My breath puffed out in white clouds as we reached the final corridor.
Slade lifted a hand, shadows coiling.
“No going back after this,” Thorne said quietly.
But I’d long since passed the point of no return. For me, that day had come and gone seven years ago, when I’d stood on a Summer rooftop and watched everyone I loved be taken away from me.
I pressed my hand to the door. My heart hammered, my magic stirred restlessly, and the mark at my throat pulsed like it recognized its enemy beyond the threshold.
“Ready?” I whispered.
Two nods.
I pushed the door open.
The throne room blazed with light.
Goldleaf banners hung from the vaulted ceiling, though frost crawled along their edges. Dozens of fae lined the aisles in formal finery, whispering amongst themselves. At the far end,beneath a massive autumn-gold arch, with the Harvest Throne gleaming behind them, Heliconia stood with Callan.
She was dressed in winter-white, a gown that shimmered, not with silk but with frost. Her hair spilled in sleek dark waves, glittering with ice shards. A crown of frozen thorns rested atop her head.
Callan stood beside her in green and gold, coat immaculate, expression carved from stone. When his eyes met mine across the room, the tension in his shoulders loosened—not relief, not fear.
Acceptance.
He nodded, almost imperceptibly.
Now.
I threw my hood back and stepped into the aisle.
Gasps rippled across the room.
Heliconia’s gaze snapped toward us.
The temperature plummeted.
“Ah,” she said, glancing at Callan, her voice smooth as a blade through fresh snow. “You brought me a wedding present. Two potent vessels to drain.”
The room gasped and murmured.
My heart thundered at the weight of this moment. Facing her again after all this time. My fingers itched to toss Hel’s flame at her smug face.
“It’s over, Heliconia.”
Her attention whipped to me. “You look tired, child. Expending more power than you know how to wield must take quite a toll.”
“I’m standing,” I said. “That’s more than your army can say.”
A flicker of annoyance crossed her face—gone in an instant. “Lucky for me, I have many more legions of soldiers just like that one tucked away in my Winter court.”
I blinked, unable to stop the weight of her words fromsettling around my shoulders.Many more legions. Of course she did. What we’d done would be a drop in the bucket. A mild inconvenience.
The only way to truly stop her was to end her now, today.
I called on my Makarios, letting that familiar hunger rise inside me until I felt it tugging at the life force energy of everyone in this room. But there was only one whose life I wanted to drain away. I found the thread that led to Heliconia and sipped from it.
Power slammed into me, so potent that my head swam and my knees threatened to buckle.
