Crush the King

by Jennifer Estep

  We weaved in and out of the crowd, watching for trouble and heading toward our rendezvous point with Serilda—the gold coined-woman statue that loomed up in front of the Mint.

  Serilda wasn’t here yet, so Auster, Paloma, and Sullivan meandered over to the merchants’ carts, trying to look casual, while I stopped at the base of the fountain, as though I were admiring the enormous figure in the center of the water.

  The bright noon sun made the woman—Lady Fortuna—gleam as though she were made of liquid gold that was about to start oozing everywhere, while the coins in her eyes and mouth looked like tears that were about to start dripping down her face. If only she would melt away and take Driscol DiLucri and his Mint with her, then I imagined that the island would be a far happier and safer place, especially for me. But wishes were useless, especially to queens, so I turned away from the statue.

  In the distance, I spotted Serilda weaving her way through the crowd and heading toward the statue. She had gotten rid of her black assassin’s cloak, along with the bow she’d used, and she looked like her normal self again.

  I had only taken a few steps toward her when I realized that someone was going to try to kill me.

  I wasn’t quite sure what tipped me off. Everything was the same as before. The merchants hawking their wares, some people eating and shopping, others strolling along the waterfront.

  Slowly, I noticed that several of the merchants and shoppers were more interested in watching me than in selling and buying things. Oh, they all looked harmless enough, but they couldn’t quite hide their interest, and every last one of them had their hands on the weapons belted to their waists. My nose twitched. Even more telling, they all reeked of magic.

  My hand dropped to my sword, and my gaze flicked left and right, wondering which fake merchant or shopper would attack me first. The assassins sidled away from their carts and the goods they’d been admiring, but they didn’t head toward me. Instead, they stalked toward my friend.

  The assassins weren’t here to kill me—they were here to murder Serilda.

  * * *

  For a split second, confusion filled me. I was so used to assassins trying to eliminate me that it hadn’t occurred to me that my friend could be a target too. Then my mind kicked back into gear.

  “Serilda!” I screamed. “Look out!”

  I hadn’t even finished speaking before Serilda drew her sword, whirled around, and sliced her blade across the chest of one of the men creeping up behind her. That man screamed and tumbled to the ground, but Serilda was already spinning around to face the next assassin.

  I yanked my sword free of its scabbard and charged in that direction.

  “Evie!” Paloma shouted behind me. “Evie! Wait!”

  But I couldn’t—wouldn’t—wait. I had to help Serilda.

  One of the assassins was stationed behind a cart filled with paper bags of cornucopia, and he rushed around it and raised his sword high, determined to bring it down on top of Serilda’s head. She was engaged with another fighter, so instead of shouting a second warning, I threw myself into the space between Serilda and the assassin.

  His sword clanged into mine, and a familiar sulfuric stench wafted off the metal. My nose twitched. His blade was coated with wormroot poison. These people weren’t messing around, and they definitely wanted Serilda dead.

  The assassin growled and drew his sword back for another strike, but I moved to the side and tripped him. The man stumbled past me, and I spun around, lifted my sword, and sliced my weapon across his back, all in one smooth move.

  That man fell to the ground screaming, and I stepped up and drove my blade into his neck. He screamed again, then went limp. I growled, yanked my sword free, and turned to find a new enemy to fight.

  Most of the assassins continued to focus on Serilda, but some of the others rushed over and engaged Paloma, Sullivan, and Auster. My friends drew their own weapons, and the harsh clash, clang, and bang-bang-bang of metal hitting metal rang across the plaza like bells pealing together.

  People screamed and staggered back, not sure what was happening. Merchants hunkered down behind their carts, shoppers dropped their bags, and parents grabbed their children and pulled them close. Fresh oranges, toy balls, and other goods hit the cobblestones and rolled every which way like marbles, and more than a few folks slipped on them in their panic, crashing into some of the carts and sending even more merchandise flying through the air and then raining down onto the ground.

  “The queen!” I heard someone yell in the distance. “We have to get back to Queen Everleigh!”

  The Bellonan guards who had been scouting up ahead must have seen the chaos, although I doubted they would be able to force their way through the crowd before the fight was decided—one way or another.

  Two female assassins peeled off from the group surrounding Serilda and charged in my direction. One was a magier, who threw a ball of fire at me, while the other was a morph, who shifted into a fearsome ogre with jagged teeth and sharp talons. I avoided the fireball, which exploded against the front of the cornucopia cart. The magier’s fire instantly ignited the paper bags, and the smell of charred corn and burned sugar clouded the air, along with smoke from the smoldering cart.

  I headed toward the magier, but the ogre swiped out at me, and I had to lurch back to avoid her razor-sharp talons.

  Merchants, shoppers, parents, and children were still screaming and running around the plaza, but they had all gotten away from the center of the fight. I spotted several DiLucri guards dressed in brown tunics mixed in with the crowd, but they held their positions, letting people run past them, instead of rushing forward to try to break up the battle. No doubt Driscol had told his guards not to intervene in the assassination attempt on Serilda.

  I thought of how Driscol had been whispering to Maximus right before the Mortan king had left the terrace. So this was what they’d been plotting. Driscol must have noticed Serilda slipping away from the Bellonan entourage in the arena earlier and realized that she was the one who’d fired that arrow at Maximus. But instead of attacking me, Maximus had decided to hurt my friend, even though Serilda had only been following my orders. Anger once again twisted my stomach, along with more than a little guilt. I should have been the king’s target, not Serilda.

  The ogre morph snarled and came at me again, although I managed to sidestep her a second time. The ogre ran right past me and plowed into the still-smoldering cornucopia cart. The wood splintered apart at the brutal impact, and red-hot embers shot into the air like fireworks. The ogre screamed with rage and used her long black talons to rip apart what was left of the cart.

  If she had been a regular mortal, I would have charged forward and sliced my sword across whatever part of her I could reach. But I wasn’t nearly as strong as the morph, who could easily crush my skull like a ripe melon, and I couldn’t let her put her hands on me. One sharp wrench or vicious pop, and I would be dead.

  The stench of magic filled my nose, and another ball of fire streaked toward me. I dodged this blast just like I had the first one, and the fire hurtled through the air and exploded against the stone railing that cordoned off the plaza from the water below. People screamed and stumbled even farther away from the fight.

  I whirled back around to the magier, who screamed with frustration and summoned up another ball of fire. A few feet away, the ogre morph waded through the still-smoking remains of the cornucopia cart, heading toward me again.

  I tightened my grip on my blade and watched them come, trying to figure out how to kill at least one of them without letting the other attack my blind side. But they were coming at me from two different angles, and I was at risk of either getting incinerated by the magier’s fire or clawed to pieces by the morph’s talons—

  An idea popped into my mind. I stared at the fire sparking in the magier’s hand, then at the morph’s talons. Maybe I didn’t have to get close to kill them. Maybe I didn’t have to touch them at all.

  It was a risky plan,
but I forced myself to stop moving and widen my eyes, as though I were suddenly overwhelmed at the thought of facing two enemies at once.

  The magier took the bait. She screamed in satisfaction and hurled her magic at me. After all, a stationary target was so much easier to hit than a moving one. The ogre realized that the fire was on its way, and she skidded to a halt.

  The magier had put even more power into this ball of fire, and the flames burned bright and hot as they shot through the air like an arrow zooming toward a target.

  But she wasn’t the only one here with magic.

  I reached for my own immunity, pulling my power up, up, up, and then pouring it down, down, down, so that the invisible strength of it coated my hands, along with my tearstone sword. Then, at the very last moment, right before the magier’s fire would have slammed into my chest, I snapped up my sword and used the flat of the blade, along with my immunity, to bat the fire away from me and directly into the ogre morph.

  My theory was right—a stationary target was so much easier to hit than a moving one.

  The fire punched into the ogre’s chest, and she lit up like an orange fluorestone—this tall pillar of intense light and heat. The ogre might be strong, but she was still susceptible to fire. She screamed and screamed and slapped at her body with her hands, trying to snuff out the flames, but they washed over her with incredible, unstoppable force, and it was already too late.

  Her hoarse, pain-filled shrieks abruptly cut off, and she crumpled to the ground. The fire kept burning her body, though, the flames hungry for every morsel of meat and bone they could consume, and the stench of her fried flesh and singed hair hung in the air like a cloud of death.

  My stomach roiled, but I focused on the magier, who was already summoning up another ball of fire to throw at me—

  Blue lightning streaked through the air, slamming into the magier’s chest and knocking her back against one of the wooden carts—and the fishing spear lying on top of it. The metal spear punched through the magier’s back and all the way out her chest, killing her instantly. The burning ball of magic slipped through her fingers, hit the ground, and exploded against the front of the cart, which was filled with fresh fish. The magier’s fire instantly charred the fillets, and the stench of the fried fish mixed with the ogre’s still-burning flesh.

  My stomach roiled again, but I looked over at Sullivan.

  “Highness!” he yelled. “Behind you!”

  I whirled around. Another woman was charging at me. I blinked in surprise. Where had she come from? She hadn’t been part of the group stalking Serilda. I whipped up my weapon to attack her, but this new assassin must have been a mutt with speed magic because she was much, much quicker than I was.

  The woman snarled and sliced her dagger across my left forearm, opening up a deep, jagged gash. I hissed with pain and staggered away. The woman executed the perfect spin move and lunged toward me again, trying to cut me with her dagger a second time.

  I snapped up my sword, putting the blade in between us, but the woman was strong as well as fast, and she forced me backward. My boots slid across the slick stones, and she shoved me until the backs of my knees hit the edge of the fountain with its garish gold woman. I tensed my legs and barely managed to stop her from sending me over the rim and down into the fountain’s pool of water.

  The woman snarled again, trying to use her superior strength to cut through my defenses, but I braced my heels against the base of the fountain and tightened my grip on my sword, keeping it in between us.

  “Fortuna favors her ladies,” the woman hissed in my face. “And you will be ours, Everleigh Blair. One way or another.”

  I had no idea what she was babbling about, or who they were, but since her dagger was inches away from my heart, now didn’t seem like the time to mention my confusion.

  The woman opened her mouth, probably to hiss more dire warnings, but I snapped up my free fist and drove it into the side of her head. My unexpected punch threw the woman off balance, and she stumbled away from me—and straight into Paloma’s mace.

  My friend stepped up and rammed her mace into the assassin’s back. Paloma put her considerable strength behind the blow, and the mace’s spikes sank deep into the woman’s body. She screamed and arched back, throwing up her arms and unintentionally mimicking the pose of the coined-woman statue looming above us. Paloma growled, ripped the mace out of the woman’s back, whirled all the way around, and slammed it into the base of her skull.

  The assassin froze like she was a puppet and Paloma was now pulling her strings. She stared at me, even as blood welled up out of her mouth and ran down her face.

  Paloma ripped her mace out of the woman’s skull and shoved her away. The assassin hit the cobblestones at my feet, blood already pooling underneath her body.

  I lowered my sword and let out a breath, trying to slow my racing heart. Over the past year, I had been attacked by my fair share of assassins, but this one had come closer to killing me than most. And the strange things she’d said . . . I still had no idea what to make of those.

  Paloma stepped over the woman’s body and stopped in front of me, while Sullivan hurried over to me as well. I looked them both up and down, but they seemed fine, except for the blood on their clothes.

  I made sure that it wasn’t their blood, then glanced at Auster, who had been battling assassins a little farther away. He too seemed fine and headed in this direction. Finally, my gaze focused on Serilda. Bodies littered the ground all around her, cuts and bruises dotted her face and hands, and blood covered her clothes, but she was still in one piece and limping this way.

  A relieved breath escaped my lips. Everyone was more or less okay, and my friends and I had survived another attack.

  Normally, the thought of how close we had all come to dying—again—wouldn’t have bothered me. At least not until tonight when I was asleep, and the battle started haunting my dreams like so many others did. But for some reason, the sight of the last assassin’s blood oozing across the stones made me sick to my stomach, and I had to resist the urge to vomit.

  Now that the battle was over, the other people in the plaza tiptoed forward, staring at the smoldering carts, the dead bodies, and especially me and my friends in the center of it all. The Bellonan guards finally broke through the crowd and flanked us, but they couldn’t shield me from people’s words.

  “Is that the Bellonan queen?”

  “Is she hurt?”

  “I wonder who tried to kill her.”

  “It had to be the Morricones. Everyone knows how much their king hates Bellonans, especially the Blairs . . .”

  The speculation and the comments went on and on. Each one made more and more guilt flood my body, adding to the sick sensation in my stomach. Maximus had been trying to kill someone else for a change, although he’d only gone after Serilda because of me. Once again, I thought of Diante’s words back at Seven Spire. She was right. I would much rather put myself in danger than be the cause of it for my friends.

  Auster reached my position, although he kept glancing around, scanning the crowd for other threats. “There could be more of them. We need to leave.”

  I slowly slid my sword back into its scabbard. The light tearstone blade suddenly seemed strangely heavy. “Okay. Just give me a minute to get my breath back—”

  “What is the meaning of this?” A voice rose up from the direction of the Mint. “Out of the way! Get out of the way!”

  People stepped aside, and Driscol hurried in our direction, along with the DiLucri guards who had stood by and watched the battle. Seraphine trailed along in their wake, as calm and serene as ever.

  Driscol stopped a few feet away from me. His gaze flicked from one dead assassin to the next, his face getting redder and redder all the while. He was probably embarrassed that they had failed, just like the geldjagers he’d sent to Bellona had failed.

  He fixed his angry gaze on me. “What is the meaning of this? This is supposed to be a peaceable island!”r />
  I stared him down. “Then perhaps you should tell that to the assassins who tried to kill my advisor. Oh, wait. You can’t because they’re all dead.”

  Driscol opened his mouth, probably to yell some more, but Seraphine glided forward and touched his arm.

  “Now, now, Driscol,” she cooed in a soft voice. “The only thing that truly matters is that Queen Everleigh and her friends survived and the assassins didn’t.”

  Driscol eyed her, and she looked right back at him, that bland smile still firmly fixed on her face. The two of them must have reached some silent understanding, because he nodded, and some of the redness leached out of his face. “You’re right, sister. You always are.”

  It was like a beauty taming a beast in some old fairy tale. Seraphine smiled at him again, and he turned back to me.

  “Please forgive me, Queen Everleigh,” Driscol said, a faint groveling note in his voice. “I meant no disrespect.”

  He sucked in another breath, as if to expand on his fake apology, but my cold, disbelieving glare must have made him think better of it because he clamped his lips shut.

  In the distance, I could see more guards streaming out of the Mint and heading in our direction. In another minute, Driscol would have enough men to surround me, my friends, and the Bellonan guards. It was definitely time for us to leave, but for some reason I remained rooted in place, standing in the shadow of the coined-woman statue. My breathing had finally slowed down, although my heart kept pounding and pounding, even as this strange lethargy spread over me.

  “Evie,” Paloma said in a low, warning voice. “You’re bleeding.”

  I glanced down. The gash that the last assassin had sliced into my left forearm was oozing blood, and the drops hit the cobblestones like soft scarlet coins. Plop-plop-plop-plop.

  I had been so focused on just staying alive that I hadn’t realized exactly how deep and gruesome the wound was—or that it was poisoned.