“How was that for round one?” The empress stepped forward, boots echoing. She stood over Elias.
Elias gasped. He rolled onto his back.
She pulled a dagger from her belt and held it delicately between the black metal claws she wore over her right fingers. “Are you ready for the second round?”
Elias choked and tried to move away from her.
She just smiled down at him. She leaned towards him. “Before you die, Elias, I want you to know something.” She paused. “I murdered your mother.”
A strangled sound escaped Elias’s lips.
“She was so difficult to negotiate with.” Her smile stretched wider. “She kept disagreeing with me and pushing back. She was so annoying. Just like you. So I ordered her death. It was easy enough. A simple gust of wind as she was coming down some stairs. The fall looked like a horrible accident.”
She gave an exaggerated pout. “Then I swiftly married your father. So I could control him. The negotiations went very smoothly after that.”
For several moments, Elias’s heavy breathing was the only sound he made. Then he rasped, “It must pain you that you still can’t beat her.”
The smile left her face. “What nonsense are you babbling about? I killed her! I beat her!”
Elias shook his head. It flopped from side to side. “The lightning empress is still adored even after all these years,” he said, voice hoarse. “Everyone still talks about her. Everyone says how she was so much more beautiful thanyou. How she was much more powerful than you. How she was so much kinder and more graceful.”
Elias lay wounded and bleeding on his back, but his gaze remained rebellious. “Dead twenty years and the people still love her far more than they ever have or ever will love you! Even my father still loves her, no matter how hard you try to erase her memory.”
And despite everything, Elias smiled. “It must be horrible to feel the need to compete with a woman who has been gone for twenty years. To keep competing and keep losing. You’ve only ever been second best. Everyone knows it! You’re just a pathetic empress, rightfully jealous of a dead woman.”
She snarled and kicked him.
Elias grunted. Then he laughed. “You need to erase me, to erase the kingdoms’ memories of her, to erase my father’s memories of her. But it won’t work! You and your children will never be adored or loved as you so desperately crave! You’re all just so fucking pathetic!”
“Pathetic! I’ll show you pathetic!” She reached down and gripped Elias’s long white hair. She yanked. Elias cried out, eyes scrunched closed.
“Open your eyes. Look at your husband,” she hissed. “Look!”
Slowly, Elias opened them. He gazed at Gerard with his beautiful purple eyes.
“I know you care for him,” the empress whispered.
And Gerard hoped with all his heart that it wasn’t true. Then his death couldn’t hurt Elias.
“I will kill him. Just like I killed your mother.” She spoke directly into his ear. “You will watch him die, knowing you are too weak a sorcerer to save him. Then I will kill you.” She released his hair with a shove and rose. She turnedtowards Gerard, holding the dagger between her clawed fingers.
But when the empress released Elias, although he swayed, he did not collapse. Chest heaving, he stayed where he was.
“Will you grant me one last request, Empress?” Elias asked, voice hoarse.
The empress turned to him with a scowl.
“Where will the dragon king be killed?” he asked. “I want to know … so that Gerard can die knowing where his father will die. Grant me this small mercy. Please.”
Gerard frowned.Why would that be Elias’s last request?
She huffed. “I will grant you no requests or mercy. You deserve neither. I will grant you only pain and suffering.” She began to turn towards Gerard. Then she stopped.
Because Elias got to his knees. He lifted his bound hands. His fingers wove in the air.
Empress Emmeline gaped. Then she laughed as the sparks danced. “Are you really going to try your little sparkles again, Elias? And you call me pathetic.” Her bubbly laughter rang out in the night air.
Then lightning burst forth from Elias’s fingers. It struck the empress directly in the chest. Her laughter morphed into a strangled scream. Her head flung back. The dagger dropped from her hand.
