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His fists clenched at that, and he rode forward to meet me halfway. “You want it up close and personal? I can do that.” His hulking frame lurched forward to seize my neck with flaming hands. “I once took a girl’s head clean off like this.” Heat and pressure charred my skin. “You’re mine. You’ve always been mine!” He laughed as I burned.

I regenerated in his hold.

He increased the pressure.

I regenerated. You burned Aric. But you can’t burn my rage.

His expression showed his bafflement as his heat began to wane. The flames surrounding us sizzled out, leaving him naked and sooty. His hands no longer scalded, his lava cooling to charred rock.

“I can still overpower you!” He strangled me. “I am RICHTER.” His massive muscles flexed; I smiled. “Ahhh! I’ll kill you!”

As my throat healed instantly, his lungs heaved, his strength dying out. Though the clench of his hands loosened, he managed to give me a violent shake.

My body swung like a rag doll’s. But this doll had teeth.

Time to end this. I’d had so many plans for his long and excruciating murder, but I was eager to claim his icons—and my throne.

Eyes incensed, he bellowed, “I am destruction. Destruction. You’ll never be strong enough to beat a man like me!”

“And you’ll never be smart enough to realize this woman’s already done it.” From one of my glyphs, I pulled my most toxic spores and blew him a kiss.

They traipsed toward his face, like petals on a lazy breeze.

He coughed violently, but I’d already invaded his airways, swelling them shut. His breaths became pitiful wheezes. He dropped me and wrapped his hands around his own throat.

His frantic gaze widened, and I laughed at him. “Ah, finally some realization with this one! Yes, Richter, you are done.”

He collapsed to the leaf-covered ground, writhing at my feet. He gasped out, “Stop . . . stop!”

I tapped my chin with a thorn claw. “No.”

As he watched in horror, vines grew through his body like veins, slowly flaying him from the inside. Roots burrowed from beneath to feed on his organs. A cage of thorns tightened over him, holding him steady for the carnage.

His death was a thousand times more painful than Aric’s had been and seemed to go on for days. I knelt to inform him, “You’re paying the price.” His last sight on earth was indeed my smiling face.

When his body went limp—all his fight and pain harvested—my smile dimmed. I stood and dusted off my palms.

Yet then my hand tingled. His ankh icon appeared on my skin. Fortune’s wheel too. Nine other icons materialized.

Then came . . . a scythe. Aric was dead.

I lost my mind. Gladly. Because the heat of madness seared away my grief.

My rose crown turned to thorns to match my throne. Power is my burden. It weighed as much as a crown of thorns.

I was the May Queen. The Poison Princess. Lady Lotus. Phyta.

The Queen of Thorns.

The big battle had never been against Richter—it would be against myself. I was the most terrifying foe Evie had ever faced.

In the opening salvo, poor, sweet Evie retreated. And the earth convulsed.

All over the planet, vines burst into life, rocking continents. I transformed all those plants into black stalks and dispatched them to cover every inch of ground, turning my nightmares into reality. They dripped poison so toxic the soil smoked. Hell on earth?

Exquisite.

Through my vines, I sensed people across the globe weeping, knowing this was the true end. I gazed up at the sky, addressing the gods in a breathy purr: “Do I have your attention?” Surely I was the loudest megaphone that had ever lived.

“Empress, stand down,” the Priestess said from behind me. “The day is won.”

“Won? Won?” I whirled around. I was the red witch, and I didn’t leave survivors. I would kill Evie’s “friends” and desecrate them. Black roses would bloom from their bodies. “It isn’t won until I’m the last Arcana left.” After I ended these players, I’d begin my search for the Fool. My vines would find him.

The Priestess sucked in a breath. “Your tableau is reversed.”

“Or righted.”

The Sun flanked her and Fauna. He muttered something in Spanish that sounded like a prayer, then said, “Pequeña, let’s talk about this.”

I crept closer, my vines coiling behind me.

“Evie, don’t do this,” Fauna pleaded. “I don’t want to hurt you.” Her wolves positioned themselves in front of her.

I blew spores at the pack. They fell to the ground and yelped in pain, which Lark clearly felt. “I’m not Evie. I’m the Empress.”

With her chin upturned, Fauna raised her claws. I raised mine in turn. My glyphs illuminated the dripping poison.

She whimpered like an animal and dropped her hands.

The Priestess’s eyes showed the depths of her despair over me. Had she come to believe I wouldn’t hurt her? She had! Delicious.