Capture the Crown (Gargoyle Queen #1) -Jennifer Estep Page 0,65
Worry, concern, disgust—and more than a little malicious glee. As a child, I had often dreamed of killing Maeven, of stabbing a dagger straight into her heart, just as Vasilia Blair had done to Uncle Frederich during the Seven Spire massacre. I still fantasized about it sometimes, especially when I snapped out of one of my ghosting visions, shaking and sweating from all the horrible memories my magic had dredged up.
“But my mother can take care of herself,” Leonidas continued. “My main concern right now is the tearstone that’s been stolen from your mine.”
My mind kept whirring, putting the rest of the puzzle pieces together. “So Milo is the one stealing and stockpiling Andvarian tearstone. Why? What is he planning to do with it?”
“I don’t know.”
I huffed in disbelief and crossed my arms over my chest.
Leonidas shook his head. “Doubt me if you want, but I don’t know my brother’s exact plans. I wasn’t even sure that he was the one buying the tearstone. Not until Wexel tried to kill me in Blauberg. That’s when I knew the rumors were true.”
“What rumors?” This time, I had to ask the question.
He stared out over the marketplace, but his eyes dimmed, as though he was peering at something in his own mind instead of at the people shopping below. “That Milo is having the tearstone brought to his personal workshop. That he’s been experimenting, trying to turn it into some sort of weapon.” He paused, and his voice dropped even lower. “One that he wants to use against Andvari and the other kingdoms.”
So my suspicion about the tearstone being turned into weapons was correct, although I’d mistakenly thought it was Maeven’s scheme, instead of Milo’s plot. Still, Leonidas’s revelations increased my worry and dread.
The Morricones were famed tinkerers who experimented with magic, blood, creatures, and more. Years ago, King Maximus had created a powder of crushed tearstone and amethyst-eye poison that helped him absorb magic by drinking strix blood. If what Leonidas said was true and Milo was even worse than his uncle . . . Well, I didn’t even want to imagine what sorts of horrors the crown prince had created in his workshop.
“Milo knows that I don’t agree with his ambitions,” Leonidas continued. “But he has a lot of support among the nobles and others in the palace.”
Once again, he was hinting at the truth without actually delivering the full, heavy weight of it.
“You mean that your brother has people watching your every move and reporting back to him, like that old woman who followed us earlier. And that he’ll see you coming if you try to thwart him.”
“Yes. Milo has spies everywhere, and he is well protected.”
“So that’s why you were in Blauberg,” I said. “You couldn’t find out what Milo was up to here at Myrkvior, so you decided to attack the problem from the other end. To track down where the tearstone was coming from and see if you could pick up any clues there.”
“Yes. But instead of clues, I found you.”
His low, deep voice rasped against my skin, and something flared in his eyes, making them burn bright and hot. The emotion vanished before I could put a proper name to it, but his intense expression made my stomach clench. My arms were still crossed over my chest, and my fingers dug into my elbows, as if that would shield me from whatever he was thinking, as well as from my own treacherous attraction to him.
“But my feud with my brother is none of your concern,” Leonidas said. “It will end the way such things always do between Morricones.”
“And how is that?”
“With one of us killing the other.”
His cold, matter-of-fact tone sent a shiver down my spine. We might both be mind magiers, might both be royals, but in some ways, we were as different as night and day, especially when it came to our families. I would die to protect Father, Grandfather Heinrich, Rhea, Grimley, Topacia, Alvis, Xenia, Uncle Lucas, and Aunt Evie. Leonidas would probably have to murder his own brother just to make it to the end of the year.
He dug into his coat pocket, pulled out a purple velvet pouch, and tossed it over to me. I caught it, and the tink-tink-tink of coins filled the air.
“There’s more than enough money in there for you to travel back to Blauberg.” Leonidas gestured at the courtyard below. “All you have to do is slip out of the marketplace. No one will stop you.”