“There’s no way our line possesses shadow magic!” Thyra growled. “Your kind has been gone for four thousand turns!”
“Then why do you sense the shadows inside you? Churning? Begging to be released?” The fae in the tree laughed. “Sassa banished my people and trapped me, yes, butIsurvived, and I found the kernel of dormant magic inside you. I activated it.”
“You changed us!” Neve gasped.
“On the contrary, I only enhanced what youalready were. Gave you a gift—a strength—which you would have never been able to access without my touch. And I did not harm you by doing so, just as I promised.”
The sister’s eyes met, and the same anger blazing in their gazes simmered inside me. This Shadow Fae had touched my mateinside. He’d felt something she had not known existed. He’d changed her without consent.
A low growl built in my throat, to which the fae looked up. A slow, cunning smile formed on his face.
“You think you can harm me, Warrior Bear? That you can strike your sword against this tree, and I’ll fall?” He laughed derisively. “Stab this Drassil with that sword of yours, stab ita thousand times, and nothing will happen to me. In fact, you’ll be doing me a great favor. Should this tree die by anything but remarkable magic, I will simply be moved toanother Drassil, somewhere deeper in Winter’s Realm. You will have achieved nothing, other than having to live with injuring one of your holy trees.”
I swallowed, believing him.Whoever put him there was clearly powerful and ingenious. No doubt they would have had a backup plan and this sounded like a good one to keep the king in place. But what exactly did he mean by a remarkable magic?
“Besides, if I am somehow harmed, who will teach the royal twins of their powers?” the Shadow Fae asked smoothly. “There’s no one better to instruct them than their own blood.”
The king spread his hands wide, an odd gesture for a male in a tree, but he made it appear regal. “Only I can teach these two, my heirs in this world, of their true potential. Only I can love them unconditionally. Release me from this prison, and you’ll be greater than you could have ever imagined.”
Rage bubbled over. “I’ll love Neve, no matter her magic.”
“As I will Thyra,” Thantrel spat.
Thyra jerked and spared Thantrel a soft look that I’d never seen on her face before. Then she turned, her ice-blue gaze back, and on the tree. “We do not accept. We’re here only to claim the Ice Scepter. If you wish to help us—if youlove us unconditionally as you said—you’ll give us that freely.”
Another sinister smile. “I thought you might request that. Alas, you’re too late. Another of my blood came first. He proved far more amenable, but he did not have thepower nor the tools to release me from my prison. He might still gather strength, but I was not happy to wait and I did not need to. I knew that once he used the Scepter, once he put our plan in motion, you’d come. The trueborn blood of Sassa Falk would come.”
Burning skies, that could only be one person.
“It was King Magnus, wasn’t it?” Neve hissed.
The Shadow Fae smirked. “He knows what he must do with the Hallow, and he’s already begun his work. Luring you to Eygin was only the beginning.”
Thyra roared. “That monster used the Hallow against those fae! That’s why the cold deepened so quickly. Unnaturally.”
My stomach pitted at her words. At what the male who had raised me was capable of when the throne was on the line.
The Shadow King didn’t deny her accusation. Rather, he looked pleased.
Neve grabbed Thyra by the wrist and shuffled back a few steps. “Wedo notalign with you. We do not accept your so-called help. And we will definitely not free you. We can steal the Scepter from Magnus.”
The Shadow King sighed. “I worried it might come down to this. Particularly when I looked inside your hearts. They’re too stout. Too set on what the stories tell you is right. I was right to align with Magnus even if he could not free me.” He raised a hand, snapped his fingers. “Alas, I have waited many millennia. I can wait a few more days for freedom. After all, given the right incentive, anything can happen.”
That skittering noise I’d heard earlier rose, again from above. My heart sank as my chin lifted to the sky and understanding dawned.
Hundreds of ice spiders poured from the tunnels in the mountain’s rock. Some small, a few the size of horses, and most were in between. The spiders came in colors ranging from snow white to shadow black, all with hairy legs. The stench of copper and dirt and rotting flesh rolled off them and their eight legs waved in the air, pinchers clacking, their faces alit with hunger.
My magic extinguished as strands of silk shot toward us, driving home the horror of the situation.
The mere presence of ice spiders, just like the silk wrappings we’d worn at Valrun Castle, nullified magic. But this was far, far worse. More all-encompassing.
“Together!” Caelo shouted. “Weapons out. Neve and Thyra here!”
The Shadow King laughed again, a sound I hated with all my soul. “You can run. You can fight, but unless you do as I ask, you are never getting out of here alive.”
Chapter 46
NEVE
