D. B.—even better than advertised
She let out a sudden, incredulous laugh. It echoed off the tile walls as Ellery trembled, aching for him, his voice, his smile, his touch. It was selfish to crave what she’d so cruelly ripped from the world, yet she did it anyway. Her treacherous heart still loved him. She always would.
She fortified his enchantment so that no magic could eradicate it. Even if the Citadel crumbled to dust, his vandalism would still be there, glinting amidst the rubble.
And as Ellery stared at his words, she knew she would never escape Domenic Barrow. In truth, she didn’t want to.
After months of obligation, Ellery had nowhere to be and nowhere to go. Returning to her apartment was unthinkable. Another version of her remained there, the version who dreamed of an impossible future in Domenic’s arms.
As she invisibly wandered the Citadel, something pulled at her, urgent and insistent. Her body seemed to move of its own accord, down abandoned paths that led deep into the bowels of the Citadel. Until she crossed beneath the archway, into the Vault.
Someone had cleared out the cases that had once held Living Wands. In their places, glowing like tiny fallen stars, were hundreds of seeds. They stretched down the aisles, encased in glass, waiting for a wielder to transform them into a Winter wand.
On the wall behind them was a door. It opened without her touching it.
Inside, roots coiled over soil and stone, so numerous they nearly covered the entire expanse of the cavern. As she walked inside, Iskarius’s silver core illuminated the ivory: they were alban roots. Two golden handprints glinted on the floor.
In the cavern’s center, despite the lack of sunlight, a dozen leaves had grown in a neat circle, like a wreath. Each was blank.
But Ellery knew what would appear on them one day.
Prophecies.
She thought of the Chosen Ones who’d died before her. The ones who’d follow after her. Of Iskarius dormant in the Vault one day, awaiting its next wielder.
Ellery whispered the words destiny had once whispered to her. Now that she understood that she and Domenic had fulfilled two separate prophecies, not one, she puzzled out the pieces that had been meant for her and her alone.
the unveiled truth of everything you are
is power that will rise from your own ruin
Domenic had believed he’d fulfilled this piece during the winterscurge in Oldermere. But as Ellery recalled the fight with Eledrium—how terrified she’d been, how she had almost frozen to death—she felt the significance of that final word: herruin. How she’d overcome it only by admitting that she had always been Winter’s Chosen, no matter how long she’d tried to hide from it. It was her power. Her truth.
join an old legacy to a new fate
uncover the tangled roots of the past
Ellery had fulfilled this piece at the solstice ceremony, alongside Domenic. She’d thought it was their joined magic that had triggered it somehow. But that was the night she’d confessed the deepest depths of her past. After a lifetime tangled in her parents’ cruelty, she had finally let it go. And she’d looked toward the future.
in treacherous land an enemy lies
but what was lost invasion can reclaim
And of course, Syarthis. For Ellery, treacherous land was Summer’s territory, not Winter’s. It was the first piece of the prophecy that had been lost. And invasion hadn’t meant SummerorWinter. It had meant invading the wand itself.
where devastation left the land a grave
revive the past and claim a new future
bring Winter glory on a silver throne
the whispers of the trees will guide you home
Ellery could decipher the first two lines; she’d healed the Barren, then claimed it as Winter’s territory. And she’d brought Winter glory after giving herself over to the alban trees. But she still didn’t understand the mention of a throne.
And of course, the first piece and yet the last one. This, at least, required no explanation.
as Summer wilts and Winter lays its siege
