city—spread out below her like a feast of plump cottages, pretty gabled inns, cobblestoned streets, and cathedral spires that pierced the sky like needles.
The soft glow of lanterns lit to welcome friends and family home dotted the cityscape like tiny golden stars. A gust of wind chased a thread of ice down Irina’s spine, but she refused to shiver.
The sun’s dying glow slid away from the balcony, plunging Irina into shadows. Her gaze followed the remaining light as it sank toward the ground, and her lips pressed together in a thin line when the light lingered in the castle’s garden, sparkling against the white stone monolith that rose from a cluster of crimson flowers like a sentinel standing guard.
Her heart lurched, tapping against her breastbone like an impatient fist. She pressed one pale hand against her chest in a futile effort to stop the painful pounding and tore her gaze away from the monolith.
She had nothing to grieve for. No one left to mourn. Instead, she had a kingdom at her feet and the ruthless power it took to rule it. Others might say they’d kill to be where she was, but they were liars.
Irina alone had proven capable of wresting the life she deserved from those who sought to keep it from her. She alone had taken the bitter dregs of failure and turned them into triumph. Soon Lorelai would be dead, her traitorous heart in Irina’s hands, and Irina would find a way to renew her own heart. All would be as it should. The pain she was pouring into her huntsman’s collar wouldn’t let him fail her again.
Awareness curled along the edges of her power, stinging her veins as magic surged toward her hands.
Something was wrong.
She closed her eyes and focused on the threads of magic she’d laid throughout her kingdom.
To the north. Beyond the Hinderlinde Forest. Over the Silber River and west.
Reaching out, she wrapped her bare hand around a vine of raven’s rose that crept up the side of her tower. The thick, stubby thorns pierced her skin. Ignoring her cuts, Irina said, “Prosnakh. Find what I seek.”
Her magic gathered itself and shot down the thorny plant in a stream of power that sounded like a clap of thunder when it merged with the ground. Irina closed her eyes and envisioned the mountains northwest of the Silber River. Duchess Waldina’s land with its villages, its mines, and Irina’s northern army command outpost.
The queen’s heart pounded unsteadily as her magic merged with the heart of the thorny climbing rose plant and exploded into a vine of its own, snaking beneath the capital city, crossing the Hinderlinde Forest, and burning a path straight into the western mountains, far beneath the sparse villages that clung stubbornly to the mountains’ unforgiving skin.
When the vine reached Duchess Waldina’s lands, it burst into hundreds of tendrils that crawled beneath the ground, seeking answers. In seconds, the tendrils tangled with the lingering strands of Lorelai’s magic, and the spells she’d used were revealed to the queen.
A vise of pain wrapped around Irina’s chest and stole her breath.
Her entire command outpost was gone. Destroyed down to the last stone. Her weapons were buried beneath a lake of hardened lava, her communications towers with their signal mirrors and carrier pigeons were crushed, and her soldiers had fled to the nearest village.
But worse than all that were the threads of magic that wrapped around the heart of the mountain and repelled Irina’s touch with implacable strength.
Lorelai.
Fury tinged with the bitterness of fear swamped Irina. She hadn’t trained the princess to use magic like this—to merge with the heart of something and turn it into a weapon. It had taken Irina years to learn that skill. Either Lorelai had been practicing, training with a rogue mardushka, or the princess had more natural power than Irina had imagined.
Either way, the princess had just declared war, and Irina couldn’t allow that to go unpunished.
Tightening her grip on the rose vine, Irina whispered, “Nakhgor kaz`lit. Find the one I seek and punish her.” Irina poured her intent, every strong-willed, vicious thought she’d ever had, into the incantors. Her arm throbbed, and her heart sent spikes of pain into her jaw as her power shuddered through the vine and then burst into hundreds of smaller threads that moved throughout the capital, the Hinderlinde, and across the Silber into the Falkrains.
Irina opened her eyes and swayed on her feet as the effort it took to gather power from the increasingly reluctant Ravenspire ground took its toll. Gripping the balustrade with bloody fingers, she smiled coldly as she gazed north toward land that was now connected to her as intimately as her own heartbeat.
Her huntsman would be closing in on the princess, driven wild by his need to rip out her heart and end his torment. Any day now, he would complete his task, and Irina would sleep well at night knowing the princess had paid for her betrayal.
But if he failed, the threads of Irina’s power would not. The second Lorelai used her magic again, Irina’s spell would attack, and Lorelai’s foolish game would cost her everything.