56. Irina

Chapter 56

Irina

D anai sat on my throne.

Two Priests kneeled before him.

None of them noticed my sudden appearance in a darkened corner of the hall.

“Excellency, there was no way to know the boy was watching. I checked the area before killing the man, and it was empty.” The kneeling Priest sounded terrified, even from where I listened.

Danai leaned forward and sneered. “And yet he was there, watching you. He reported everything to the Crown, you idiot!”

The second figure, a woman with a high-pitched voice made shriller by Danai’s wrath, spoke. “Excellency, if the four of us who remain approached the Palace at the same time—”

“Stop!” Danai raised a palm and glared down as the woman threw her head to the stone floor. “You want me to send you back to the Palace? After the Horse’s failure with the Queen and your inexcusable negligence in Oliver? The Queen’s guards will be more alert now than during the fucking war.”

“But Excellency—”

“Silence!” he bellowed. “You will go nowhere near her. It is more likely you would be killed—and, as displeased as I am at the moment, you are far too useful to die— yet .”

My blood boiled watching Danai act as though he ruled the world.

Then I realized he was wearing my crown.

I held my palms before me and called a ball of flame into one, while water mixed with air appeared above the other. With a thought, I froze the water solid, creating a spiked ball similar to those I recalled seeing on the end of mace’s chain. I threw my palms forward and urged my missiles into the air, then drew more air and shoved it behind them, propelling them faster and faster.

The ball of ice struck first, slamming into the back of the Priest’s head with a sickening crunch that echoed throughout the chamber and splattered blood and skull fragments all over the woman and the floor. The man’s body lurched forward and splayed across the cold stone.

The fire didn’t strike the woman as much as it engulfed her the moment it touched her skin, clawing until her entire form was covered in writhing flame. Her robe blazed as she screamed in agony. She managed to stand and run several paces before the flames overcame her. She toppled to the marble, a burning, billowing pile of unrecognizable flesh, dead before she hit the ground.

The stench made me want to flee— nearly .

Danai shot to his feet.

His eyes were wide, but he paused only a second.

His gaze followed the line traveled by my missiles, and he locked onto my stare with a hate-filled scowl of his own.

One of the bloody diamonds on the crown flared as he called Enhanced Strength and hurled a heavy silver pitcher across the hall.

I ducked behind a column.

That split second gave Danai time to prepare another attack.

He gripped the silver staff that leaned against the throne as another diamond flared. A column of flame taller than Danai erupted a few feet from where I stood. It inched toward me, expanding, curving at its ends as if to embrace my whole being.

In all my centuries, I had never seen a wall of flame.

My heart lurched as panic seized my chest and heat swelled around me.

The flames forced me into the corner of the chamber and began to nip at the edges of my dress.

I called as much moisture from the air as I could hold and hurled it outward.

The flame wall sizzled and dimmed but would not be stopped by mere water.

It pressed forward.

Then I remembered I had far more than my simple Gifts.

I Traveled the length of the room, away from the flame, and immediately in front of Danai.

He leaped back.

But he was so startled by my sudden appearance that he tripped over the bottom step of the dais.

I shot forward and drove my own Enhanced punch into his gut.

He crumpled and clutched his stomach, gasping for breath.

I called fire again and hurled it into the fetal form curled before me, engulfing him.

Danai writhed, but a third diamond flared, and he Healed himself as quickly as he burned. Shimmering light flared from the length of the staff, and the flames surrounding his body turned from hues of auburn, golden, and scarlet to a translucent azure.

He rose, a man still consumed in flames, yet unburned.

Now I staggered back, horror and shock streaking through me.

Danai gripped my arm.

Angry flames clawed at my skin.

They crawled up my shoulder and seared away the fabric on my back.

I screamed in pain and rage, cast my own Healing, then hurled a gust of wind at Danai’s head.

The spear of air sailed wide.

Standing not two paces away, I missed.

Danai laughed.

But I used that split second to my advantage. At the clanking of metal on marble, and his mirth froze.

“Looking for something?” I asked from behind as I bent and retrieved the crown.

He whirled around to find me leaning casually against the throne.

He howled and tried to step forward, but the flames still raging across his body, once again the colors of the rising sun, were now free to burn and destroy.

The staff clanged loudly as it tumbled down the steps of the dais.

Me holding his crown was the last thing he saw before darkness took him.