I hadn’t understood Syleris’ words when he said them. Weeks later, I’d only begun to understand the depths of what my power could do. Was it enough to save Alize from Maura? I would find out.
I walked slowly toward her, blocking out the heat of the flames and the frenzied cries. I kept my eyes pinned on Maura, my focus on spreading the ice through her entire body.
Her lips turned blue. The moisture in her eyes started to sparkle as it froze. Her lips tore as she opened her mouth.
“Finally, you are something other than a disappointment,” she croaked.
I reached my hand out. Pale, glowing silver whirls wrapped around my fingers, over the back of my hand, until they caressed my wrist.
“I am going to kill you,” I promised.
My frost had reached her internal organs. Another minute, and I’d be able to freeze them entirely. Her bodily functions would stop. She would die, and the world would be better for it. Maybe it would haunt me. Maybe not. I could make peace with it either way.
“Koryn, you must stop. The king will be here soon, and we must be gone before he is.”
I did not recognize that voice.
She is not worth your life. And his life.That was Isanara. I knew it was Isanara. But it felt so far away, obscured by the swirling torrent flowing out of me.
“Koryn,” a male voice said. I knew this one, too. It was as familiar as my own and much dearer. It was rough and alluring and—scared.
“Witch,” Garrick said.
I broke off the torrent of power the same way that Syleris had shown me—sudden, sharp, taking away all of its impact at once.
I stumbled backward. Garrick was already there.
Maura’s eyelids remained open; they were frozen in place. But as I watched, her chest moved. It was just enough to confirm—unconscious. Wounded. But not dead.
A spiked tail curled around my arm.
It went against every instinct to turn my back on Maura.
But then Garrick was at my side, Alize hanging off of him. She screamed as I hauled her against my side so we could carry her between us. Burns marred the left side of her body. She’d heal, I told myself.
“This way, now,” said the same voice as before, the one I’d recognized but ignored. “Through the passage,” she urged.
Passage?
A second later, it appeared. A single point of bright white light spiraled outward and then opened up, the air itself tearing apart the presence chamber to reveal a dark, snowy mountainscape.
The Queen of the Fae did not give us time to think. She ushered us beneath the spiral of white. I braced myself, ready to hit a solid wall or feel that same tearing sensation that had accosted my senses when Syleris took us from the presence chamber to the bedroom. But stepping through the passage was like walking through a door. One moment, Garrick, Alize, Isanara, and I were in Balar Shan. The next, we were in the shadow of snowy mountains that I recognized by instinct.
Alize slipped in the snow. I pulled her tighter, only to touch a burn. She screamed, wrenching away from me.
“I have her,” Queen Parry said.
She caught Alize by the underarms, where she wasn’t burned, and lowered her down onto the snowy ground.
“How did you do that?” Garrick demanded. He spun back to face the passage, watching it for some sign of threat or danger.
My mouth still hung open.
Parry pressed some snow into Alize’s hand and then gently placed it atop her burned shoulder before straightening.
“It is old magic. House Pendragon’s best-kept secret,” she said. “I trust you can keep it.”
I did not care where her strange magic came from. It had gotten us out of Balar Shan. Garrick nodded, but he had not sheathed his sword.
