Page 102 of Vicious Is My Throne

Lady Rivière burst free, sending out weak puffs of fire as she stumbled for the door. My darklings got there first, wrapping around her until she was encased in a nest of writhing black.

“Get out of my house, you foul creatures.” She spat, a mouthful of saliva landing on my boots. “My husband will kill you all and send you back to the Pit where you belong.”

“Look, darling,” Tavion teased, though his eyes remained cold as ice. “She thinks we’re monsters from the Pit.”

“I hate to disappoint, but you couldn’t be more wrong.”

“Is she though?” Tavion tapped his finger on his chin, debating. “Technically, she could be right, you know. Depending on how you want to look at this.”

I rolled my eyes. “We can do this outside or in here,” I told her, my darklings wrapping tighter around her until her face blanched and she stopped squirming.

I scanned the sumptuous bedchamber, everything draped liberally in white satin and gold trim. I felt like I was standing ankle deep in the center of a coming-of-age cake.

“Actually, I’ll bet it’s in here somewhere.” Tavion hummed in agreement as I nodded toward the door. “Go fetch Lord Rivière. That way I don’t have to bother dragging her outside.”

Tavion returned gripping the struggling, red-faced lord by an arm. He dropped Eirik beside his wife, my darklings uncurling themselves from Gloriana’s body while he looked on in horror. When she reached for him, he shoved her away. “Do not touch me. You reek of dark magic.” The devastation on her face almost made me feel sorry for her.

Almost.

Because I still felt Gloriana’s fire magic searing my arms as I served her during one of the duke’s parties. Had, on more than one occasion, bandaged Ember’s burns while she’d sobbed.

“What do you foul creatures want? The Scything is over. We are safe for the next hundred years.” Lord Rivière was an older, more bloated version of his son Estienne, with all the same cold arrogance and the same weak underbite.

Eirik’s narrowed gaze skated over us, but by the time he’d finished, his resolve had crumbled.

We were no magicless slaves to be bullied, no Descendant hangers-on to be impressed by his boasting and paltry magic tricks.

But that didn’t mean he was smart enough to know when to stop. Fire flared at his fingertips, sweat beading on his top lip before he lobbed a flaming ball of magic straight at me.

Big fucking mistake.

Both because his pathetic fire fizzled harmlessly against my shield, and because Raziel crossed the bedroom in two strides and grabbed the bastard by his throat.

“That’s enough,” I scolded mildly when Rivière’s eyes bulged out of his head. Raz dropped him to the floor and the bastard’s legs collapsed beneath him, his wife sidling out of the way.

“We are here to reclaim something that was stolen from us. A stone. Cream colored, small enough to fit into the palm of your hand. You would have, perhaps, inherited this relic from an ancestor who brought it here when Varitus was first settled.”

“I’ve stolen nothing. I am a Descendant. You can’t?—”

“Yeah, we can’t touch you because you’re the chosen ones with magic gifted by the Fae King to rule over Varitus. Have you been to Ravenshade Castle lately? The duke would beg to differ.”

Tavion squatted down, fangs on full display. “We could squash you without even trying. Where is the stone? Hand over the artifact, and we might not kill you today, though given my temper, I can’t make any promises.”

Sweat ran down the sides of Eirik’s face in rivulets. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Tristan tracked the lord’s gaze straight to the closed door on the side of the bedchamber. His hand, like mine, was in his pocket, fingers wrapped around his stone. My keystone was humming, so another keystone was close by.

“Your office, I assume?” Tavion rose with his usual careless, elegant grace, striding to the door and flinging it open. A small library stuffed with books and stacks of paintings against one wall, and a desk completely covered with scrolls and broken ink pens. One small window overlooked the gravel drive we’d come up.

“You think you can come here like thieves and steal from me?” Lord Rivière blustered with all the bravado of a male who knew his time was up. “We will hunt you down. You cannot stand against the might of the Descendants. Of King Vandran.”

Tavion burst out laughing. “King Vandran? And where can we find him?” He looked to me, amusement dancing in his eyes. “Perhaps we should have started there and worked our way down.”

I shrugged, sorting through the debris strew across the desk. “Rivière was closer. Vandran’s in Arcadia, a full day away.”

“Not if we fly there.” Tristan’s smile turned speculative.

“We will execute you like the other rabble that trespassed on our lands.” Rivière’s cold gaze raked me up and down. “We have long protected our borders, and after what happened to Duke Edric, we took precautions. Bolstered our guards and made preparations.”

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