This ended. Here. Now.
She turned on Jonas, hevrít in hand. It was just Silla and Jonas on snowy terrain, and he had the mountain at his back. She rushed at Jonas with speed he did not expect. Stumbling backward, Jonas crashed into a sheer wall of black basalt. A low rumble sounded from far above, but Silla was driving into Jonas, channeling the anger and bitterness into blow after blow after blow. The moves she’d practiced each morning with Rey came to her like second nature. But Jonas was larger, far stronger, and had years of experience on her. And once the advantage of surprise had faded, Silla was quickly outmatched.
Thunder cracked overhead, diverting her attention for the barest of moments. But Jonas did not hesitate—with a swipe of his blade, he sent her sword flying, leaving Silla twisting and ducking, stumbling back in a clumsy retreat. Her foot caught on a stone, and she tumbled to the ground.
“And how sweet this vengeance shall taste,” snarled Jonas, advancing on her. “Sweeter still knowing that by ending your life, I will wipe the black stain from my family’s name and earn back our lands.”
The thunder grew louder, but it did not break—this sound was ceaseless and growing with each passing heartbeat.
“This is no way to restore honor to your family’s name,” Silla bit out. “You bring more shame upon them than your father ever did.”
With a scream of rage, Jonas charged at her. But the clamorous sound reached its crescendo, rattling the ground and clattering Silla’s teeth.
Jonas paused. Whirled. But it was too late.
A billowing cloud of white devoured the mountain peak, the trees, the very sky above. Hungry and destructive and unstoppable, it consumed them, too. The powder surrounded them, and Silla choked on her scream as snow pelted her face, her body. And then it slammed into her—a wall of frigid, smothering pressure that jostled her as though she were made of straw.
And at last, there was only blackness.
Chapter Eighty-Three
SUNNAVÍK
The noise was endless, a thing with no beginning and no end. Saga could not think, could not move, could only hold on to herself and try to survive. A sob clawed up her throat, and she bent over the feasting table, cradling her head in her hands.
She tried desperately to think—she needed to escape. But no thought could penetrate through the swamping, all-consuming sound.Exits, she tried.The…the eastern exit.But it was on the farthest side of the room, through all those people, with all those thoughts, pushing, shoving, battering her skull.
Trapped. She was trapped. No escape. No exit.
Panic squeezed around her, trapping the air in her chest. Die, she would die here, surrounded by people who’d betrayed and murdered her family…
Saga?
The voice was thin amongst the inundating thoughts, but there was something about it that gave her pause. A strand of gold amid a weaving line of pure black.
Saga, come to me.
The voice rang true and clear like a bell. She recognized it then—Eisa here, somehow, amid this night of nightmares. A light for her to follow. And she followed the sound, moving deeper into her consciousness, the feasting hall grew more and more distant. It was black all around her, and yet Saga had always yearned for the shadows. Here, it was peaceful. Restful.
Saga breathed in. Exhaled slowly.
She straightened her spine and examined the space. In the absolute blackness, a distant glow grew larger and brighter with every heartbeat. And as it grew, so, too, did a silhouette, the lines slowly growing more defined. A woman, her hair a tangle of wild curls.
“Saga!” exclaimed the woman, lunging at her and wrapping Saga in a tight embrace.
Saga hugged the woman back, a wintery taste of frost and evergreens tickling the back of her tongue. The scent wafting from her curly hair wrapped around Saga even tighter than her embrace. It smelled of the gardens on a summer night when they’d fled from their nursemaid for one last frolic. It smelled of the blankets they’d curled under as Mother told them stories by candlelight. It smelled of sweet rolls and róa and unconditional love.
“It’s you,” Saga whispered, squeezing Eisa tighter. “It’s really you.”
Her little sister, whom she’d mourned for seventeen years. Saga had never dared hope for this—had never truly let herself believe. But this was real.Shewas real.
Drawing back, Saga studied Eisa’s face in the brightening glow—large brown eyes framed with thick lashes, a smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose. She traced the crescent-shaped scar at the corner of her sister’s eye.
“Eisa,” she whispered. “How are you here?”
Eisa’s brows furrowed, a line forming between them. “I…I do not know. How areyouhere, Saga?”
“I…retreated into my mind,” said Saga. “My Sense has lost all control. My shields, I cannot weave them back together…”
