Monstrous sounds pierced through the wind: wails and howls, shrieks and growls. Domenic ignored them, pressing onward into such obscurity that Valmordion’s light only penetrated a few feet ahead of him.
Just as Domenic feared that it would be—not a ghast—but the cramp in his side that murdered him, he saw it: a column of whirling magic, spearing up through the storm into the sky.Colors shattered across it, blues and violets and silvers of such vibrancy that Domenic’s mouth fell ajar.
It was horrible.
It was beautiful.
Domenic didn’t pause to doubt. He threw himself into the eye of the storm.
He broke through with a gasp and fell to his knees. The winds lashed at him, sharp with frost. But when he looked up, he glimpsed stars. They speckled the small pinprick of clear sky above, everything else swallowed by the great vortex of the storm’s gullet.
Peak hadn’t explained how to dispel a scurge from its eye. And so, desperately, Domenic pointed Valmordion skyward. A golden beam detonated from it, so bright it blinded him, so powerful he had to grasp the wand with both hands to hold it steady. And as the rays pierced through the solid blackness of the storm, Domenic felt every wind that slowed, every shard of frost that melted. He felt the very storm shudder.
But he also felt fire.
His skin warmed, feverish, and Domenic ripped down his hood, tore off his goggles and balaclava. Immediately, he pictured Alice Rhodes, incinerated in a pyre of Valmordion’s own making.
“Don’t burn me,” he pleaded, then he coughed, smoke pluming from his mouth.“Please.”
But maybe that’d be for the best. Maybe the most heroic deed Domenic Barrow could ever do for his country was to die.
Yet for all he’d grown to hate himself, he knew that wasn’t true.
Domenic thought of his magic, as he’d always felt it to be. He thought of vermilion sunsets and viridian leaves. He thought of meadows blooming, of forests rising. He thought of hope that sprouted like weeds, impossible to prune.
He thought of Summer.
He squeezed his eyes shut as he felt the power burn hotter, hotter, hotter. And just as he braced himself for death, a ray of warmth burst from above, casting down on him as if a spotlight of radiance. Then the enchantment flooded across the scurge. In Valmordion’s filter, it shimmered in fractals, vibrantly incandescent.
Monsters howled throughout the storm, but the sounds dimmed as, one by one, Domenic’s magic consumed them. Gradually, the cold lessened. Raindrops fell as frost melted midair. And, like a sigh, the winterscurge dissipated.
“Fuck,” Domenic breathed. “I did it.”
He collapsed onto his back, his fingers lacing through thawing grass. He marveled at the stars. He let himself cry.
Dimly, he made out hollers of victory.
For several seconds, he did nothing but listen. His shoulders heaved as he caught his breath, and after wiping the sweat off his brow, he gaped at his hands. His wounds from Valmordion’s thorns—they were gone.
Suddenly, a voice like the crackles of flames hissed in his ear.
what long laid buried lies only in wait
silent land in need of resurrection
Domenic stiffened. It couldn’t be.
But even if it was, even if some parts of destinywerereal, why would he only get the first prophecy piece now?
The realization poured over him like a sunrise. Prophecy pieces were instructions, each stanza granted once the previous one had been fulfilled.
Hehadn’theard the first prophecy piece.
He’d heard the second.
XVELLERY
WINTER
