Chapter 41
Draven
“Ithink the emissary is on to something,” Eryx began without preamble as soon as Soren and I stepped into the war room.
The Autumn spy didn’t always accompany me, but Eryx had come to trust him incrementally more since he verified some of the reports Soren had passed along.
Soren raised his eyebrows. “Naturally, but about what.”
The Lord General braced both hands on the table, his shoulders bowing beneath whatever information he was about to share.
“I wasn’t going to bring this to you until I had full confirmation,” he said, voice stripped of its usual steadiness. “But I received these reports a little under an hour ago.”
He slid a stack of parchment toward us. The pages were damp around the edges, ink blurred where snow had melted.
“Two outposts,” he said, “are confirmed to be down… With no survivors.”
A muscle ticked in my jaw. “Where?”
Eryx unfurled a larger map, flattening it with both palms before placing two markers—one southeast near Silverfin Lakes, another to the west in Crystalvale Forest.
Neither were close. Not remotely.
Frostbeasts had been striking at random across the realm for months. So on the surface, it could have been coincidence. But something in my gut twisted sharply, and I already knew that wouldn’t be the case.
Eryx dropped four more markers onto the map—each one landing with a soft, damning tap.
Six in total. Scattered. Uneven. Unrelated.
Until they weren’t.
“I’ve heard from every other outpost,” Eryx said tightly. “Except these.”
Soren leaned in, eyes narrowing. “That’s?—”
“A ring,” I finished.
Eryx nodded grimly. “A perfect one. If these four are down—or compromised—the outposts form a circle around the palace. A wide one, yes. But deliberate.”
Cold seeped through my skin, frost blooming in splintering veins across the floor. Someone, or something, had drawn a perfect circle around the heart of my Court.
Like a noose.
And the Winter Palace stood at its center with the rope already cinched tight.
Soren swallowed, voice low. “Frostbeasts don’t strategize like this. They’re instinctive.”
“They used to be,” Eryx replied. “But we’ve seen how much they’ve changed. Pack behavior. Coordinated strikes. Moving in daylight. Setting traps.”
My pulse hammered through my veins. Images flashed through my mind. Tharnoks swarming. Mirrorbanes huntingmidday. And the Korythid—watchful, calculating, almost… curious. Learning from us. Toying with us.
Then another image hit harder still.
The ruins of Noerwyn’s estate. The bodies. The monstrous ambush.
And the way the frostbeasts had been drawn there—not by instinct, but by bait. By design.
“They’re moving with purpose,” I said, voice cold. “Too much purpose.”
