“Wren.” Zephyrus ignores his brother. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.”
The West Wind appears out of place with his gold-stitched tunic, the burnished hue to his skin. For this is the North Wind’s realm. It is he who passes judgment on souls. He who calls down the wrath of cold. He whose word is law. He who has become most intimate with death.
“I will not tell you again,” Zephyrus says, drawing back the arrow farther. “Let Wren go.”
“And if I do not?” The king lifts his chin. “What will you do, Zephyrus?” he asks softly. “Kill me?”
“I’m not here to kill you, brother. I’m here to make you listen.”
The arrow cuts cleanly, a motion I can barely track with my mortal eyes. Vines sprout from its tip and explode in every direction, tunneling belowground and wrapping around the blackened tree husks. Then the air ruptures and I’m tossed backward by a force so mammoth it feels as though the earth itself is breaking underfoot.
I hit a snowbank, sinking deep into soft cold. A shrieking flurry veils the land, and no light or sound or force may penetrate it. My skin hums from the crackle of its force. I can almost see the air take shape. As if two invisible hands guide its current and its bend.
Something explodes to my right. I flatten myself against the ground as a branch whips overhead and plunges into the trunk of another tree, snapping it in half.
“Zephyrus!” roars the Frost King. “Zephyrus, enough!”
“Not until you give me the chance to explain myself,” his brother cries.
As I push to my knees, a gust hits my back, sending me flat on my face. It’s becoming difficult to breathe.
“I trusted you once,” the king spits. Frost blasts from his spearpoint. “It was my last mistake.”
Brother against brother, they rage, two ageless gods unleashed. The air screams. A nearby boulder cleaves in two. Unless I can find shelter, I will be the next thing to break.
I crawl toward the nearest tree, using its massive trunk to shield myself from the wind that tears and flays and shreds like teeth. My eyes water uncontrollably. Something cracks sharply, but the deluge is so thick I can’t see what it is.
A vague, dim shape catches my attention then. Somehow, Zephyrus has made his way to the upper boughs of the trees, leaping from branch to branch as though the punishing gales are nothing but a breeze. Vines and leaves sprout from where his feet touch the stripped bark. Moments later, frost consumes the bits of green.
The Frost King snaps his spear upward. Ice explodes from the tip, blasting shards of quicksilver toward Zephyrus, whose bow and arrow make a reappearance. Another arrow flies seconds before a wall of flowers materializes to create a blockade around his body. The ice embeds itself into the barrier.
I haul myself to my feet, using the tree for support, and push against the wall of ferocious air. Step by step, a stumble, a fall, another step, and again.
The king sends another blast of ice at Zephyrus, who vanishes in a tangle of vines, shouting, “I’m different now. Changed.”
“So you would have me believe.”
I clamp my hand around the Frost King’s arm. His eyes snap to mine, the blue so dazzling it physically hurts to look at him, as though I stare into the sun. My fingers twitch against his sleeve, then tighten. He studies the hand on his arm, a frown shadowing his mouth.
Movement draws my eye over his shoulder. A pair of vines rips a tree from its roots. A rush of earth-scented wind catches the tree and flings it across the clearing.
The world slows and darkens. Though Zephyrus had clearly aimedat his brother, the wild winds blow the tree off course. It will crush my skull, fragment my bones. But the end will be swift. A small mercy.
My eyes close.
Something splinters, and sound ruptures through the valley. There is thunder in the earth.
My eyes open. I stand facing the Frost King’s broad back. To my left lies the tree, as if the king had planted himself between me and the projectile before flinging it aside, sparing me a premature end.
Winds clash: warm and cold, life and death. They will destroy each other—and me—unless I give the Frost King what he wants. And what he wants is my compliance.
The Frost King lunges, slashing his spear in a brutal, downward cut. Roots burst from the ground in retaliation and roll like great waves toward the North Wind, who does not bow, does not kneel, does not flinch, does not fade.
The roots never reach him. All at once, they drop to the snow-strewn earth, limp and twitching. All is quiet. All is still.
The snow clears to reveal Zephyrus partially encased in ice, teeth bared, his arms and legs frozen in preparation for an attack. A single pick of ice hovers at his neck and sinks in, slowly.
