AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Dillon sighed. “You’re not very romantic, are you?”
“Being romantic isn’t very useful,” she said pointedly, not sure what he was getting at.
At this, Dillon chuckled. “I spoke to him, you know. About how he felt marrying Serena. I expected him to be casual about it, like it meant nothing, like he had no plans to change after the event. He said he thought he should try and make it work with her, that he had no plans to take on lovers or continue his old ways. He’s loyal, you know.”
Juliana bit her lip. “I know.”
“Doesn’t that bother you?”
“Should it?”
Another sigh, deeper than the first. “You’re so stubborn.”
“One of my best qualities.” She looked down at the rocket, still unsure if it was pointing in the right direction. This was vastly different to aiming an arrow and far more terrifying. “You sure this will work?”
Dillon grinned. “Not pointed like that, it won’t.” He set the crystals down carefully and readjusted her rocket, large, calloused hands brushing over hers. “Where’d the confidence go?”
“I can’t be perfect all the time, Dillon. It would exhaust me.”
She took a match from her belt as he smiled at her again, stepping back to pick up his ignition crystals. “Ready?” he asked.
“Born ready.”
He clicked the crystals together.
For a long, unflinching moment, there was nothing but silence. Then, in the distance, there came a rumble, a fierce, dark purr. The mountains began to tremble and shake. Slowly, chunks peeled away from the rock. The rumble mounted, sounds and sensations tripping over each other like thunder. The snow turned into a white, twisted sea, waves of ice tearing down the slopes, a freezing, trembling flood—
“Now, Juliana!” Dillon yelled.
She struck her match and lit the rocket. They scrambled backwards as it soared into the air, a blaze of red and fire. It smashed against the mountainside in a crowd of smoke.
The trembling increased. Huge shafts of snow like powdery icebergs charged down the mountain, racing towards the quarry.
Shouts and cries pierced the air, along with the braying of mounts trying to race up the path, out of the range on the oncoming avalanche. Wheels churned against rock. In the pit, one of the giants bolted for the road winding up the quarry, the pounding of his footsteps lost behind the roar of snow.
The shaking was like nothing Juliana had ever felt, like the entire earth was being split apart. There was no room for triumph inside her, no amazement at the fact their plan was working, only sheer disbelief at the devastation unfolding before them, horror at the unquestionable, unstoppable power of nature.
Not even the Unseelie King could stop an avalanche. It was overwhelming, indestructible.
The avalanche reached the edge of the quarry, diving over the lip, crashing to the rocky bottom, sweeping away everything in its path. It caught the fleeing giant by the ankles and wrenched him backwards. He struggled against the tide, gaining nothing, losing much. A hundred, a thousand dark shapes vanished beneath the endless white.
Any flighted creatures took to the skies, screeching and wailing, the convoy clattering onwards, refusing to look back or stop or try to help.
A magnificent dark shape rose above it all, letting out a horrible, blood-curdling cry.
Ladrien, wings extending, horns silhouetted against the moonlight—the only still white thing in the entire scene.
It was too much to hope that he’d be caught in the onslaught, but it didn’t matter. His army was lost.
Ladrien seemed to realise it too. He took a long, sweeping look over the quarry, and with a strange, juddering motion, he vanished into mist.
The avalanche raged on. The constructs bolted to the sides of the quarry washed away.Everythingwashed away, until all that was left of the quarry were a few bits of red rock protruding from a sea of snow.
Finally, everything went still and quiet.
Juliana turned to Dillon, standing a few feet away. “We did it,” she said, with a kind of breathless wonder. “We actually did it. Dillon—”
But Dillon didn’t answer. He turned towards her in a slow, endless fashion, clutching the front of his white doublet, rapidly staining with red.
