I refused to take Alize’s advice on principle. So, I threw myself forward into another ill-fated attempt. I got my hand around his wrist, but he dislodged me before I could apply enough pressure to dislodge his blade.
I landed hard on my elbow, the impact ricocheting through my bones.
“Your power is part of who you are. Why are you afraid to use it?”
Because I cannot control it!My mind screamed.
Isanara’s feet hit the ground, snow spraying across the dirt between me and Garrick. She’d heard what I said even if I hadn’t meant it for her.
I glared at Garrick. “We keep our own secrets.”
My eyes dared him to call me on those words and acknowledge his own hypocrisy.
“And that need to keep secrets will get you killed, and then me killed. And not only will we be dead, but whoever that woman was who you convinced not to enter the temple—she will most likely die too.”
I was less worried by the moment about controlling my power.
He knew my motivation for entering the temple. But he still had not trusted me with his. What were we doing here, really? We would not be together at all if not for the Lifebind between us. I’d attempted the Seven Gates to save Kyrelle and restore my place with my coven. Neither of those goals had anything to do with Garrick the Red.
“By all means, spend the little time we have left before the Devotion Gate digging around in your own insecurities.”
I did not think. I threw out a hand, spears of ice the size of my forearm flying through the air in a deadly attack centered at Garrick’s chest.
He dodged them with irritating ease.
“You wield the ice easily enough.”
“It isn’t ice,” I said through gritted teeth. Damn it all to the Dark God’s hell.
Garrick tipped his head to the side, a smirk tugging at his mouth. Despite his admonition about wasting time, he stared at me and waited.
“My active power is frost,” I admitted begrudgingly. “I can shape it as I need. I can soften it into snow or harden it into ice.” I’d give him that much in the interest of self-preservation. He did not need to know that my active power derived directly from the manner of my death.
“And those clever little rhymes you think you’re whispering?”
“Spells,” I seethed between my teeth.
He nodded, his eyes catching the light between the trees and sparkling. “Like the one you offered me at the Mercy Gate in exchange for my silence.” He cocked his head to the side. “Why don’t you cast a spell to kill the other supplicants and be done with it?”
“Why don’t you kill them with the bow you carry around but never use?”
Garrick’s face hardened. Too bad for him, I’d gotten better at reading his expressions. “I have my reasons.”
“So do I,” I bit back.
“You’re afraid to do it.”
Wrong. “I have killed plenty.” Truth.
“So have I.”
I didn’t doubt it.
If he had his reasons not to bring the other supplicants down in one fell swoop, so did I. Yes, I’d killed before. But only when my own survival depended upon it. I could whisper a spell that froze the blood in their veins. Without my coven to sustain me and bolster my power, the effort might very well kill me. Or sap me of the ability to use my active power, which was my most reliable weapon. I had to use my power judiciously. The frost would always come the easiest, and it was the gift that belonged solely to me, given by the Dark God himself.
But the uncertainty of my power was not the only thing that kept me from killing the other supplicants. It was my fickle human heart, still in my chest even if it refused to beat. It refused to die. It was perhaps the most stubborn part of myself.
“You can defend yourself without killing anyone,” Garrick interrupted.
