There was no Wistwood ring to hide her identity this time. No iron chain to rein in the magic roaring in her heart. She would go into this as Sable Erwyn Sylvana—and no one else.
Levon’s words echoed inside her head.Melt the damned North if you must. And when you stand there, upon ground that hasn’t seen the sun in centuries, I want you to smile. Because onlyyoucan do that, Sable. Only you.
Sable had very little training with her gift. In her eighteen years, she’d never come across another person possessing an equal level of power. There was no one she could learn from, and because of this, she hadn’t dared touch it since she was a child. Since the day her mother had died, and she’d burned the filth who touched her.
Now, she let loose fearlessly, setting fire to every enemy soldier in her path, a battering ram of golden flames licking across ice and snaking deeper into the hellish army, wreaking havoc on everything and everyone it touched.
And she kept running. Toward the House of Ice, toward her brother, toward Hunter, toward Balthazar and Rhea, toward the courtyard where she hoped she would find them fighting at each other’s sides. She had to get to them. Had to reach them…before it was too late.
Each breath that filled her nostrils reeked of decay. Corruption, she decided as her fire turned flesh to ash all around her. Most of those who fought willingly for the king were Dark Elves—the gifted sort, who used their magic until it started to destroy them, killing them from the inside out, rotting their minds until emotion was a stranger to them. It was the kind of disease that turned angels into demons.
She spotted Killian then, no more than fifteen steps away. There was a bright light emanating from his core, and leathery wings had shaken loose from his shoulder blades. But this was all she saw of the dragon he’d bonded with days ago, in that icy cave glowing with treasure and reeking of death.
This was all she saw of it—because the king’s men had thrown what looked like a net over him. Of iron.
Sable bellowed his name, and he looked up from beneath that weapon—the net—that seemed to burn everywhere it touched.
But it wasn’t possible. Iron didn’t burn—it was an old wives’ tale told in the mortal lands.
Someone fired an arrow for her spine. Sensing as it zipped through the air, she summoned a curtain of flame, deflecting it. And then she ran for Killian—and for the king sauntering toward him.
During the entire dreadful time she had spied in the Dark Lord’s army, never had Sable seen the helmet the king now wore. Even with her sharp eyesight, she could barely make out the features through her shield of shimmering gold fire.
But she thought she saw horns. It had the face of a gargoyle.
Not a helmet,she realized as the king snapped it down to cover his face.
A mask.
She had almost reached her brother. Barely five feet stood between them when General Terren stepped in her path.
The magic inside her faltered, her knees weakening at the sight of the Morningstar hanging at his side, the spikes caked in blood and bits of flesh. The shield surrounding her thinned until it was useless gauze. Terren’s gaze was mocking as he watched her close in on him, her steps now hesitant and heavy. That hideous line of a mouth pulled into a wicked smile. Sable summoned a new shield of fire, throwing it out in front of her.
But the flames were weaker than before. They moved with uncertainty, as if they, too, cowered at the sight of this bloodthirsty swine. They hissed as they rippled across the snow… And then they vanished entirely, and Sable was left unguarded and weaponless as Terren wound up and swung the Morningstar, aiming straight for the side of her head.
Time seemed to slow. Every thump of her heart was loud in her ears as she kept running, fighting against the instincts that told her to duck—to flee. Her blood seemed to run as cold as the snow beneath her boots, but still she sprinted—toward Terren. Toward the Morningstar, the blood-caked spikes growing closer and closer as it hurtled through the misty air. And for one split second, even Terren had the wits to look worried.
A thick wooden shield lay on the ground before her. She stomped on the edge of it, launching it into the air. She caught it swiftly, raising it just in time to deflect Terren’s blow—
The impact shot her backward, shattering the shield right in half. Wood splinters spun through the air, and she plunged into the snow, violently rolling over, and over, and over.
When she finally stilled, blood pooled in her mouth. Her ears rang, and the world was a blur.
No,she begged anyone who might be listening.Please—
Boots stomped in snow, and Terren’s hand was in her hair before she could catch her breath. Blood gushed from her nose as he hauled her through the battle, and she couldn’t find the strength to do anything except claw uselessly at the back of his hand.
The fist in her hair did not loosen as he dragged her over corpses riddled with gaping wounds and around soldiers fighting desperately for their lives. All the while, he spewed insults at her. She didn’t hear any of them. Not one.
Until he dumped her in the center of the courtyard, on the ground before the tree of ice. The sound of swords clanging together rang through the twilight, but it was noticeably quieter than before. The battle was almost over. They had lost.
“Take a look, you dumb bitch,” Terren hissed, his foul breath ruffling her hair. When she silently refused, he yanked hard enough to make her gasp in pain. “I said LOOK!”
She did. And there, dangling by a noose from the tree of ice was a body, scorched to an unrecognizable state. But she spotted the owl pommel of the sword in his weapons belt, the metal wings open in flight.
Nausea twisted like a fist in her stomach.
It couldn’t be. It wasn’t. She would not believe it.
