The thing wearing Atilia’s face circles us slowly, its shadow stretching and warping with every step. I stay where I am, planted beside Luceran, my body angled between him and the creature as if flesh alone might be enough to stop it.
Luceran stirs. His fingers find my hand, weak but insistent.
“Neve,” he rasps. “You have to go. Now. While you still can.” His grip tightens, panic flashing beneath the pain. “It only wants me. It has always wanted me. It will torment me for eternity, but you…” He swallows. “You don’t have to stay.”
I shake my head, leaving no room for uncertainty. “No.”
I lift my chin and face the demon. “You’ve already taken enough,” I say. My voice trembles, but I don’t let it break. “The people are gone. They’ve fled. There are no more souls here for you to feed on.”
It laughs softly.
“Oh, little human,” it croons. “Grief shared between two lovers is a far richer feast. Their sorrow alone will sustain my master for centuries.”
A blinding rage flares through me. “Why her?” I demand. “Why Atilia?” I gesture toward the stolen face. “Why not just kill us? I’ve seen your true form. Are you so weak you need flesh just to do your bidding?”
The demon lunges.
Teeth flash, impossibly sharp, black ichor spilling thick and viscous over Atilia’s blood-red lips. The smell of it turns my stomach.
“You are brave,” it hisses, “to speak so to a being that witnessed the dawn of the world and will watch it burn in the final days.”
Luceran’s hand clamps around mine.
“It’s a parasite,” he says, his voice faltering but clear. “It can’t survive above ground without a host. It needs a body. That’s why it dwells in the tunnels. So deep beneath the rock that even my cold cannot reach it. That’s why it calls to them. It lures them to it.”
Understanding crashes into me.
The winter. The endless cold. The lake that never thaws.
That is why Luceran does not lift it.
The winter is a cage.
A prison forged of frost and sacrifice, trapping the demon beneath the lake. Holding itdown.
Luceran groans suddenly, his head snapping back against the chair as pain rips through him again. His free hand claws at his chest, fingers digging into the flesh over his heart.
The winter contains the demon.
But it is killing the male I love.
“You think too highly of yourself, Lord of Frostwyn,” the demon sneers. “Your body is a frozen tomb. I could never make a home of it.”
It lifts Atilia’s hand, turning her fingers with casual cruelty, a puppeteer flexing its strings. “But this body is warm,” it continues. “And I will use it to harvestbothyour souls.”
It tips its stolen face upward, toward the full moon framed by the glass dome, snow drifting endlessly beyond it.
“When you are dead, Luceran, when the frost finally thaws, I will reap every soul in Brunemar. When the earth softens, I will soak it in blood.”
It steps closer.
I do not retreat.
I tighten my grip on Luceran’s shoulder, draw myself upright, force my spine straight even as my heart hammers wildly in my chest. I pray it cannot hear the frantic beat of it, cannot smell my fear as it prickles across my skin. My gaze flicks to the fire poker resting near the hearth.
Even possessed, this is still Atilia’s body.
Luceran’s mother.
