That would require control. I was not about to tell Garrick that the only times I felt some semblance of control were when I meditated with Tomin and when Garrick himself held my hand and met my frigid cold with his steady warmth.
I’d rather sleep on the ground for the rest of my immortal life.
So, I gave him a truth that cost me less. “There is a price to power. Without my coven, without Velora, I will fade like the land beneath our feet. The longer I am separated from them, the less power I will be able to access.”
Except…
That divot appeared between Garrick’s silvery brows. “You were just as powerful yesterday as you were a month ago.”
Except.
“You extinguished every flame in the temple before the Mercy Gate. You saved me by using your frost to make a path to safety. And yesterday, you would have frozen Alize from the inside out if she hadn’t managed to get out of your grip.” As he spoke, he moved closer, the intensity of his gaze building.
What he said was true. I’d noticed it but not thought about it. What did it matter, really? Maybe it was the Dark God bolstering my power long enough for me to lift Velora’s curse. Maybe Maura and the others had performed some sort of blood spell that worked even at a distance to keep my power strong while she sent me on this doomed quest.
There had to be a reason the coven mark still burned on my forehead, just as visceral as the Lifebind inked on the inside of my wrist.
Wingbeats sounded overhead as Isanara launched into the sky, gliding over our heads and circling around the barren trees, her small size giving her just enough room to maneuver.
My stomach pitched inside my gut.“Are you the reason my power is still strong? Are you giving me your lifeforce?”
She did not even pause her circling.“What a ridiculous question. Of course not.”
“But then… why would you choose me? If I do not make it through the Seven Gates and return to my coven, my power will fade and I will eventually die. Familiars do not choose weak witches.”
“Strength takes many forms,”she said, her voice taking on that strange gravity that made her seem older than she was. A hundred years might be a short time for a dragon, but for mortals it was more than a lifetime, I reminded myself. Isanara had not shared what the first hundred years of her life in Velora had been like.
If I’d had a beating heart left to me, it would have ached for her.
Garrick had already moved on, unwilling to let me linger in my own insecurities, as he’d so irritatingly pointed out.
“You don’t want me hovering over you.” He advanced a few steps as he said it. “So learn. Master your power and you won’t need my protection.”
Master my power. Like I hadn’t spent nearly four hundred years trying and failing to do exactly that.
“It is not that simple,” I insisted, but he barely gave me time to finish before launching himself over the frozen riverbed.
I got my arm up just in time to deflect the blow, but the fresh stitches in my forearm screamed at the impact. Frost shot frommy hand, my power rising to protect me without my calling it. Out of control, again. Damn it all. I was so sick of Garrick being right. I wanted him on his ass, just like he put me on mine again and again.
The frost heard my frustration. It curled around his feet, solidifying into a rope of ice that cracked with his next movement. But it was enough to distract him. I couldn’t reach the blade in his hand.
I wanted him on his ass—literally. I pulled the residual moisture from the riverbed, forming a sheen of slippery ice beneath his feet. He tried to use it to his advantage, pitching himself in my direction. But I used my height—or lack of it—to dodge underneath him. My knees screamed as they hit the ice, but I got my hand around what I wanted.
My wrist protested the angle, but I forced myself to my feet and used frost to fuse my skin to the metal hilt.
Garrick cracked the ice with a sharp stomp of his heel, regaining traction as he spun in a graceful arc, his blade swirling with lethal precision. But for once, I was ready.
I had no idea how to wield it. The blasted thing was as long as my legs. But I forced the quivering muscles of my arms to lift Garrick’s greatsword into the space between us.
It started as a smirk. Then it curved both sides of his mouth, lifted his stubbled cheeks, and lit his eyes as a true, full smile took over Garrick the Red’s face. And took my breath away.
“That’s my girl,” he breathed.
CHAPTER 47
BEFORE
It would have beenspring if such a season still existed in Velora. Over the past century, marking the change of seasons had become impossible. Maura kept the dates on the cave walls in the coven lands, marking them out for posterity. As a creature of the Dark God, I tracked the cycle of the moon by habit. The priestesses and priests still kept time in the temples, I was certain. They’d be the last of us to abandon their rituals. The religious zealots might be our equal in stubbornness, but witches were infinitely more practical.
