And as I poured my mana into the earth—every fragment of Winter, every coil of Wild shadow, every fierce breath of the Dragon—the world itself answered. The ground shuddered as the ley lines flickered and then roared to life.
And Winter, long broken and unbalanced, began to remember.
Chapter 53
Draven
Everly went to her knees.
For a heartbeat, I thought she’d fallen victim to a monster or the grief that rolled off of her in waves. But there was neither pain nor desolation as she placed her hands against the frozen earth, only unrelenting determination.
Then the ground answered her.
Power slammed outward from her hands in a force I felt in my bones before I understood it with my mind. The air buckled. Snow lifted in a widening ring, every flake suspended for a fraction of a second before being hurled away in a shockwave that tore across the battlefield.
Everly!I shouted, already moving.
The ground convulsed beneath our feet. Not cracking in panic, or splintering the way it did under monsters or war. Instead, it shifted, like a living thing stretching after a long confinement.
She had found the ley lines, and she was feeding them...
I felt it instantly. Recognized the same thrum of energy through our bond that I’d felt the very first time I’d tapped into them, too.
Only this time, they weren’t crying out. Instead, it was like they were sighing in relief.
The answering surge rolled through the land and up into my own mana, a deep, resonant pull that stitched through my lungs.
The battlefield froze. Fae on all sides stared at her, wide-eyed, weapons slack in their hands, mana fizzling out at their fists, as they registered the scale of what she was doing.
Everly let out a cry, her expression twisting as she poured even more into the earth. Shadows poured from her wings in thick, sinuous ribbons, threading through the blood-soaked snow and sinking into the ground alongside her frost.
The land drank more power than any one person should have. That was why fate had chosen her, the only Winter fae born in a millennium with the power of the Dragon.
The fissures that had split open for the advancing Korythids sealed again with crushing finality. Frozen stones and dirt folded in on itself. Ice and earth collided like closing jaws, pulverizing the frostbeasts mid-emergence.
The smaller ones shrieked as shadows wrapped around them and dragged them under, leaving the Seelie and Unseelie untouched as if the land itself knew the difference. Because it recognized them both.
Everly swayed.
No.The word ripped through our bond, fear slicing through my chest.No, no—Morta Mea, stop.
She didn’t hear me.
Her shoulders trembled as she pushed more of herself into the ground, her breaths coming in shallow, ragged pulls. Frost crept up her arms, veins glowing faintly beneath her skin as her mana burned through her faster than any mortal body was meant to endure.
“She’s given enough!” I roared, more to the world than anyone else.
The land did not agree.
It surged again in response, shadows snapping across the field in massive arcs that swallowed monsters whole. Screams tore through the air—high, keening sounds that set my teeth on edge.
I slammed into Everly from the side, wrapping her in my arms and severing the connection with brute force and will, pouring my own mana between her and the earth to break the circuit before it consumed her entirely.
Enough,I won’t lose you, too.
She gasped, blinking like she had surfaced from deep water, her body going slack against mine as the ground finally stilled.
For a breathless moment, there was nothing but the sound of screaming.
