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Torin gripped the hilt of his sword. We stood here, separated from Modron by the crevasse.
Unease crept up my spine at the sound of a deep rumbling beneath the earth, like a volcano erupting.
“You should get out of here,” Torin called out. “Fly.”
“Not a chance. But I’m going to see what’s happening.”
My bruised wings pounded the snowy air, and I lifted into the skies for a better view. As I carried myself up higher above the tree line, fear spread through my chest.
From the east, where the Avon River flowed, a tsunami was coming for us, roaring over the snow and consuming the forest. The wave was seventy or eighty feet high, a tower of murky water that would kill everyone in its path.
I couldn’t breathe. That monstrous wave would drown us all. It would sweep through the villages, flood the castle. It would carry away every house and farm in the kingdom.
My mind flickered, electrified with panic as I tried to figure out how to stop it.
“There’s a tsunami coming, Torin,” I shouted. “We need a bigger crevasse. Circle it around the castle, the city. We need city walls.”
He acted without question, and the ice split with a loud crack, as if a great god were carving an arc around the city and villages.
I dropped onto the grass beside him. “It’s less than a mile away. If we work together, I think we can build a wall faster.”
I scanned the white landscape but could no longer see Modron. Still, I could feel her magic flowing across the ground.
I pressed my boots into the snow, feeling my connection to the earth. The heartbeat of spring pounded far beneath my feet, and light beamed over my body, a pale gold that spilled from my limbs and fingertips, warming the world around me.
My body vibrated with power, a molten heat that cracked beneath the cold surface. Grass, plants, androots burst up from the soil, weaving together and shooting toward the heavens.
As my wall grew, Torin sent ice racing over it, making it rock solid. It was several feet thick, a barrier of ice and spring that rose to the stormy skies.
I am the Dark Cromm heir, forged in the mountains of the ash goddess, and I will protect those I love.
My mind erupted with an ancient power like flames dancing on the dark rocks, a night sky tinged red with fire. Miles of twisting vines and brambles shot from the earth as power thundered through my body. I wasn’t Ava anymore. I was a vessel of the ash goddess.
A circle of life rose around the city, and Torin’s ice glazed over the plants, filling in cracks. The magic of Seelie and Unseelie intertwined, as it had in the old days. The image of Mab kept flickering in my mind as plants encircled Faerie. I’d told Torin we belonged together, and here was the evidence.
Spring swept through me, a current of warmth.
As we finished our work, my body trembled, depleted of strength. Nauseous, I tried to stop myself from shaking.
Torin turned, scanning the snowy horizon.
“Modron.” He spat out her name like a curse.
My gaze flicked up, and I saw her emerge from the forest. She was trying to slip away like smoke in the wind. Torin stalked after her.
As he did, the tsunami slammed into the walls, sending a shock through the snowy ground that knocked me to my hands and knees.
I turned, my heart frantic as large cracks began toappear in some of the ice walls. Reaching deep within, I called forth more magic, filling the holes and cracks with moss and roots.
Water rumbled against the walls, making them shake.
I turned to see Torin open another crevasse ten feet in front of Modron.
He didn’t need to ask. We knew each other’s rhythms now, and I knew what to do. With the last steamy hiss of my magic, I summoned a wall of brambles, trapping Modron.
She stumbled as her path was blocked and whirled to face us. “All I ever did was tell the truth,” she bellowed, her voice carrying across the snow “But the Seelie prefer to live with lies. Isn’t that right?”
The whispers of Torin’s sword echoed through the air in a haunted symphony. He carved his blade through Modron’s neck, and the deep gray cloak fell to the earth, empty. Only her head remained, rolling on the snow. I stared at the gruesome sight, clutching my stomach. My reserves of magic were completely spent, and exhaustion burned through me.
