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The air inside the cavern plummeted, an icy blast billowing from the portal, along with a dusting of snow. “Anaria,” I whispered sharply. “Lift your fingers, love.” But she couldn’t hear me, too ensnared by the bones, and I gritted my teeth, prayed I wasn’t making the worst mistake of my life, then ran my hand lightly down her arm.
Her leather jacket was stiff from cold, and I pulled her closer, trying to pry her hand from where her palm rested on the skull, but it didn’t budge.
When I pressed my lips to her cheek, her skin was ice-cold, covered with a coating of hoarfrost. I could fucking taste the deep winter on her frozen skin, as if she was not standing in front of me…but was somewhere else far, far away.
“Anaria.” She relaxed against me, and I grasped her wrist, tugging gently. “Take your hand off the skull and come back to me. We have to go to Tempeste and meet with the Oracle. We have to beat Zorander and the army there, remember?”
Her lashes fluttered slightly, a hint of green flashing in her vacant stare before it vanished. “That’s it, princess, let go. We’re running out of time. We can’t stay here.”
This had been a mistake.
We never should have come this way.
My gut had warned me, and I’d ignored my instincts.
The creak of a bow being drawn had me turning, and I met Tristan’s narrowed gaze as he aimed his weapon at Dane’s heart, who held a knife gripped between his fingers, ready to throw straight at Anaria.
“Put that knife away,” Tristan warned in a cold, uncompromising voice, “before I shoot it out of your fucking hand.”
“Who is she?” Dane made no move to sheath his weapon. “And what have you done to my nephew?” Tavion, like Anaria, stood transfixed, his eyes glossed over with the same empty, vacant stare, his face a blank mask as a winter wind howled from the portal, snow drifting over the floor.
“Touch so much as a single hair on her and you will find out why they put this collar on me.” My lips curved up and it wasn’t a smile as much as it was a baring of teeth. “It’s not just for looks.”
Dane was shaking, but finally lowered his knife. “I don’t know what fuckery this is, but I swear to the gods, you’d better bring my nephew back.”
Fuck this. I wrapped myself around her, pressing my body to hers, hip to shoulder, burying my face in her hair, smelling the bitterness of winter. “Come back to me. Wherever you’ve gone, you have to come back. I can’t follow you…” My head snapped up.
“Tristan. Wake Tavion up. They’re…Somehow, they’re caught in this together.”
“How the fuck do you know that?” Tristan growled but headed toward Tavion, while Dane weighed the knife in his hand, as if debating whether or not to throw it. One growl and he lowered his arm.
“Wake the fuck up.” Tristan shoved at Tavion’s shoulder, but like Anaria, he remained oblivious. They were caught in some kind of vision…or a nightmare. Unease turned my stomach as I wracked my head for what to do, until I set my hand over Anaria’s, letting my fingers rest on the skull, just as hers were.
An unearthly chill crept up my arm before a noose of memories sucked me inside.
The rocky outcropping was slick with the season’s first snow, empty except for the puny Fae soldiers swarming toward me like ants, their spears crashing harmlessly against my thick, armored body as I looked down upon them.
Vitigis herded them towards my position, his furious roars echoing through the mountain passes like a dragon’s rage, his great wings flaring wide as soldiers ran for their lives.
“Kill them quickly, Adaric. Now.” Vitigis’s eyes flicked behind me, where our most precious member waited.
The dredges of the once mighty Fae army flowed onto the ledge, their armor dented, their weapons battered after days of fighting. It was fitting this final battle would end here, of all places.
One sweep of my arm sent half of the soldiers tumbling to their deaths, a second razed the remainder to bloody, ruined corpses…until only one warrior remained, clutching his pitiful spear, little more than a needle prick against my black, impenetrable skin.
We’d once been small and soft like these creatures, but the magic had made us strong and unkillable. Amalla sometimes wondered if we were cursed, but how could we be, when we were the most powerful beings in the world?
Yet the tiny male was undaunted. “I will kill you and claim these lands for my own, in the name of Astragulus Centaria.”
My laughter shook the stars in the night sky, sent a shower of snow and ice raining down over us.
Many had tried to take these lands from us—all had failed.
Behind me, safely guarded by Gattica’s enormous bulk and Saphrax’s teeth, Amalla fed her magic into me like life’s blood, a steady stream of pure, undiluted power that sent lightning cracking up my arms and into the rock beneath my feet until the ground shook.
She was our anchor, our life force…our everything.
She was smaller than us and impossibly fragile, but so much more powerful, since she commanded the wild magic. The power of the entire world answered to her, and so did we.
