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Moria leaped onto the creature’s back, and the Sinach took off into the skies, maroon-black scales gleaming with ice. As I climbed onto the dais, I searched for Modron. The old crone had already disappeared. The spectators in the stands were running, searching for exits.
The Sword of Whispers echoed inside my skull. I needed to get my hand on its hilt.
I raced down the exterior stairs of the amphitheater,following the Sinach on foot. I ran barefoot through the snow, but the cold no longer touched me.
I raced through the wind in my tattered white clothes. To my left, dark, bare trees lined the snowy fields, the castle a small shadow against the white expanse.
I pumped my arms, legs burning with exertion. Snow kicked up around me as I sprinted. I could run fast, but not nearly fast enough to keep up with the Sinach.
What had happened to give me my power back? Aeron, perhaps.
I didn’t have time to mull it over because Moria and her Sinach were circling again, the dragon’s frosted scales gleaming under the dull winter sky. Like King Caerleon, she’d try to burn me to death.
Except now I wouldn’t be so easy to kill.
The Sinach approached, scorching the earth with consuming fire. I countered with a plume of frigid air that doused the flames. The Sinach’s dark wings beat the air, and he opened his mouth to roar, his fangs glinting in the dull winter light.
Another incendiary burst from the dragon’s maw seared the air, but my magic crackled up my spine and erupted from my chest. Frost raced along the dragon’s scales, turning them white and glazed. The Sinach’s movements grew jerky and uneven.
Moria turned her dragon away from me, heading back to the castle. I followed her on foot again, feet pounding in the snow.
As I raced toward the castle, I spied a figure with black wings like a moth’s. My world tilted.
Ava, my love, what the fuck are you doing?
40
AVA
The world below was a sea of white interrupted only by the line of bare trees to my right. Icicles hung from their dark, spiked boughs.
As I flew, my mind snagged on what Cala had said.Nothing happens here without the queen’s consent…
If that were true, how had I escaped at all?
Except the queen had told me quite clearly what she wanted, hadn’t she?
Slowly, the puzzle pieces slid together in my mind.
Everything that happened in the Court of Sorrows had been under her control. The imprisonment, the duel, the rules about not seeing each other on pain of a horrible death, the many promises to throw me off the tower…
Every single thing that had happened there had been a test, with the specific purpose of discovering if the queen could get what she wanted.
The sound of distant screams sent fear prickling upmy nape, interrupting my thoughts. Every inch of this place, every rock and slope of snow, every sharp blade of ice—it all exuded menacing brutality. When I’d first arrived for the competition, Faerie had seemed sinister. Now? The cold, rocky earth breathed violence.
The scent of sulfur and ash floated on the wind. And from the direction of the amphitheater, a monstrous form swept through the skies. An icy shiver danced through my nerve endings.
A dragon soared beneath the steely clouds, wings beating under a wintry sky. Perched on its back was a figure dressed in crimson, a smear of bittersweet nightshade against ink and bone.
My stomach plummeted. My plant magic, though amazing, was not the best defense against an actual inferno of hellfire. And with the thick layers of ice like a tomb over the earth, I needed to stop and concentrate to rip vegetation free.
I flew toward the cover of the skeletal trees. As I turned, the dragon soared closer, scorching the air with a blast of solar wind that singed my exposed skin and wings.
A tendril of panic twisted through my gut as I careened for the trees, angling my wings for speed but sacrificing control. I landed in a tumble of wings and limbs and snow. Pain shot through my wing bones, and I winced. But there was no time to nurse my wounds because the dragon was hurtling toward me.
Fear ignited my thoughts like lightning.
I lay at the edge of a forest, bare, black trees jutting like antlers from the white earth. This was my army, thetrees, my soldiers. As the dragon swept closer, ready to breathe another stream of fire, the sharp boughs swept out above me like hands reaching for the dragon. Icicles dropped into the snow as the branches shifted, and the tree limbs twined around the dragon’s throat.
