“We’re losing,” I say quietly. “The kingdom… I can’t save it.”
“As long as the people are alive behind their frozen forms we can come back and help,” Ban argues, holding out a hand to me. With his other hand, he uses the ice to freeze more of the Flowerborne, like I did. There are just somany.“But, yes, their numbers are too great.”
Nodding, I slide against his back again and eye Zarev and Odette. She’s trying to strike the approaching Flowerborne with a short blade. He’s using shadow magic against Kael, but the other Icebound spirit seems to keep deflecting.
We’ve already verified there is a ship in port. Looking back toward the palace itself, more Flowerborne are encroaching on the building. Surely, if they are here, others are further into the kingdom.
“We’re trapped,” I cry, breathless as reality hits me. I press a hand to my chest, deflecting an approaching Flowerborne with my other arm. We can keep fighting, but if the Icebound can get to us in the shadows, we’re truly doomed.
“No we’re not,” Ban says, groaning. “We can go up the mountain.”
He slices through another Flowerborne with his shadows, and I spot two more Icebound approaching Zarev from my peripheral vision. I stomp my foot into the ground, freezing a small barrier around the four of us to give us a moment to catch our breath. “That’s just going to trap us! These mountains aren’t like the North Mountain. This is the end of the range. They taper off into the cliffs and the stream that divides the Frostlands from, well,Wonderland.”
“I know where the cliffs go,” Ban hisses, glancing toward Zarev. “If we move quickly through the darkness, the shadows can let us move through the sky. We’ll work it out. Zarev! Let’s go!”
“Go where?” he calls, stabbing forward with his scythe when my ice wall cracks. He blocks Odette, who doesn’t have the same reach he does with her smaller blade, and cuts through one of the Flowerborne.
“Across the pass!” Ban yells, grabbing me again. My hands begin to tremble, and I realize it’s from the overuse of my magic. I haven’t paced myself since my fight with Mother. “We’re going to hop across it into the Butterfly Garden!”
Chapter 31 Ban
We escape the Flowerborne, dragging the girls away from the masses before the Icebound can track us. They all have the same gaping eyes and black teeth as Nyra and seem to be able to sense us, even though they can’t see much of anything this way. There are more of them than I realized, and Kael is still walking when we shadow hop away from the meadow.
Nyra’s frozen body is still lying on the ground, but it keeps twitching beneath the ice. It’s as though these twisted Icebound can’t die.
Zarev follows me to the mountains on the other side of the valley. From here, the castle is behind us, and the cliffs do not reach as close to the sky as they do further inland. I know, from experience, that if we crest the mountains, we’ll be able to see the Butterfly Garden on the other side. It’s a treacherous journey, one I rarely make when I can skirt around and check for spirits through Icicle Pass and the villages. Now, we don’t seem to have any other options.
Going through the palace and back into the endless Frostlands will extend our journey by at least a week. That’s extra time for the madness that Davina dropped in the palace to spread and find us.
And it’s longer for Neve to second-guess her decision to leave. We’re fighting a losing battle right now, struggling to win as four against a blockade.
When we’re safely out of the thick of things, disappearing into the snowy banks and out of the line of sight of the docks, I slip out of the shadows, and Zarev follows. I can already feel the pull of my magic from using it so much, especially with a tag-along rider. We need to save our magic for the next part.
Zarev all but bounces up, glaring at me. “Tell me again why we are coming this way?”
Neve rests against my side, also glaring up at me. “This isn’t the way out. We have to go back past the palace–”
“It’s thesafeway out for us,” I say, glancing toward Zarev. He’s looking at me like I’ve lost my mind. “We’ll shadow hop across the pass.”
“You mean the giant gorge that kills people,” Zarev clarifies, crossing his arms. Odette leans against the side of the mountain near him, eyes widening as we speak. “The chasm that killed you?”
“I fell off the pass,” I clarify. “This is different. I didn’t have shadow magic before.”
“Yeah, it lets ushop.” Zarev holds up his hand, shadows drifting from his fingertips. “From shadow to shadow. This might work at night, but it’s the middle of the day, and those clouds above us? They aren’t very dark. We’re going to fall down the cliffs.”
“I might be able to fly us partway,” Odette offers.
I shake my head. “Your wings will ice up here before we get far.” Looking toward Zarev, I can feel the fight building within him. “The mountains on this side are at a higher elevation than the other side of the chasm. We’ll end up in the Red Woods and have to travel down to the Butterfly Garden to find Legs. But it can be done. Gravity is on our side.”
“Gravity will kill us,” he argues.
“Didn’t you go over the wall to get into Tressa?” I reason. “It’s the same idea.”
“Tressa hadgroundon both sides.” Zarev sweeps his hand toward the mountainside and the pass beyond. “This is a chasm between lands. There’s a frozen lake at the bottom, isn’t there? And probably skeletons.”
“The skeletons are usually closer to Icicle Pass,” I argue.
“The point is,” he hisses, “it’s a long way to go. What’s the distance across?”
