Chapter 10

"BRING ME ANOTHER." Elinor stood outside the castle's dungeon, a pile of bodies at her feet. "A younger one this time." The dungeon master hurried to comply.

The air was damp and chilly, but the queen was warm beneath the weight of the coat she wore. She ran her hands over the coat's thick Gustav-white fur and felt the hearts of the wolves, who'd given their pelts, surge against the magic in her palms.

Magic that still flowed easily through her veins, but that left her drained and weary at the end of every spell. Magic that caused her heart to stutter and her chest to ache with the strain of it.

"Your Highness." The dungeon master stepped out of the doorway, pulling a skinny girl of seventeen or eighteen behind him. Her dirty brown hair brushed the sharp edges of her collarbone, and her eyes were dull. The dungeon master yanked the girl forward until she stood in front of Elinor.

The queen grasped the girl's chin and examined her face under the fading light of the early evening's sun. "How old are you?"

"Eighteen."

"And what crime sent you to my dungeon?"

"I was hungry." There was a thread of defiance in the girl's voice, though she wouldn't meet the queen's gaze.

Elinor's long, polished red nails dug into the girl's face. "Being hungry isn't a crime. I will only ask you this once more." Her voice was hard. "What was your crime?"

"Stealing food," the girl whispered. "And whom did you steal from?"

The girl swallowed audibly but didn't answer.

The queen's nails punctured the girl's cheek and tiny crescents of blood bubbled up. "Answer."

The girl's voice shook. "From my lord's kitchen. I was a maid in the Ranulf household."

Elinor let go of the girl's face and rubbed a drop of blood between her thumb and forefinger. "Ungrateful peasant. If you steal from my nobility, you steal from me." She leaned close, her mouth a breath from the girl's ear. "Do you know what I do to those who betray the ones to whom they should be loyal?"

The girl's body trembled, and her knees gave out, but the dungeon master held her firm.

A thief. A betrayer. A girl who deserved her fate. And one whose heart might be strong enough to save Elinor from her own.

The queen's open palm slammed into the girl's chest, her nails curving over the space that held her heart. "Ja`dat," she whispered, and the power burned in her hands. "Take what is hers and give it to me instead."

Elinor's palm, wreathed in brilliant light, pressed hard against the girl's chest.

Her heart surged to meet Elinor's magic, and the queen could feel the strength of her remaining years stored inside her like an apple ready for the plucking.

Her magic leaped into the girl and surrounded her heart. The girl cried out in agony and resisted, but Elinor's will was fierce. Indomitable. Stronger.

Elinor was always stronger.

The queen threw her head back as the girl's youth poured out of her. It was a flood of heat and need and restless ambition that abandoned the girl and rushed through Elinor's veins instead. The girl's face aged, her hair Gustaved, and then she collapsed in a heap beside the other bodies.

Elinor stood panting, her hand still outstretched, and waited for the band of tension around her chest to dissolve. For the weakness, the ache, to wash away.

The pain still throbbed dully along her sternum. Her pulse still fluttered like a bird trying to break free of its cage.

Nothing had changed.

If anything, the pain was worse—the heat of the girl's youth turning from something that energized into a poison that scalded the queen from the inside out.

The queen stared at the bodies before her—a man with the muscles of a blacksmith, a woman whose fierce attitude was written in every line on her face, a stable boy, a teacher, and the maid. All of them had submitted to Elinor's will. All of them had given up their remaining years to the queen's magic.

And yet none of them had strengthened her failing heart.

"Clean up this mess," she snapped at the dungeon master as she turned on

her heel and strode back toward the castle.

The spell wasn't the problem, she was certain. She'd had no problem sucking the remaining years out of her father's flintlike heart nine years ago and absorbing their strength and vitality. Doing the same to the criminals in her dungeon should've been an easy solution to her problem, even with the residual weariness that came from forcing another's heart to submit to her will. Instead, she felt weaker and the pain stronger, as if the youth she'd consumed was a slow-moving poison thickening her blood.

Taking the remaining years from the hearts of her prisoners wasn't the answer, but that didn't mean she couldn't find one. She always found one, because she never flinched from doing what needed to be done.

Waving pages, maids, and guards out of her way, Elinor entered the east wing of her castle and strode toward her rooms. The plush ivory rug beneath her swallowed her footsteps, and all she could hear was the sudden hiss of candles being lit in the sconces along the walls as twilight fell.

Her personal guards opened the door to her rooms. She walked into her sitting room and turned toward the fireplace where her viper was coiled, his serrated black scales glowing red in the flickering light of the flames.

Come. She pushed the thought at Raz, and the viper uncoiled himself from his bed. Swiftly, he slithered across the gleaming cedar floor. When he reached her feet, she bent down, extending a hand. The viper moved up her arm and settled around her neck, his long black tongue flicking toward her face as if he meant to taste her. She ran a slim finger over his blunt nose, and he pushed his head against her hand.

Still hurt, his rough voice whispered in her mind. Still weak.

For now, but the spell will work. I just have to find the right person. The right heart.

And while she searched, she had a kingdom to run, a spate of violent peasant outbreaks to subdue, and an increasingly contentious nobility to bring into line. Moving to her vanity, she looked at the oval mirror hanging above her bottles of perfume. It was the size of a dinner platter with serpents and gilt-dusted brambles surrounding the glass—a gift from Elinor's long-lost mother. The most valuable thing she'd left her eldest daughter unless you counted the magic running through Elinor's blood.

Magic that had taught her father and sister the terrible price of betrayal and that had removed every obstacle standing between Elinor and the Gruidarid throne.

Unbidden, the thought of the white monolith resting in the center of the castle garden and her sister's body buried beneath it filled Elinor's mind. Her heart lurched, tapping against her breastbone like an impatient fist. She pressed one pale hand against her chest and focused on the mirror.

It didn't matter what she'd done to secure the throne that would've been hers all along if her sister hadn't betrayed her. It only mattered that she remained strong enough to keep it.

Raz lifted his head and stared at the mirror with her, his golden eyes unblinking.

She held her spine straight and kept her voice steady as she asked, "Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the most powerful of them all?"

The mirror's opaque surface swirled into a Gustav mist and then slowly resolved into Elinor's own reflection—pale blond hair, a delicate face, and eyes as blue as the summer sky.

The queen smiled.