Capture the Crown

by Jennifer Estep

  “Well, you certainly are a snake,” I hissed back.

  A sigh sounded, but a figure slowly stepped forward—Leonidas.

  Oh, it wasn’t the real Leonidas, but rather his ghostly presence, just as my own essence was still hovering outside my body. He hesitated, then eased a little closer, although he remained in the shadows on the opposite side of the table from me.

  Leonidas stared down at my body. A muscle ticced in his jaw, and he ran his hand down his face, as if the motion would wipe away the awful sight before him. Several seconds passed before he slowly raised his gaze to mine. Rage crackled in his eyes, making them burn bright and clear, despite the shadows cloaking his face, but it was nothing compared to the rage hammering in my heart, pounding through me even stronger than the lingering pain of my wounds.

  “I’m going to kill Milo for this,” he snarled.

  “No, you won’t.” My voice was even colder and harsher than his was. “I’m going to kill him. And you too, you lying, duplicitous bastard.”

  He flinched as though he could actually feel the icy venom in my words. Maybe he could with his magic. I bloody hoped so.

  Still, I had questions, and this was probably the only chance I would ever have to get answers, so I set aside my rage—for now. “How long did you know who I really was?”

  Leonidas sighed again, but his gaze stayed steady on mine. “I always knew. From the very first moment I saw you in the clearing in Blauberg. I immediately recognized you—and your magic.” He paused. “After all, you never forget the first girl who tries to kill you.”

  I didn’t know whether to feel vindicated that he remembered me as vividly as I did him or disgusted that I hadn’t realized he’d known who I was all along. Either way, I was still a fool.

  “If you knew who I was, then why did you save me from the mine?”

  “Because saving you was the right thing to do,” he replied. “I would have done it regardless of anything else, even if you hadn’t saved me from Wexel first.”

  “But why bring me here?” I demanded. “Why let me spy on your family? Why pretend like we were . . . partners?”

  My voice hitched on the last question. It wasn’t the one I truly wanted answered. No, I wanted to know why he had kissed my hand on the balcony, and then again in my chambers. Why he had danced with me in the throne room, and all the other times he had touched and looked at and spoken to me as though he actually cared about me, as though I were truly special to him. But I’d be damned if I’d ask any of those questions—not a single bloody one—no matter how much my heart yearned for the answers.

  “I really did bring you to Myrkvior so that the bone masters could heal you. I didn’t want to trust your well-being to someone I didn’t know, especially given how . . . important you are.” His voice hitched just like mine had.

  “And then I insisted on staying, just like a fool.”

  “I hoped that if you stayed that it might ease tensions between Morta and Andvari. I wanted you to see that we aren’t all vile and corrupt,” he replied. “That all Mortans are not evil. That my family wasn’t all bad. That even though I’m a Morricone, that I’m not all bad either.”

  “Your family? Not all bad? Look at what your brother did to me.” I gestured down at my own unconscious body. “And don’t even get me started on your mother. Princess Gemma Ripley survived the Seven Spire massacre, remember? I saw what Maeven did to the Blairs. She orchestrated the murders of children. She is a fucking monster, just like you are.”

  Leonidas opened his mouth to speak, but I cut him off.

  “Your mother might be a monster, but you’re even worse than she is,” I hissed. “Everyone knows what Maeven did at Seven Spire, and she had the audacity to murder King Maximus in front of an arena full of people. But you? You brought me here and pretended to be considerate and honorable and fucking noble. Well, guess what? Your plan worked, and I did see the Mortans as people instead of monsters, especially Anaka and Delmira. You made me feel things for them.”

  For you. I didn’t say the words, but they hung in the air between us like a dark, ominous storm cloud.

  Leonidas flinched again, but he didn’t look away from me. “I didn’t think anyone else would recognize you. You had cut and dyed your hair, and no one in Myrkvior had ever seen you in person before, besides my mother. Even on the off chance that someone did recognize you, I was confident I could protect you.”

  “Well, your confidence was sorely misplaced.”

  He didn’t dispute my point. He couldn’t.

  “How long were you going to let me stay here?” I demanded. “How long were you going to let me risk my life on the slim chance that Maeven wouldn’t recognize me?”

  “I was going to sneak you out of the palace tonight, but Mother must have realized what I was planning. She summoned me to her chambers right before the ball began and told me that she had a way to fix everything and to stop Milo’s plot against her. She said that all I had to do was follow her lead during the ball.” Leonidas paused. “And that if I didn’t, then she would be very displeased—and take her anger out on Delmira.”

  Maeven had threatened her own daughter to get her son to cooperate? Just when I thought the queen couldn’t surprise me anymore, she achieved a higher level of cruelty.

  “I’m sorry, Gemma,” Leonidas murmured, his voice a harsh, ragged whisper. “So very, very sorry. More than you will ever know. I promised to protect you, and I utterly failed. I will never forgive myself for letting this happen to you.”

  Rage continued to hammer in my heart, but the colder, more logical part of me could appreciate the impossible situation he’d been thrust into and even understand his reasoning. If I’d been forced to choose between my father and a man that I . . . mistakenly cared about, then I would have chosen my father, just as Leonidas had picked Delmira over me.

  “I didn’t want it to come to this,” he continued. “After the ball, Mother promised me that you wouldn’t be hurt. She swore that you would be imprisoned, nothing more. I thought I could release you from the dungeon and smuggle you out of the palace.”

  “You didn’t think Maeven would have me tortured?” I shook my head. “That makes you either naïve or stupid. At this moment, I’d say both. Either way, I’m suffering the consequences.”

  Once again, he didn’t deny my accusation. Instead, his face twisted into a grimace, and he clutched his ribs, as though he were in pain.

  My eyes narrowed. “What happened to you?”

  “Nothing,” Leonidas muttered, dropping his head and turning away from me.

  But it was most definitely something, so I rounded the table and planted myself in front of him. The prince sighed, but he lifted his head and stepped forward, so that he was finally standing in the light.

  Leonidas had been tortured—again.

  He had two black eyes, plus a broken nose. I hadn’t noticed his injuries before, due to my own anger and the shadows cloaking the workshop. He kept clutching his ribs, as though it hurt to simply breathe, and he only wore a thin tunic, instead of the formal jacket he’d sported at the ball.

  I eased to the side. His black tunic hung in tatters on his back, and long, thin, angry red marks crisscrossed his skin—the same marks I had seen on my own back when Delmira had healed me. I lifted a hand to my mouth, trying not to be sick.

  A humorless smile split Leonidas’s battered face. “Mother had me . . . restrained when I objected to you being brought to Milo’s workshop. Wexel decided to teach me a lesson for disobeying my queen. So did Milo.”

  So Maeven had had him imprisoned, Wexel had beaten him, and Milo had whipped him, just like Maximus used to. Once again, my treacherous heart softened, but I shoved the feeling aside. Leonidas Morricone had done nothing but use and betray me, and I would not be fooled by him again.

  I started to step away, but he reached out and touched my arm. It was the softest, lightest, gentlest touch imaginable, no more than a brush of his fingers against the sleeve of
my ruined gown, but somehow, it hurt worse than all of Milo’s torture.

  “Don’t you dare touch me,” I snarled, jerking away. “Not even here, in my dream.”

  “Our dream,” he insisted. “Our world. Don’t you remember how we used to talk to each other as children?”

  I didn’t respond. That had come later, after our first encounter in the woods. When he had been back in Morta and I had been home in Andvari. More painful memories I didn’t want to dwell on.

  “We used to talk all the time. At least until you put that damn necklace on.” Leonidas stabbed his finger at the gargoyle pendant still dangling from the chain around my neck. “You bottled up your power for the last sixteen years. Why? Why would you ever do that?”

  “You know why,” I muttered. “You saw what I did to those turncoat guards in the woods all those years ago. How I killed them with a wave of my hand. With a bloody thought.”

  “Ah, so you were afraid of your power. All this time, I thought you just didn’t want to speak to me anymore.” He frowned. “But why would you ever be afraid of your own power?”

  Anger and frustration surged through me. He didn’t understand. He would never understand. We might both be mind magiers, but Leonidas Morricone could turn himself to pure ice, when need be, and nothing seemed to scratch the surface of his cold, cold heart.

  Me? I could lie, and fight, and kill, but I still always felt too much, whether it was my own fear of being paralyzed—or the twisted joy I took in inspiring that same paralyzing fear in others. There was no balance, no silence, no fucking calm in my stormy mind and heart.

  “Gemma?” Leonidas asked again. “Why are you afraid of your own power?”

  “Because I can’t control it,” I snapped. “I can’t control my magic any more than I can control how I bloody feel about you.”

  My confession boomed out as loud as a thunderclap. As soon as the words flew off my tongue, I wished that I could take them back, and I once again cursed my own foolishness, my own weakness. Even now, after everything that had happened, I still couldn’t hate Leonidas.

  I just . . . couldn’t.

  Perhaps that made me even more naïve and stupid than he had been.

  Leonidas eased toward me. He didn’t touch me again, didn’t even try to, but he stood as close to me as possible. My hands balled into fists, but I lifted my chin and glared at him. I would not back down, and I would not run away. Not from him.

  Never again.

  I would burn the softness in my heart and bury his corpse in the hot, smoking ashes.

  “I’m so sorry, Gemma,” he repeated in a low, strained voice. “For everything you’ve suffered because of me. I know I can never make this right, but I’m going to try my best. Starting right now.”

  “What do you mean—”

  Before I could react, Leonidas put his hand in the air in front of my heart and twisted his fingers. An answering wrench ripped through my chest, and I gasped and staggered back.

  For a moment, I thought he had crushed my heart with his magic, that he had killed me, but then he drew his hand back, and the pain in my chest eased.

  I gasped again. A black, writhing mass flickered along his fingertips, with streaks of purple lightning shooting through it, as though he were clutching a miniature tornado in his hand.

  Leonidas gave me a grim smile, then shoved the black mass into his own chest, into his own heart. He screamed and crumpled to the floor.

  I couldn’t stop myself from falling to my knees beside him. “Leo! What did you do?”

  He looked up at me, his face twisting with pain. “Milo . . . isn’t the only one . . . who read Maximus’s journals,” he said, gasping for breath. “My uncle . . . wrote quite a bit . . . about his experiments . . . about inflicting pain . . . and taking it away . . .”

  He lay on his back, still gasping for breath, but his words made me realize that I actually felt . . . better. The stinging, shocking, burning pain in my hands and my back was finally, fully gone. Somehow, Leonidas had taken the pain of my injuries into his own body so that he would suffer them instead of me.

  “Why did you do that?” I demanded. “Why would you willingly hurt yourself?”

  “It’s the only way . . . to help you . . . save yourself . . .” he rasped.

  He tried to smile, but his eyes fluttered closed, his head lolled to the side, and his body went slack and still on the floor.

  I blinked. From one moment to the next, he vanished, and I was all alone in Milo’s workshop again, with only my unconscious body on the table for company.

  I surged to my feet and spun around, looking for him. “Leo! Leo!”

  But he was gone, and he didn’t return no matter how frantically I called for him or how much my weak, traitorous heart yearned to see him, just a moment more.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Sometime later, I woke up again—in my own body this time.

  I was still chained to the table in Milo’s workshop, but I felt much better and stronger than before, thanks to Delmira’s liladorn salve and Leonidas . . . doing whatever he had done. Taking my physical pain away, if not the emotional wreck he had made of my heart.

  I cautiously flexed my hands. No sharp, stinging pain bloomed in my palms, although my skin was tight and itchy, and a dull ache rippled through my fingers. I wasn’t completely healed, but I was in far better shape than before. Leonidas had kept his word—at least about giving me a chance to escape, if nothing else.

  So I lifted my head up off the table and glanced around, trying to figure some way to remove the shackles still clamped around my wrists. A long, simple bolt ran through a hole on the top of each shackle, holding it together. If I could knock the bolt out, then the shackle would pop open. All I had to do was free one of my wrists, and then I could sit up and remove the second bolt.

  I reached for my magic, wondering if it would feel as numb as before, but whatever Leonidas had done had reawakened my power, and it came to me much more easily, although it still wasn’t as strong as normal. Still, I gripped it tightly, then focused on the bolt on the shackle on my right wrist, trying to use my magic to slide it through the hole. But the coldiron blocked most of my power, and I couldn’t so much as wiggle the bolt.

  Frustration filled me, but I forced myself to keep thinking. I might not be able to move the bolt with my magic, but maybe I could use my power to get some other object to slam into the bolt and slide it free. I glanced around the workshop again, but all the hammers, pliers, and other tools were too far away and simply too heavy to float over here with my limited supply of magic. My gaze moved over to the tables surrounding me, but none of the glass jars, broken weapons, or books were the right shape, size, or weight to do what I needed done.

  My heart sank, and I started to smack my head back against the table in vexation when a couple of gleams caught my eye—the two tearstone arrows Milo had stabbed through my hands.

  They were lying on the table directly across from me, about six feet away. My blood had dripped off the arrows, leaving the weapons strangely, pristinely clean, although the tearstone was now midnight-blue instead of its previous starry gray. Disgust roiled through my stomach, but I pushed the emotion aside, grabbed hold of my magic, and focused on the arrows.

  I could sense the invisible strings of energy wrapping around the arrows, but thanks to the coldiron shackles, I couldn’t quite get a grip on them. Sweat beaded on my forehead and trickled down my face, but I ignored the drops, as well as the salty tears of frustration leaking out of my eyes, and kept concentrating.

  All that mattered was grabbing hold of one arrow—just one. So I drew in a deep breath and slowly let it out. Then I raised my right wrist up off the table as high as it would go. When I had the angle right, I turned my head and focused on one of the arrows.

  More sweat slid down my face, but no tears. I didn’t have time for tears or frustration or any other useless emotion—just ruthless determination. So I redoubled, tripled my efforts and focu
sed on my magic, on reaching out and grabbing hold of that invisible string of energy on the tip of the arrow. Then, when I had a firm grip on it, I imagined yanking back on that string, aiming the arrow exactly where I wanted it to go, and shooting it through the air—

  Thunk!

  The arrow zipped off the table and hit the shackle. The projectile slammed into the center of the bolt and punched it all the way through the slot. The shackle dropped from my wrist and clattered against the table, along with the arrow. A wide grin spread across my face.

  I had done it—I had freed myself.

  I sat up and removed the other shackle from my left wrist, along with the ankle chains. The second the coldiron dropped from my skin, the rest of my magic came rushing back. I exhaled in relief. I had never been so glad to feel my power, no matter how uncontrollable it might sometimes be.

  The tearstone arrow was lying on the table beside the shackles, so I scooped it up. Then I grabbed the second arrow from the other table with my magic. It zipped through the air and into my hand, and I slid both arrows into my pocket. I had come too far and suffered too much to leave them behind.

  A silver gleam caught my eye. The compact Leonidas had given me was also sitting on the other table. I used my magic to grab it and stuffed it into my pocket as well.

  Once that was done, I reached for that wall in my mind, the one I had put up between Grimley and me, and tore it down. Grims? Are you there?

  Gemma! he responded immediately. Where are you? Are you okay?

  In Milo’s workshop. I’m in one piece, more or less.

  I’m going to kill the Mortans for hurting you. His fierce growl filled my mind. Starting with Leonidas. No matter how much his stupid bird has been helping me.

  His dark, vicious promise made me smile, although the mention of Leonidas and Lyra twinged my heart.

  Forget the Mortans. We need to escape. Can you get up on one of the rooftops without the strixes seeing you?

  He huffed. Of course I can.

  Good. I’m going to slip out of Milo’s workshop and find you. And then we’re going home.