Page 166 of Autumn Queens & Shadows

Soon, many followed. The mountains at the distance echoing the words, louder and louder until they rumbled around like thunder.

As I looked at them, I remembered this had never been about me and my throne, or my fears. What I was and didn’t want to become. This was no longer about my father or what I’d inherited from him.

As I looked at the Isliners between the crowd waving their support to me, I realised that maybe it was time all the people of Isea became one again, too. An end to the separation made by qualities of kings who I would never allow to step on the throne I held.

This was about protecting Isjordians and the new generation that would inherit this kingdom.

I couldn’t fail.

Even if I had to become what I feared.

Ice began to rise from the ground, hovering midair at Iskyla’s call. Her right foot moved back, and her hands rose forward almost in the shape of claws. The old ways of commanding ice. Beyond the name of a Verglasser.

There was no better way to take back control of my magic than going to the very basics of it. Just ice. Nothing else.

The way Karl had taught me, too. The ways of ice Skadi had taught me, too.

Moving just like Skadi had taught me, I waited, feeling sparks of magic start to surround my limbs, crackling and appearing out of nowhere, without even being summoned.

Iskyla and her sisters shot one another a glance, and they shifted position, ice moving along with them in tandem and howling towards me in one brutal wave.

I followed suit, the snow and the wind changing around me, intertwining together as one. After all, I was both. I was still the Ybris.

Then I felt it.

A small tug at first.

Then an entire grip.

Until it grew strong enough for me to grasp all the strings of magic stretching and weaving patterns in the air, attaching to the falling snow and to the billowing wind in a firm grip.

Snow halted midway from falling and the skies greyed entirely at my command without even lifting a finger or losing one breath, Iskyla’s attack faltering midway to me, her ice crumbling to thin particles and disappearing in the wind.

She remained still where she was, eyes wide and stunned, commanding more and more ice with her hands while her sisters came around her and ran in my direction, swords drawn and magic following.

I slid between them, missing their attacks, and headed for Iskyla directly. All their attempts missed me entirely. Ice blowing around furiously and aimlessly, until it would melt in the air and disappear as if it had chosen to belong to no master.

Winter was not bending to her command anymore.

Eyes blown even more wide and stunned, she began backing away and looking over my shoulder to send her sister’s scathing looks. “What are you doing? Get her!”

“You hide behind your young siblings? Is that why you brought them to battle today? Hoping they would tire me so you could finish me off?” I asked, walking straight through her vanishing frost attacks.

“No,” she sneered, forming a small ice shield over her head as ice picks rained on her at my order. “I brought them here to see how it is done. Soon, I will grow old, and they will have to rule this kingdom for me. What a better way for them to learn and watch me do it.”

The four princesses were quick on their feet, chasing fast after me to shield their sister from me, only to crash against a thin barrier of ice I’d formed around Iskyla and I.

“What is it, true daughter of Winters?” I asked when she turned red from blowing almost all of her mana in magic that was not obeying her and barely even grazing me. “Ice not obeying your command?”

Then it started.

She screamed, endless gales of snow and ice rose from all over, wrapping around me to trap me inside.

But ice and snow and winter was where I felt safe, the cold was home. The cold was relief. None of her attacks did anything more than trap me in my safe place. The snow and ice moulding to my control around me. And no matter how hard she fought to get back control of her own ice tethered to her, my connection to it was stronger, because even her ice suddenly obeyed me.

That was until I felt a small cut on my shoulder. Somewhere between the howl of cold magic, a thin dagger had pierced through the ice and embedded itself on my skin.

The blood matted to my navy jacket when I pulled the strange bronze blade out, starting to turn a strange shade of purple and then black.