A nearby hillside collapsed, dragging down the historic building upon it and exposing a cliff at the edge of the grove—if it could still be called a grove. Only the alban tree remained, the others fallen, charred or splintered down to mangled stumps. Whatever structures once stood in their vicinity had crumbled. Several burned.
It seemed today Ellery Caldwell would destroy every home she’d ever had.
Domenic, too, swayed with horror as he took in the decimation around them. He panted, his shirt stained with soot, the embers of his eyes aglow as—
Something snapped around her wrists and wrenched her backward. Ellery shrieked as white branches seized her, tethering around her ankles, her stomach, her mouth, so forceful that Iskarius slipped from her grip. The alban tree dragged her backward, and she slammed into it, gasping as the air was knocked from her lungs.
She thrashed, whimpering. But she couldn’t free herself. Iskarius lay close, so close. But she couldn’t reach it.
The earth tremored as footsteps strode toward her.
The storm shuddered as Ellery hitched her breath.
Slowly, fearfully, she looked up to the boy she loved, aiming Valmordion at her heart.
LIVDOMENICWINTER
Domenic nearly retched at the sight of her: her countless wounds, her limbs pinned down in the tree’s rigid embrace, her eyes wide with terror as they met his own.
He had never felt less like a hero.
Yet as Domenic tried to steady his trembling hand, an idea bloomed in his chest. He couldn’t tell if it was real or only a stupid, desperate want.
You know better than to trust yourself,he scolded.
But it was too late. The idea took root before he could prune it, and suddenly it was sprouting, blossoming, the very thing that had always cursed him, that he inflicted on everyone around him.
Hope.
From the start, their love had been wrong, yet it had never once felt that way. And even if their story hadn’t followed the original route destiny intended, Domenic could not fathom any path that could’ve brought him here, to the very act he was meant for, had Ellery not walked beside him on it.
So what power did fate truly hold if any path could diverge from it at all?
And thus, as their perfect tragedy came to its awful end, Domenic Barrow hesitated.
LVELLERY
WINTER
Ellery Caldwell didn’t.
While she and Domenic stared at each other, subtly, Ellery flattened her palm against the alban that held her prisoner. Within it, Summer’s magic pulsed, fervent and warm, but she thought of what she’d done at the Barren, and she poured her magic into the wood, and she claimed the tree for Winter.
The golden leaves above withered.
The branches binding Ellery released their hold.
The roots ruptured from the broken earth, and while Domenic flailed back, Ellery lunged forward.
She snatched Iskarius. She raised it to his heart.
Domenic’s expression went stricken, and as he righted himself, he sputtered, “El—”
She cast her spell.
Ice burst across his chest, radiating outward, and immediately, whatever words he meant to say broke into a scream. It clawed a violent path across his skin. Its shards punctured through his shirt, making crimson seep and spread through the white fabric. It encased his hands, his face. Until the lips that had once pressed against hers turned purple. Until the light of his shadow vanished. Until her sense of him dimmed, dimmed, to the barest flicker of a flame.
Ellery sobbed through every moment of it. No matter how much she’d longed to believe otherwise, there was no love stronger than destiny. There was no fate colder than this.
