A moment of sheer panic percolated up her chest. But she couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t do a damn thing.
Garrin wrenched out of the grip of a soldier and placed a hand to the ice surrounding Lex. She felt him push magic at her. But it was so darn weak. Weaker than she’d ever sensed from him before. And blood continued to trail at his feet. He was dying.
Nooooo!
Garrin’s gaze was pure anguish. And then rage. Even as his life’s blood poured from his chest.
He backhanded one of the soldiers and stole his sword, then charged the king, clashing metal with the guards surrounding Casone.
The king turned his head from side to side as though disappointed. And then Lex heard his muffled voice. “Had I any notion of your success in finding the prophesied one, I never would have sent you on these quests, son. I needed to appease the people, and I thought the prophecy a good distraction. I too raged at the magical barrier when Kushiel first created it. But now? Now I see its benefits. No one in this land can stand against a Branimir. We are all-powerful.”
Casone pinched his chin thoughtfully. “Lexandra is special, I’ll give you that. Once she cools off for a hundred years or so, I’ll make good use of her.” He pulled out his sword. “Until then, you will pay for attempting to remove her from my land.”
The Dark King lashed out in a motion so swift that Lex barely caught it.
Blood poured down Garrin’s torso, his severed arm sinking into the snow.
Lex mentally screamed.
Casone Branimir would kill Garrin if it made him more powerful.
Garrin collapsed to his knees, his head bowed. And then he tipped to the side, unmoving.
Lex’s mind was a haze of anger. And then she sensed it. The heat in her hands. She was no longer being controlled by the alchemist, either because he was distracted or too arrogant to believe she could use her power while frozen.
But she could. It was right there at her fingertips.
She didn’t release the power she’d used to heat ice until it shattered. She allowed it to emanate off her slowly, heating the monolith from the inside until her body was as nimble as her mind and she could blink again.
And no one noticed, too preoccupied by the king and Garrin.
“Camille, dear,” the king said, “take us back to my castle.”
Camille moved to her son, whose face was ghostly white. She touched Garrin’s leg, and Lex sucked in a breath. Camille looked up at the king. “I will never do as you say.”
Lex felt the burst of power that swept off Camille. She was holding on to Garrin, which meant she could escape with him.
But the king and his men were faster.
Two soldiers lunged forward and stabbed Camille just as she opened her portal. She crumpled to the snow beside her son.
A low growl came from Lex’s throat. Garrin was dying. Camille was dying. Her friends had been buried alive in ice tombs…and Lex was furious.
No longer slow and controlled, Lex sent out a burst of fire energy, and the ice surrounding her shattered. She fell to the ground and looked up at the king with pure rage.
The king’s eyebrow rose, and he held up his hand to the alchemist. “Interesting. What else can you do, I wonder?”
A lot,thought Lex, as some of the puzzle pieces of Mertha’s memories finally came together.
She slammed her fists to the ground, so hard they went through snow and ice and vibrated off solid stone. She drew on every ounce of energy she possessed, and some she didn’t know she had, and pushed heat into the rock and beyond.
There was a fraction of a second between her fists slamming and the snow melting around them. But like a breeze sweeping a cornfield, the magic burst out and melted every droplet of snow and ice as far as the eye could see.
The king’s head jerked this way and that, and he stumbled on the fresh stone beneath his feet. “What have you done?” He turned to the alchemists, who were cowering. “Block her magic!”
Even if the alchemists didn’t look frightened, Lex wasn’t about to let them control her again. She tossed them off the cliff with her mother’s power.
In the next moment, her mother and all their friends rose from the side of the cliff in midair. They must have unfrozen along with the land. And they lookedpissed.
