But he isn’t there. Neither is Vexx.
I spin around, scanning the wood, searching.
Vexx is escaping into the forest. I start to chase him, but a surge of hot wind blasts down the path.
Alexus throws his arm up and leans over me, a shield against the heat, and the Witch Walker magick I’d felt so abundantly vanishes, their song falling silent.
Alexus and I straighten, and I turn, as though my mind knows exactly where I need to look to find the man I’d searched formoments before.
My gaze comes to rest on the Prince of the East’s still-scarred face. He stands on the eastern side of the path, twenty feet from the slaughter, near the tent where I saw inside his disgusting soul.
Nephele is with him, on her knees, the God Knife’s black edge laid across the pale column of her throat.
Wherever the prince was before, watching me from beyond, he is not there now. Now, he’s here, like he stepped from one world to another.
From invisible to visible.
Alexus, Rhonin, Colden, and Hel stare with eyes wide—at me, at one another, at the prince, at Nephele. The scene is as quiet as midnight in the vale midwinter, save for the rushing of our breaths.
The last ash from the crows settles over the wood, coloring the white world gray. Cinders crumble to dust in my hair, on my skin, on my clothes, the death scent heavy in my lungs. Damp forest, pungent rot, and burnt feathers.
But there’s more. New scents. New deaths.
The Witch Walkers are gone. The snow where they stood is gone, too, replaced by a dark stain of ash that trails along the fringe of the wood, then fades.
“Raina Bloodgood,” the prince says. “Did you really think that you could take from me sobrazenly and not pay?”
It takes a moment for his meaning to sink in. He isn’t talking about Nephele.
That hot wind. Summerlander magick.
He destroyed the Witch Walkers. Burned them to ash the way I burned his crows.
“This needs to be between us,” Colden shouts. “Leave everyone else out of it.”
He and the prince hold one another’s gazes, and for a long moment, the air is tight with a strange, unbridled tension between them.
But then the prince smiles. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Even after all this time? For things to bejust between us?”
Colden shakes his head, and his expression hardens.
He lifts his hatchet. Aims.
The princetsks,his hand tightly wound in Nephele’s hair. “Now that would be very foolish, especially for aking.” He trails the tip of the bone blade up the side of my sister’s face to her temple and angles it just right for penetration. “Unless youwantthis talented witch of yours to make her way to the Shadow World sooner rather than later.”
He means it. His shadows coil around Nephele, binding her hands, closing over her mouth. I’d wondered why he didn’t just ride in on his red cloud and take Colden from Winterhold instead of going to the trouble of sneaking an army across the Northlands.
But now I think I know why. The prince must be close to what he wants if he means to take it. It’s why he couldn’t just find me in the wood and steal the knife. His magick is not so simple as sifting across the world and arriving wherever he wishes. Other than watching him move through shadows here in the wood, I’ve only ever seen him vanish. All magick has limitations, and I have to wonder if this is his.
It must be, and that leaves me with the worry that if the prince decides to leave us, he’ll take Nephele with him—and she won’t be able to fight.
Not only has he silenced her voice, but he’s also subduing her power. Her witch’s marks are gone.
“What do you want?”I sign in a flurry, too scared to move toward him but knowing I need to maintain some semblance of control over the situation.
Alexus stands beside me, rigid and on guard, every thick muscle in his torso tensing. “She asked,What do you want?”
Smiling like a fiend, the prince answers. “Well, for starters, I wantyou, Raina Bloodgood. I didn’t at first, but now, as we’ve discussed, you have use. I also want Neri sent back to the Shadow World, but someone made a wicked deal with a wicked wolf to make sure that can’t happen. Not easily, anyway.” He gives Alexus a sharp glare. “And you did it all because you wanted to save this little witch from Silver Hollow who’s caught your ancient eye. You set a god free for a woman you hardly know. I’m certain your people will be so thankful.”
