Wordlessly, I moved to walk past her, but she held out a single hand to stop me. Lumen let out a low growl that she ignored, instead, reaching down to unclasp the midnight sheath at her thigh—the one that held the twin dagger to the blade I had given Wynnie.
The gesture froze me as surely as her mana could.
She offered me the sheathed weapon hilt-first, her silver-carved ring glinting in the low light.
“You were right, and you were wrong,” she said quietly.
Tears burned behind my eyes, unbidden and unwanted, as grief twisted in my chest, not just for what awaited in the world outside, but also for what had already been lost.
The time I had lost with her, the father who had died a broken shell of a person, the horrors my sister had endured, the battle that had orphaned my husband.
For the child I had once been—the one who thought family meant safety.
And for the truth that my mother, in all her contradictions, was preparing me to walk toward the very thing she had spent her life trying to shield me from.
“You are them,” she said, meeting my eyes with a depth that pinned me in place. “But you’re us, too.”
The words hit harder than any blade. I took the weapon with fingers that trembled despite my effort to steel them, hastily buckling the sheath around my thigh before I turned to go.
My mother’s arms twitched. Did she want to hug me? To tackle me to the ground and stop me?
Either way, it hardly mattered now. She seemed to sense the same thing because she backed away into Draven’s rooms, drinking in the sight of me like it was the last time she could. I didn’t try to stop her, or ask where she was going, because for all her misguided words, she had been right about one thing.
We had lost the luxury of time, if we’d ever even had it at all.
Chapter 45
Draven
Islammed the barrier with everything I had, the blow echoing like distant thunder.
Ice slammed outward from my palms, Winter answering my call in a violent surge that would have shattered stone and bone alike. Instead, it rebounded, the force snapping back into me and driving me a half step backward.
The wall held. It shimmered with faint traces of golden mana, Thornhart wardcraft that was infuriatingly well made. My hatred for the Unseelie had never before extended to Thornharts. They had never been my enemies.
And yet here I was, caged within my own kingdom by shields strong enough to turn aside Winter itself.
I prowled the perimeter of the domed barrier. It spanned the width of the main road and just a little beyond. Blue flames from the burning buildings licked against the golden walls, but they didn’t breach them.
My breath fogged thick and fast, my fingers flexing as frost crawled instinctively along my knuckles.
The image Everly had shown me still burned behind my eyes. Unseelie banners snapping in the storm. Not just Skaldwingshovering above the walls, but Lupines who held the front lines, their teeth bared in anticipation, as if they had been starved for a fight like this.
Shadeclaws who lurked at the back, like they were waiting to see which way the blood would spill.
And the Thornharts who held the center of the frost-forsaken-formation, antlers lifted, their expressions solemn. They were prepared to fight, but there was clearly no hunger in it. Just a grim resolve.
Confusion gave way to anger as I stared the ones in front of me down. I needed to get back to Everly. To find her shards-damned sister, and face down the armies standing at my gates.
“I have no fight with you,” I growled, my voice carrying across the snow. “So why in the hells are you here?”
Even as I said it, I pictured the answer on a report shoved my way by my Lord General. An entire herd dead. Kill on sight.
One of the Thornharts stepped forward.
He moved with the deliberate calm of someone who did not need to prove his strength. Broad antlers swept back from his brow, their weathered tines traced with the faint golden sheen of his mana.
“I am Halwyr Oakbound,” he said, voice deep and steady, carrying easily through the storm. “Grovewarden of the Thornharts.”
