“Light, damn you.” I strike and strike.
Finally, a spark’s orange glow catches in the nest of tinder. I blow on it gently as the trees rain down dagger-sharp leaves. I halt, holding fire in my palms as it dawns on me what the snow bees are: bits of Silverbirch. Those things gave me the scars that ruined my appearance.
Heat sears my skin. I yelp and drop the tinder.
“No, no, no.” I stick the torch directly into the sputtering flame and pray.
The fabric ignites in a burst of flame. I hold it up with a ragged, triumphant exhale. The ogre stumbles to a halt,throwing its massive arms over its face and rearing away. It could put out my flimsy flame with one stomp. Fortunately for me, it doesn’t appear to know that.
“Get out of here,” I tell it, waving the stick. “Go. Be gone.”
The ogre lumbers away into the still-shrieking trees. I snatch up the broken sapling and add it to my makeshift torch.
Payback for my scars.
Warily, I venture deeper into the cave. Ice gives way to stone. The temperature warms, but I don’t dare remove the cloak. My shoulders ache from carrying the pack. I keep shifting it from one side to the other, until both hurt.
The branches burn down until the heat warms, then roasts, my hands. I switch that back and forth, too, and keep walking with my heart hammering like a drum. This can’t be the end. Not yet. I will not die now, when I’m so close to finding him.
I didn’t die from the wolves.
I escaped from the River Witch.
I didn’t die when I was attacked by sentient snowflakes commanded by a bitter fae queen.
I didn’t die when Kai was cruel to me in front of the entire castle, unless you mean dying inside.
I survived all these things, and I will survive this, too. I’m stronger than I ever believed.
The torch singes my hand. I drop it with a hiss of pain. The flame sputters out, leaving me in darkness.
One tear sneaks past the barrier of my eyelids, then another. My nose drips. I wipe it away. I might finally have met a challenge I can’t conquer.
There’s no turning back. I’d never make it out of the Silverbirch forest alive.
“For Kai,” I whisper, running my fingertips blindly along the walls to feel my way forward in total darkness. I shuffle along in this fashion for what feels like eons. Then my foot catches andI go sprawling against a hard, flat, cold surface. Casting about, I find what feels like a handle.
A door?
“Let me in!” I shout, pounding my fist against it. “Please. Help me. Open?—”
I fall back as it moves, stumbling off the step as a rectangle of light appears, framing a man’s broad shoulders.
“There’s no need to shout, Gwen.”
“Kai?”
If I had hoped that two years with the Ice Queen had changed him, I didn’t mean it like this. His eye is entirely silver now, his jaw sharper and his body harder than ever. His skin is strangely pale, in sharp contrast with his dark hair.
“The queen has been waiting for you.” He throws open the door and gestures mockingly. “So have I.”
I gulp and step foot inside the Ice Palace wondering why I ever left Montrace in the first place, for the Kai I knew and loved is truly gone. In his place is a cold-eyed stranger.
Chapter 14
“This iswhere you’ve been living all this time?”
I can’t deny the Ice Palace is grand with its sparkling chandeliers and icy parquet floors. I also can’t deny the way I’m shivering. This place is freezing, yet Kai seems unaffected.
