We have to get out.
I grab Colden under the arms and drag him closer to Nephele. Dropping to my knees, I clasp both their hands, keeping my eyes on the prince.
He starts my way, and I pray that I can do this, though I don’t even know whatthisis.
Before I can do anything, however, the prince bursts into a red cloud and reappears before my eyes. He falls on me like a mountain lion on a doe, straddling me.
Red, riotous shadows seethe from him. They stretch and crawl and creep toward Colden and Nephele, bloody, nebulous rivers flowing across cracked earth.
In an instant, those same shadows writhe around my sister and her king, trying to tear them from my grip again, but I hold fast. I strain and pull, gritting my teeth as I cling to their hands.
The tether around my heart tightens—Alexus, working to bring us back home.
This time, I will not let go.
“Such a disappointment.” The prince raises the God Knife oncemore. “I tried to spare you. You could’ve been of such great use to me. Now I must leave you in the Shadow World while I head for the Summerlands so I can bring this empire to its knees.”
The prince leans close and brushes his decaying lips against my cheek. “At least your soul will restore me. I bet it tastes like smoke and starlight.”
I close my eyes. I refuse to witness the murderous look that must shine in his dead eyes as he rears back. I only feel Alexus—his tether and our runes pulling me even as the icy God Knife buries to the hilt between my breasts, just like Vexx did to Alexus.
Gasping, I snap my eyes open. The pain is unfathomable, a bright, burning thing tearing through me, melting the bones around my heart.
I’m dying. I must be.
But it isn’t the knife. The knife isn’t even there. I’m surrounded by darkness, thick as ink. The only light comes from the burning lines and grooves of the rune on my chest. The sigil burrows into me, spreading heat through my veins, its power claiming me.
I’m in an in-between place, the void between two worlds. Alexus marked me, and now he’s summoning me, his voice a whisper in the back of my mind. Colden and Nephele aren’t with me, but I can still feel them at the edge of my grasp.
“Just let me go!” Colden demands. “Save Nephele! This is the only way!”
Though he sounds a million miles away, they’re so close, their hands in mine. I refuse to let go. I’m strong enough. I can do this!
But I’m not given the chance.
The fingers clutched in my left hand, fingers I know belong to the King of the Northlands, pry loose from my grip.
The second he’s gone, the moment I feel him sucked away, I cry out for him in my mind. There is no victory without sacrifice, but this isn’t how the story was supposed to end. I wasn’t supposed to fail. The prince wasn’t supposed to win. The Frost King wasn’t supposed to be willing to give all—for us.
For me. For my sister. For his people.
On a sob, I grab the other hand still clenched in my grasp—Nephele. With all that I am, I heave and heave until I’m no longer alone in the dark.
I cling to my sister, both of us crying and shivering in this abyss. Closing my eyes, I focus on Alexus’s prayers, on his tender voice and the promise of his rune.
And let him guide me back to the light.
My magick hasn’t flowed freely in three hundred years. Tonight, only a thin thread of power trickles through my blood, but it’s enough.
And it feels extraordinary. Humming in my veins. Coming alive in my bones. One day, when it finally wakes completely, even the mountains will know.
Raina lies in my arms. The prince almost took her from me, but a clever sorcerer marks what’s his. Raina Bloodgood now bears my rune.
My power.
My seal.
My name.
