Then the branch stiffened. The tree stilled. And the light within the heart dimmed.
Julian muttered a curse. “My magic is reaching for its magic, but they can’t touch. There’s something blocking it.”
Ellery’s hope withered. She was in Winter territory, with the right potential wand, the right wielder. But it still wasn’t enough.
“I don’t get it,” she whispered. “What else could be blocking the wand from being made? What elseisthere?”
Julian and Kester exchanged a glance.
“El, you should know why I wanted you to meet Kester so badly,” Julian said fervently. “Because you see now, don’t you? Nothing about magic is how we thought it was. Winter’s territory, Winter magicians, Winter wands… Winter’s not inherently dangerous or wrong. You know that better than anyone. So we think—we hope—that you might be able to stop Summer from destroying its potential.Ourpotential.”
Ellery had seen Julian like this before, his squared shoulders, his argument seamlessly rehearsed. But Ellery struggled to share his conviction. All she’d learned tonight had only made her less certain of what part she was meant to play, her future suddenly distorted.
“I know there’s more to Winter than what most people see,” she said. “But that doesn’t change the fact that for the past thousand years, Winter’s terrorized this country. That ghasts and scurges could be killing peopleright now. I’m sworn to protect Alderland. You can’t ask me to turn my back on that.”
“I’m not,” Julian urged. “I’m asking you not to turn your back onus. We’re part of Alderland, too. In every interview, you and Barrow talk about how you want to reclaim Summer’s territory. But do you really think that’s the right thing to do? To take all of this away, when some people want to keep it?”
“I don’t know! I only just learned about this. I need time to think. And I’d have to talk to the Order before I could ever make that kind of decision—”
“As if the Order would care,” Kester cut in. “Let’s say youdoside with Summer. What do you think the Order will do to you after you finish? You think they’ll pat you on the head and give you a reward?”
“Kester,” Julian said warningly.
Kester hiked up their chin. “No. I’m done playing nice. All she’s done all night is question everything we stand for. Everything sheshouldstand for. But she hates Winter. She hates herself.”
It clicked, suddenly. Kester’s goading tone. She’d heard it before.
“It was you,” Ellery breathed. “You’re the one who called in on Wilder’s radio show and asked me all those questions about destroying Winter.”
Kester made a show of twisting toward her, the heels of their combat boots crunching through snow. “I sure did.”
“Why?”
“Because I thought my questions might get through to you. But you’re not just unreachable because you’re a Chosen One. Even now that you’re here, you’re still hiding. First you show up cloaked. Then you can’t believe you’re stronger up North until I ask you about it. And guess what? You’re hiding from peoplewho would’ve embraced you as a hero. So where is your conviction? Where’s your self-respect? You have a wand that could level a fucking city in your hand, but you spend your time surrounded by Summer, playing Alderland’s paper-doll princess. And you just… take it.”
A cold, unending fury swept through Ellery. An anger she’d never let herself feel before because she didn’t think she was allowed it. But now, it was the only thing shecouldfeel.
Frost wafted from her lips. Ellery’s shadow uncoiled in the silver glow of Iskarius, then grew, engulfing the surrounding trees until it loomed above them, around them. Until the very stars dimmed behind the veil of her magic.
Julian stiffened. But Kester grinned wickedly.
“I ‘take it’ because I have no other choice,” Ellery snarled. “I sit there and smile while the Council debates behind my back whether I’m dangerous or not. I watch every single thing I do or say or evenwear,because for all people insist they believe in destiny, they’re awfully damn willing to overlook it when it doesn’t line up with what they want to be true. And the truth is… the truth is…”
“The truth is what?” Julian asked softly.
That destiny had never asked Ellery to fight against her nature. But she had. She’d punished herself her entire life. Because she’d believed, deep down, it was what she deserved. Whatallof Winter deserved.
“It’ll never be enough,” she whispered. “I will never be enough. And they willneverchange their minds. The Order will use me, because they need me. But they’ll hate me all the same. And when we finish fulfilling the prophecy… when they don’t need me anymore… I don’t know what they’ll do.”
Julian squeezed her shoulder gently. “I know how loyal you are, and I know how much we both wanted to be part of the Order. But you don’t deserve to be hated, El. You deserve to be part of an Alderland that actually respects who you are. And that Alderland could exist. Maybe you’re destined to build it.”
Ellery remembered Glynn’s warning that Iskarius’s destiny was unprecedented, uncertain.
Ellery had dismissed it—she knew she was fated to save Alderland. But what if saving it meant transforming precedent entirely?
“What would you have me do?” she asked somberly. “I want to help you. I want to get rid of the ghasts. I want to make Winter wands. But I still don’t know how.”
“I’ve got an idea,” Kester said. “It might be Winter now, and we might be in Winter’s territory, but it’s Summer that controls this country. If that changed, I bet we could make wands of our own.”
