Our gazes locked.
She’d accused me of not believing in her once before.
I wouldn’t make that same mistake again.
“Don’t die,” I said.
Her mouth curved; not quite a smile, too feral for that. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”
Then she turned back to the Frostwights and unleashed Hel.
In one hand, she swung her sword, its metal gleaming in the light of dawn. From her other hand, flame poured out in waves—onyx-black and inferno-hot, rolling up and down the slope, devouring Obsidian soldiers in its path.
Frostwights cracked and screamed. The air became a living furnace, heat slamming into my face even as I turned away.
Even as I ran.
The climb to the cave mouth felt like scaling the side of a nightmare. The slope was slick beneath my boots, patches ofice hidden under loose rock. I used my shadows to steady my footing, focusing every shred of attention I had on staying upright, on not dropping the fragile life I carried.
Two Withered soldiers pounded up the hill, breath rasping, faces drawn and determined. I recognized them from Slade’s hunting party. They bypassed the cave’s mouth, going higher still, and I knew they had their orders from Slade.
Get to Brist.
End him.
Whatever death he met today wouldn’t be merciful enough.
The cave mouth loomed ahead—a jagged crack in the cliffside, dark as a swallow of midnight. Obsidian soldiers swarmed it, each one knocked back by a Withered soldier’s sword.
As I got closer, Daegel appeared beside the opening, shadows up like a wall, deflecting a rain of ice shards that hammered down from somewhere below.
His eyes widened when he saw me, then again when he noticed what I carried. “The Aine?”
“Alive,” I said, staggering the last few steps. “For now. And Slade?”
“He’s gone back for the others,” he said. “Keres and Thorne among them.”
I turned off the fear that wanted to grip me, to distract me.
He reached for her. I hesitated a fraction of a second, then surrendered her into his arms. She looked even smaller there.
“Get her inside,” I ordered. “Take whatever soldiers we can spare and retreat. Somewhere they can’t reach with frost or fire.”
Daegel nodded, his usual sarcasm gone. “She’ll be safe with me.” His gaze flicked over my face. “You’re going back down.”
“Yes.”
He didn’t try to stop me. Just shifted Lesha’s weightgently, then jerked his chin at the Withered clustering near the entrance. “You heard him. We hold this tunnel, or we all die.”
They let out a battle cry, their swords swinging with renewed fervor.
As Daegel turned, Lesha’s eyes slit open, hazy and unfocused. Her cracked lips shaped a word that might have been Aurelia’s name.
I didn’t stay to hear it.
I spun back toward the hillside.
Flame rolled below us, painting the golden dawn in black and blue. Smoke rolled thick. Screams rose through it—Obsidian, Frostwight, maybe some of our own. Down below, the camp itself was beginning to burn—tents catching, supply wagons roaring, smoke clawing up toward the sunrise.
