“Are you sure, Reaper?” Her head tilts to one side, those dark voids making the movement even creepier. “Our Icebound souls were tied to the Queen. With her death, away our souls flew. Her army of the damned betrayed.”
“Army?” I ask, appalled. “My mother had no need to build an army, of all things.”
“Oh, sweet, naive Neve,” Nyra coos, holding her hands wide. “She wanted to be a force. Two queens, destroying the world together. A fate not meant to be.”
“You mean the Mad Queen,” Ban clarifies behind me. “She hoped to rule alongside Ronnie like best pals? She didn’t think anyone would contest that?”
“Silence, Reaper!” she screams. “Without my eyes, I’ve gotten to witness worlds anew. I can see you without needing eyes.”
I guess losing her sight means she can see us in the shadows, but I don’t risk asking her how that works. “Nyra, you are a spirit in truth. Look at what you’ve become. Aren’t spirits supposed to find rest? Whatever magic my mother gave you, it’s twisted beyond repair. I expected your soul to be set free with her passing. Yet you’re more of a monster than before.”
Nyra bares her teeth, which I’m disheartened to see have turned completely black, too. “It’s the price paid by a queen who stole magic to begin with.”
“Stole magic…”
“Are you saying Ronnie stole someone’s magic?” Ban asks, speaking up for the first time. “Her daughter’s, perhaps?”
A terrifying smile spreads across Nyra’s snowy face, the obsidian teeth truly making her look like a monster with those vacant eyes. “Her Royal Highness needed to be at her best. The price was the life of another. You ruined that, Reaper.”
Distantly, I notice Zarev and Odette fighting with Kael. There’s someone else, further off, that seems to be joining in, and more people in the distance.
Like the living dead, born of snow and magic, these beings are moving across the land like they have always belonged here. When I focus behind Nyra, I can see vine-like legs moving too, and more of the bizarre plant people appear in the distance.
What is happening to my kingdom?
Nyra’s words are slow to register when I’m surrounded by the rest of the chaos, so I miss what Ban says next. I keep staring at Nyra, trying to understand how everything got so twisted. “The price was a life. My mother was going to kill me to maintain her magic?”
Nyra begins laughing, her sinister cackle sending shivers down my spine. “You should have stayed asleep, Neve. We would all be better for it.”
Ban lashes out then, sending snow hurtling into Nyra. She hisses, but the strike doesn’t knock her over. My ice seems to do little to her, either, when I launch shards at her. The shadows do a little more damage, cutting through her snowy face when Ban strikes her.
Behind her, the plant people are rapidly moving toward us. Ban grips my arm, pivoting me at the same moment his back presses against mine, and it gives me a better view of Odette and Zarev. Ban’s voice carries over my shoulder toward the others. “Flowerborne incoming!”
“Aren’t they supposed tonotbe able to survive in the cold?” Zarev yells back. There’s another of the strange Icebound closer to him, and it appears shorter than the others.
“Worry about that later!” Ban yells. “How did you strike us out of the shadows, spirit?”
Nyra starts that bone-chilling laughter again, and I swear, I don’t even want to listen to her response when she can make a noise like that. “We are neither the dead nor the living. Spirits called back to fill bodies without a soul, too tarnished to ascend with the Icebound. Souls trapped in the snow.”
Ban must think her explanation is as bad as I do, because he sends shadows ripping through her again. She screams, and I spin away from him to send icicles out behind Nyra, freezing the things they call Flowerborne before they can get any closer.
There’s more now than there were in the library. Hundreds of beasts move across the frozen landscape, like enlarged versions of flowers that should only bloom once a season.
“Ten coins says the Mad Queen came to drop seeds!” Zarev screams.
“How do flowers grow in the damn snow?” Odette yells back.
I whirl around again, noticing more of the plants approaching along the crest of the mountains. There’s nothing out toward the sea, but scrambling through my head, the only place I can think of to dock is in Wonderland if we stole the ship. Or if one of them knows how to sail, maybe we could follow the current all the way around the Frostlands, if the water isn’t frozen, and eventually land in Swan Lake.
In my distraction, I miss Nyra jumping toward me. The shadows have partially split her snowy form apart, but she moves as though nothing can stop her. Her hand juts in my direction, aiming for my face, and I lean back in time to avoida fatal blow but not before she catches my face with the blade. Crying out, I grab her hand as tightly as I can and freeze it as we fall.
“You can’t stop us all, Ice Queen!”
She freezes over before I can keep striking her, Ban’s shoe coming down to crush her eyeless skull. I gasp and wrench my arm free from her frozen body, breaking off her hand in the process.
“There’s more coming,” Ban says, helping me stand. I press a hand to my cheek where she struck me; I think she used some kind of ice. There’s sticky warmth against my palm, and when I pull my hand back there’s blood on my hand. “We’re not going to win if they can fight us in the shadows, too.”
Turning, I look around the space. More Flowerborne are coming, and although there aren’t many, the Icebound have grown in numbers. Glacia didn’t mention them when we spoke, and I worry about what that means. There are probably a dozen of them, monsters of Death that I can’t seem to strike down. At least Ban’s shadows did some damage, but it’s not enough. Nyra is twitching on the ground; even crushing her head didn’t stop the spirit. Fighting back the nausea that threatens to rise at the scene, my shoulders drop.
