My fingers grazed my temple, coming back wet, soaked with blood.
Head pounding, vision blurred, I tapped into the only thing left—the one thing that felt like home in this iced-out world: my Source.
Readily, it flared beneath my skin, spreading to my hands, my heart.
There was no time to sit and channel correctly, no energy to spare on second thoughts. Power wrapped around my limbs, squeezing and tingling until the air left my lungs and it had nowhere to go but out.
Turning to the base of the mountain, I thrust my hands forward, transforming every bit of myself, every ounce of rage and hope and fear, into a shimmering streak of Source that shot past the sweeping snowfall and slammed into the ground.
The earth quaked. The dark magic shuddered. The service road—what was left of it, at least—parted in two, the ice folding in on itself. Everything—the frame of the truck, the boulders marking the lanes, the piles and piles of snow—was swallowed by an emerging crevasse that stretched wider, plunged deeper, each passing second.
With a final push and a broken scream, my upper body slumped over, palms meeting the frigid ground.
The avalanche plowed onwards, falling into the deep, icy pit I’d just made, narrowly missing the castle’s defensive wall, where my friends had been gathered only moments before.
A white cloud pulsed up and out, billowing into the sky. My breath wisped in front of me, the cold air stinging my lungs. Gathering my senses, I slowly rose to my feet. The silence was harsh, grating, so at odds with the roar of the avalanche, as if the entire world was in shock.
Elves scurried across the yard, sneaking out from behind boulders and dips in the terrain. Fingers pointed and shouts rang out—for reassurance, for help.
A line of people slithered through the hole in the rampart, halting at the newly forged rift. Voices drifted up the slope, but they were too far away, too muffled for me to make out anything they were saying.
I slid down the last steep incline, landing on the skirt of rocks at the base, nearing the new seam in the earth separating me from everything else.
“Angel?” I recognized that pitch, that sense of disbelief lacing Freyja’s tone.
“River, oh my God!” Eva’s hands shot over her mouth. “Are you okay?”
“She’s bleeding!” Gunnar yelled. “Can we get a medic?”
My pulse stuttered. I brought my fingers back to my temple, confirming I was very much still bleeding.
“What are you doing out there?” Freyja called.
“It isn’t safe,” Eva added.
Olivia rushed up to their side. “River, we’re going to get you out. Are you okay?”
“Grab a ladder and line!” someone ordered as I approached.
Toes flush with the edge, I peered into the crevasse. The sleek ice walls disappeared into a pit of shadows hundreds of feet down. With an acidic swallow, I stepped back, unease lodging behind my ribs.
“I’m fine.” I gave a halfhearted smile. It hurt.
Everything hurt.
Spindrift floated in the air, catching on clothes, dusting hair. The queen’s lavender eyes narrowed when my gaze crashed into hers. I couldn’t decipher the look, but it was something along the lines of pissed… or impressed.
Leaning onto my good hip, I crossed my arms. I’d built her damn wall, it just happened to be going down, not up. Maybe she should specify next time.
A silver ladder arced across the sky, thudding to the ground mere inches from the drop-off, right beside my feet. Royal guards hooked the ends into the snow while another one of them clambered across, the metal rocking with every determined shift of his legs.
Safely at my side, he fastened the lines, tying one tight around my waist.
Clipped in with nothing but a carabiner and a fistful of the nylon rope, I approached the first rung. Powder slipped down the steep walls, drifting into the depths of the glacier, glittering as it illuminated just how far I’d have to fall.
I gulped. Pretty soon that’d be me.
“Best to crawl,” the guard grunted. “And don’t look down.”
