It’s not enough.
We can’t win this.
Not like this.
Caspian leaps at me, all fire and rage and something I can’t name. Our blades crash together, and I stagger from the weight of them. A twinkle of light flashes at the nape of Caspian’s neck.
Rosalina’s moonstone necklace, the one she gave Cas. One of five precious tokens, made for the first high rulers.
Images blaze into my mind. Carvings in a cave. The warriors of old etched into the stone. Justus’s voice echoing in the dark. One hand to the chest. One breath. One release.
My hand moves before I think.
It drifts to my sternum, right over my snowflake token, fingers splayed, pressing hard. There is ancestral memory buried inside me. I inhale slow. Deep. The cold fills my lungs.
Then I lift my palm outward.
Fingers curl into a fist.
I hold.
Then—
I unfurl them. And I release.
The air shifts. No, itsnaps. Magic jolts up my spine. Ice rushes up my legs, over my arms, wrapping me in something older than armor. Something given, not forged.
Magnificent sapphire plates form over my chest, edged in silver-frost filigree that pulses with light. Bracers shimmer over my forearms, carved with snowflakes. My pauldrons are wings of crystal, flared and jagged like frozen mountain peaks. A cloak of the deepest blue whips behind me, tethered by pins shaped into wolves’ heads.
A helm curves around my head, leaving my face exposed.
The temperature drops.
Even the Baron hesitates.
I exhale slowly, mist curling from my lips. “Let’s try this again.”
56
Dayton
I’m on the ground again.
How many times have I hit stone tonight? My body’s screaming. My arms are filled with molten lead. Every breath scrapes through my chest as if it’s trying to escape me.
I didn’t want to admit it before.
Didn’t want them to see it.
But the truth is I’m empty.
I’d been running on the Green Flame. Whatever scrap of life the Baron shoved into me when Farron dragged me from death, it’s almost gone now. A snuffed-out candle in a storm.
I’m flat on my back, still catching my breath, when Keldarion goes full divine warrior. There’s a flash of blue light, and thenbam, our High Prince of Winter is wrapped in enchanted sapphire like the walking night sky.
Snowflakes swirl around him dramatically. His cape flutters even though there’s no damn wind.
“Right,” I mutter, dragging myself up, coughing on dust. “Of course Keldarion gets the special armor. Sworn Protector of the Realms, Starbringer of Winter, Blades of Brooding—well, I’m just making shit up now.”
