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“What Well? What are you talking about?” He pinched the bridge of his nose, then looked away again, so I sent another wave of Compulsion. “Tell me about the Well, Danai.”

He looked up, his eyes glass. “It is magic’s heart, where the currents flow and pool. Legend calls it the home of the Phoenix.”

“It is important enough for the three of them to leave me free without opposition?”

He nodded. “If the Well falls, so does magic. At least, that’s what the legends say. It has never happened.”

I steepled my fingers. “So, what do we do?”

“A direct attack will not work. If they think you are coming for them, they will band together, and you cannot win that fight.” He hesitated, as if deciding whether to add fuel to my fire. When he met my gaze, something resolved, and his chest lifted. “Benton and Amicus are the weakest. You and I could easily defeat them.”

“Is there a way to consume their power when they die? Not their spirit, just their magic?”

Danai’s eyes widened in a horrified glare. “Irina, that’s forbidden. It’s . . . evil—”

“Slaughtering my parents was evil. This is vengeance.” I waved a hand. “Now, is there a way?”

He blinked a few times, then his head lowered. “Yes.”

“Good. You will teach it to me. What next?”

“The others are too strong. When you consume another’s power, it diminishes. You will only retain a portion. You and I, with your new strength, might defeat Tasha, but Elric is ancient and almost as strong as Johann. Even if we could beat him, we would lose much for our effort.”

I rose from the throne, paced a few strides away, then turned back. “So, we let those two cower in their holes. What then?”

He sucked in a breath and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he looked doubtful. “Irina, this is madness. We—”

I stepped forward and placed a hand on his cheek and the other on his chest. It was the most intimate touch I’d ever allowed. I knew he loved me. It couldn’t have been more obvious had he been a mooning teen. His longing was yet another weapon for me to use.

I leaned in, so close my breath brushed his lips. “Danai, I need you. You are the only man who can stand by my side.”

His eyes softened, his breath quickened, and his walls melted before me.

“We . . .” He gulped. My lips were so close I could taste the wine on his breath. His words were little more than a hushed whisper. “We take a page from their book and go after the people they care about.”

“Go on,” I said, stroking his hair and pressing my body against his.

“As Queen—I mean, Empress—you have an army at your disposal, the largest in the world. Most of the Mages live in Melucia. Their livelihoods were built there. Their homes are there. If you want to hurt them, destroy what they care about, same as they did to you.”

“And if they resist?” I whispered in his ear.

He shivered.

“We kill them.”

Silence, like the sound between lightning and thunder, hung in the air.

“What is to stop them from fighting my army?” I asked, rubbing circles in his chest with my fingers. “They could easily wipe out a nonmagical force, no matter how large.”

Danai’s heartbeat quickened beneath my touch. “They . . . they will not interfere if they believe it is a fight between nations. They would see that as lowering themselves.”

“How much lower can they get—killing my parents, the King and Queen?” I scoffed, pulling away from him. His whole body sagged forward, as though a lifeline had just been plucked from the grasp of a drowning man.

“That was not about the affairs of men. That was about you. Another Mage.”

Anger blazed to life within me. “Never call me one of them again. Do you hear me? I will never be one of those vile creatures.”

He took a reflexive step backward. “I only meant . . . from their perspective, coming after you was related to the magical world, not a political squabble among the nations.”

I released a breath to calm myself. Danai was trying to help. “Fine. We raise an army, invade Melucia, burn down their homes. What next? What comes after that?”

“You become everyone’s queen.”

I reached up and removed the crown, tracing my fingers along the edges of gems embedded within gold. When I looked up, a smile crept across my face, and a new hunger rose within.

“Everyone’s queen. I like the sound of that.”