the unveiled truth of everything you are
is power that will rise from your own ruin
Long, stunned seconds of silence ticked by before Mayes demanded, “Where did you hear that?” Syarthis quivered in her hand.
“Something told me.” Ellery shivered again. “Something that wanted—n-no, itneededme to listen.”
Seong gaped. “Was that a prophecy piece?”
Ellery staggered backward. It was all too much: Julian burning in front of her, Syarthis’s tip at her temple, and the wand in her hand, an alban wand, aWinterwand. Suddenly each inhale felt as they had when she’d fought the winterghast, as though she were drowning, subsumed by a current too overwhelming to fight. Magic surged through countless tributaries within her, magic greater than anything she’d imagined.
Then it burst outward, into a spell.
Brutal cold exploded across the room in a shockwave. Ice shredded the curtains and speared into the paintings. It hardened across the floorboards and atop the record player, crushing the stylus. The other three magicians screamed as Ellery’s spell shattered their hasty shields. Frostbite blistered across their hands.
As Ellery tried to wrench back control of Iskarius, the door banged open. Councilor Peak rushed inside, wielding his wand, Targath. Its tip flared an ominous orange, like molten metal. Even from across the room, she smelled burning. His gaze ricocheted from Ellery to Seong to Mayes, then back to Ellery.
“Drop your wand!” Peak commanded.
Ellery struggled to pry her fingers from the hilt.
“Now!”
She forced her grip free and threw Iskarius down. It clattered to the floor. Its silver core extinguished.
“I’m sorry,” Ellery rasped. “I didn’t mean to hurt anyone, I swear.”
Without lowering Targath, Peak asked the others, “Are you all right?”
Ellery stared in horror at their injuries. Mayes and Seong both bore signs of frostbite, while Sharpe’s had progressed to frostmaul. Ice fused gruesomely with his engorged, bloodied skin.
“Mayes,” Sharpe snapped. “Get over here.”
Mayes held Syarthis against her wounds. “Hold on a sec. I need to heal myself first.”
Sharpe seethed and cradled his hand to his chest. Then he barked at Peak, “Why are you here? Why aren’t you with Barrow?”
“Our western team just called,” Peak answered. “We got a winterscurge forming outside Oldermere.”
Yet as the others gasped, Peak advanced toward Ellery. Ice crackled beneath his boots as her heartbeat ratcheted faster.
“Whatareyou?” he asked, with equal parts awe and terror.
But Ellery knew they’d already made up their minds.
Monster.
XIVDOMENICWINTER
“—But does he really have it in him, is the question,”spoke radio personality Floyd Wilder.“And it’s a question I think a lot of folks, myself included, have found themselves asking tonight.”
“Destiny wouldn’t have Chosen him if he didn’t,”political correspondent Amos Cheng pointed out.
“Sure, but just being Chosen isn’t a guarantee you’ll succeed. And as his classmates told us, they never expected Barrow to bond with Valmordion. Aloof? Lazy? He turned tail and bolted from the vigil, even! I mean, come on! Doyouthink that sounds like the best man for the job?”
Domenic stared with bloodshot eyes at the ceiling of his train car.
No,he thought.I don’t.
