Page 40 of Royal Ransom

My breath came out in a slightly hysterical giggle. If Janara noticed, she didn’t let it show. She was in an especially good mood tonight, which had me on edge. Anything my aunt enjoyed was certain to be repugnant.

Another scream split the air, making me jump. Janara’s lipscurled into a smile.

“The final act is starting,” she said. “Would you like to participate, Lady Aprecity? You just turned sixty, did you not? It’s high time you wore the blood of a first hunt.”

I looked around desperately, hoping she was going to drag in the wounded stag that Basil had promised. Instead, I found her looking at me expectantly, one hand out as though she expected me to take it. I balked when I realized what sheactuallymeant for Priss to do.

“You want me to kill the prisoner?” I asked, my voice coming out as a squeak.

I could kill animals. My father had taken his kids and a boatload of cousins out fishing every spring. He’d taken me hunting for turkey and deer in the Midwest when he had the time and money for travel. I’d learned how to temper my reaction to taking human life at the Academy. But in those scenarios, it was me or the person with a gun. I shot them to preserve my own life or the life of their victim. This... this was cold-blooded murder of an innocent person.

Janara’s grin was sharklike—sharp and full of teeth. She folded my arm around hers like we were best friends out for a shopping trip. I couldn’t tug my arm back, though every part of my body rebelled at the thought of touching her so familiarly. If I raised winter to fight her, she might sense who I was beneath the charm.

I glanced helplessly over my shoulder as Basil released me. He urged me forward with a nod, mouthing, “Go.”

It wasn’t what I wanted him to say. I was not going to stab a prisoner for Janara’s amusement or to maintain my cover. I would embarrass Priss if I had to. Better she be thought a coward than a cold-blooded murderer.

Janara and I navigated the surface of the icy lake as if it were solid, unmovable ground. Here, in the heart of Winter, I couldfeel the enchantments woven into every part of the set dressing. The sets looked even larger when I came alongside them. Icy recreations of aspen leaves littered the ground like confetti, crunching beneath our feet as we waltzed toward the sculpted recreation of an enormous tree tipped onto its side. Actors dressed as Winter soldiers were dragging a flailing prisoner toward our position.

The man looked terrible. He’d been hit so often that his skin looked mottled with bruises. His lip had been split, and his nose was hanging crooked. The way he favored his leg convinced me someone had broken it at some point. If it had fused wrong, he’d have to suffer even more when the doctors rebroke it.

Assuming I could get him away from this crowd and to a doctor in time to do him any good. Which was a substantialifat this point.

They’d draped him with the royal trappings of an Autumn general, mocking him with the prop weapons strapped to his person. It was more degradation on top of whatever else he’d been made to endure. I couldn’t stop myself from whispering his name as they dropped him at my feet.

“Prince Reynard.”

I barely remembered to call him by his princely name, not the pseudonym that he’d come to me with first. He glanced up at the sound of his name, peering through hanks of matted hair to get a good look at me. His eyes were glazed with pain, but I could still see furious thoughts behind them. He’d squared his shoulders for one last futile fight.

“Indeed,” Janara said, still smiling at me. She reached for a belt nestled amongst the silver and white of her foamy gown. The bone dagger made a soft whisper of sound when it cleared the holster. She offered it to me. “It’s your sixtieth. Make your first kill memorable, Lady Aprecity. Kill this traitor in the name of Winter.”

I reached for the bone dagger, shivering when its weight settled in my palm. I could sense magic carved into it. If this was what I thought it was, it had been fashioned from the leg of Fox’s slain brother. And now she wanted me to kill him with it while she mocked his brother’s last stand. She wanted me to curse his entire line through his death. To hurt Astrid. Sybil. Maverick.

No. I couldn’t do it. I wouldn’t.

“Kill the traitor?” I echoed. “Are you sure?”

Janara tsked. “Don’t make me repeat myself, Lady Aprecity.”

“Of course not, Your Majesty,” I whispered.

Then I spun on one heel, lifting the dagger high. The world slowed around me, sound dulling to a whisper as I committed to the strike. Moonlight caught the blade, a silver flash in the darkness. It made a sickening squelch when it entered the side of her throat, parting flesh with terrifying ease. Warm crimson spilled over my knuckles, the metallic scent of blood filling the air.

Janara’s eyes went wide—not with fear, but with fury—her pupils dilating until almost no iris remained. She lifted her arms, trembling but deliberate, a spell gathering in her palms. The ancient words tumbled from her lips despite the wound, her voice gurgling yet determined. Blue-white energy crackled between her fingers, dashing the gems on her hands to pieces. The shattered remnants of sapphire and diamond scattered across the stone floor like fallen stars, each fragment still pulsing with residual magic as she channeled her final, desperate counterattack.

But it was too late. Janara died, but she took Cain with her. Her final breath escaped in a rattling hiss as a spell erupted from her fingertips—not aimed at me, but at the ring now hanging from her finger. I could only watch in horror as the ring cracked under the weight of her spell, fracturing with a sound like breaking ice. Crimson light spilled from the gold and I feltCain’s soul brush my cheek as he snapped back to wherever he should have been—a fleeting caress, gentle as moth wings, cold as winter frost. I was overcome with the feeling of him reaching for me, the feelings of love and desperation mingling within me. The sensation lingered like the echo of a forgotten melody, both familiar and foreign.

The silence that followed swallowed everything—my breath, my heartbeat, even the soft drip of blood from my still-raised dagger.

I wanted to laugh and sob at the same time. She’d died as she lived—being a spiteful bitch.

A hush fell over the crowd when the red began to spread at my feet. There was even a nervous titter from someone near the back, as though this had been an awkward hiccup in their play, not an assassination. No one seemed to get it until I opened the locket dangling from my ear and tossed the strands of pink into the gathering pool of blood.

“In the name of Winter,” I said in a voice that carried as I turned to face everyone who was currently staring at me. “I end the Usurper, Janara and her loyalists.” My voice rose until I was yelling out the rest. “I am Taliyah Fucking Morgan, but most of you will know me as Princess Olwen.QueenOlwen to you, now.”

No one but Wren moved in the crowd. She stared from me to her downed mistress and back in dawning horror before disappearing into a puff of snow, off to wherever cowardly little pixies hid from justice. No one else seemed to realize the gravity of what had just happened. Time to enlighten them.

I leaned forward. All of them recoiled, as though I’d taken a swing in their direction. A nervous mutter began now.

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