Or maybe not. An idea took root. Dangerous, but worth the risk.
For Kaysar.
Dampened by mist and splattered with droplets of sap, Cookie summoned a vine from the ground, catching the king around an ankle, shackling him as she unleashed more thorns.
He grunted as crimson rivers soaked his tunic. Somehow, he fought the venom and crouched, grabbing hold of the vine to drain another tendril of her strength. Which she had expected.
Let him think he had this.
She sprinted...jogged...trudged closer to him. Water and weakness blurred her vision, but Cookie kept moving forward. He didn’t attempt to stop her. He wanted her closer. Finally, mere inches away, she hit her knees, as if she were completely wiped.
Their gazes clashed, and he brightened. He thought he had her. He assumed the wheezing girl had nothing in reserve. That he had only to reach out and kill her.
Fool. “Kaysar believes your suffering ends when you die.” The statement eked out between heaving breaths. “I believe it’s just beginning. Be a dear and let us know who’s right.” Using the last bit of strength she possessed, she swung an arm, raking her thorn claws across his vocal cords.
He released her vine to clutch his gaping neck. But he’d filched so much of her power, he healed in seconds.
The moment he recovered, he reached for her. She struck again, raking the thorns from his sternum to his navel, leaving his entire torso gaping open this time. Then, she clawed him again. And again. And again.
Only when he ceased moving did she pause to catch her breath and take stock. He lay on the ground, bleeding, his eyes wide, blood gurgling from his mouth.
Cookie leaned over to clasp a fallen sword. This man had harmed young Kaysar and probably others.
Her arms trembled as she slowly lifted the blade. With glassy eyes, he pleaded for mercy.
“If I’d planned to spare you, I’d have worn a different dress.” A lone blow did the trick, his head separating from his body. And like that, victory belonged to Cookie.
Panting, heart a war drum, every muscle on fire, she fell on her haunches. It was done. For good or for ill, Kaysar’s abuser was dead.
“Chantel?”
A stouter whistle of wind masked her surprised intake of air. Lightning flashed as she flipped her gaze up. Kaysar stood upon a pile of corpses, his dark hair blowing around a disbelieving expression. His wild eyes darted here and there, horror pulsing from him.
“What have you done?” he croaked. He shook his head, as if to clear his field of vision. “Tell me you haven’t done this terrible thing. Tell me you haven’t done this, Chantel.”
She remained on her haunches, trembling. Because she knew what was coming. The inevitable confrontation. Cookie had thought she’d prepared for it. But how did you prepare yourself to break your lover’s heart? To have your own shattered in return? Still, she couldn’t regret her actions. Kaysar deserved the future her actions would provide, even if she doomed herself in the process.
“Answer me.” His demand sounded more like the last bray of a wounded animal, turning it into a plea to dispute what his eyes unveiled as truth.
Cookie licked her dry lips and labored to her feet. “I killed the Winter Court king. The final Frostline responsible for your suffering.”
He blanched, but said nothing.
She extended her hands to him in a silent plea for understanding. “I gave you a chance to live again. A real beginning. The first you’ve ever had.”
His eyes slitted, his broad shoulders vibrating. He ignored her request for connection, acting as if the arms she stretched toward him were invisible. “You didn’t give me anything. You stole. You robbed me of my only lifeline.”
The bitterness in his voice summoned beads of sweat across her brow. Her stomach pitched, and for a moment she battled unrelenting doubt. But, she’d done the right thing, yes?
“I did this for you,” she told him softly, her hands falling to her sides.
A man possessed, he pointed a claw in her direction. “You did this for you. You betrayed me, so I would have no reason to leave you again.”
“I never betrayed you.” She took a step back. “But you had already left me, Kaysar, even when you were with me.”
She’d expected his anger, not the quiet finality of his tone. And that frightened her more than ghost trolls, or centaurs, or any of the multitude of truly threatening things she’d encountered since walking through the doorway into this land. To him. This king she adored.
The man she was losing.
Her shoulders slumped, her eyes burning. “I loved you the best way I knew how, Kaysar.”
He stalked closer at last, a predator through and through. The predator she’d never before faced—the one so many other feared. “You planned this,” he hissed. “Even as you pleasured me, you planned this.”