Draven
Ihad never expected to face a Korythid again. And I had certainly never expected to go looking for one.
Nor did I even really know if it was possible. But between the years I’d spent tracking monsters through the snow, and this supposed skill my wife’s skathryn had, I hoped we’d be able to find… something.
And the plan was simple enough. Icewalk there. Send word of the location to one of our outposts to call in reinforcements if—when—we found the beast.
Ice cracked beneath our feet in a clean, crystalline spiral as Everly and I stepped out of the palace’s shadow and into open frost. The world blurred in the way it always did when I icewalked, the distance folding in on itself, the wind tearing past us in a wild roar.
Everly molded against me with quiet certainty, fitting into the curve of my arms as though we were pieces meant to lock into place. Traveling with her had become… easier. Natural in a way that unsettled me more than the beasts we were hunting.
She anticipated each shift of my momentum now, bracing before I moved, leaning when I needed balance, her breathbrushing the hollow of my throat like an anchor I didn’t know I relied on.
A part of me still warred with the decision to bring her on this hunt, to take her anywhere near danger. Instinct clawed at the back of my mind, urging me to keep her behind stone walls and ward stones and even my wolves, anywhere the rest of the world couldn’t touch her.
But the deeper truth, the one I no longer tried to deny to myself, at least, was that having her here eased something primal in me.
Ineededher close.
Close enough that I didn’t have to wonder if the next distant scream meant I’d already failed her. That I’d lost her, too.
And it wasn’t noble, or kingly. It was nothing but selfish instinct. A raw and territorial hunger that settled low and certain in my chest, one that was never sated unless she was close enough to touch.
And I sure as hells wasn’t going to apologize for it.
Not when the world was breaking around us, and she was the only thing that felt sure beneath my hands.
We landed near the top of the Frostmere ridge between the pine trees that framed the abandoned cabin. The pale logs were half swallowed by drifted snow, and there was no sign of the desecrated limbs or old blood that the monsters had left behind for us to find.
I thought back to the night Noerwyn and I came upon it all and recalled the eerie feeling of being watched. Being tested.
When I scanned the clearing just beyond the cabin, my gaze snagged on the gaping wound in the frozen earth. There were gouges in the rocks, the trees leveled and split wide by something far larger than a Tharnok or a Mirrorbane.
No, these marks were familiar, carved by a frostbeast more ancient and far more deadly. Sure enough, the closer I looked, the more I found evidence of inky black venom.
“Is that?” Everly asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
I gave her a single dip of my chin in answer, moving closer to examine it.
“It won’t be enough for Amias,” Everly added after a beat.
She bent down to scrape some of the venom into a vial, but it was old and crusted over with frost and dirt. I cursed under my breath, but I knew she was right.
Besides, it never would have been this simple.
A low rumbling sound echoed beneath our feet. Everly’s eyes widened in fear, and I didn’t hesitate before scooping her up and icewalking us several yards away.
The ground where we’d just been standing collapsed inward, stones crumbling and crashing inside the chasm. We waited for several stilted heartbeats before daring to move again.
There was no Korythid, just the fragile ground continuing to give way. Some of the stones knocked loose the blanket of snow suspended in midair. Or not in midair, but rather in a nearly invisible web.
Gleaming white bones sagged in a net of webbing that had been half-buried beneath the freshly fallen snow. Black streaks marred the ivory wherever venom had seeped through, and acidic fissures spread out along the bones like dead rivers.
Even the smaller beasts caught in the snare bore the same charred marks, their remains warped and brittle from the monster’s venom.
Everly studied the destruction with a low exhale. Finally she shook her head. “I don’t think that will be enough either,” she said. “We need to find a live specimen if we want to extract enough venom.”
I agreed, unsure if I was relieved it wasn’t close enough to target my wife, or just more furious that it had been here but also had slipped past our reach. “It’s moved on.”
