Before I can second-guess myself, I wrench the wrapped blade out from where it was wedged.
As my fingers close around the ancient silk, golden light bursts from beneath the material.
Startled, I gasp before I freeze uncertainly, the blade’s hilt pinched between my fingers.
Unlike the sharp jolt of energy I felt before, this light is mesmerizing, beautiful, beckoning to me like the first rays of summer sunlight, promising only warmth.
A sense of safety fills me. Everything will be okay.This blade is mine, and I’m protected now.
Suddenly unafraid, I close my fingers more tightly around its hilt.
Then, like a beast, the light lashes out, striking across my hand as sharply as claws.
A new surge of energy rages across my palm, and this energy isn’t calm. Not soft or warming or captivating.
Sharp, bone-breaking, soul-crushingpowerrages up my arm and into my chest. Straight into my heart. Tearing and clawing and cleaving.
Consuming me.
Agony shatters my rational thoughts. More pain than I can bear. Scorching power rips me apart, and all I can do is scream.
Chapter Four
Stellen, King of Frost
My world is cold, and my heart is ice.
Even here on this beach, where I’m bathed in bright sunlight while sparkling water laps at my snow-white boots, there is no warmth for me.
My wolf growls softly at my back, her deep snarls barely perceptible above the screams filling the air. She hates the heat, but she’s accustomed to the roar of battle and death.
Cloying fear radiates toward me from every direction except from the sea. The vast blue expanse is serene while the village is in chaos, its people trying to escape the battle in the sky above them, the acrid iron, and the burning fire.
Their cries don’t touch me.Can’ttouch me.
I lost my capacity for empathy on the day I took the throne.
That was the day betrayal stole everything I loved.
No more.
I bend to the wet sand, take a fistful of it, and grip the granules tightly, freezing them before I beckon my wolf with my free hand. “Come.”
Within the chaos, I will look for that which is calm, thefemale Oracle whose cunning and strategy must ensure she is not afraid. She couldn’t have escaped detection for so long unless she was shrewd beyond her years.
Twenty-five years ago, her birth was heralded by a shower of stars, the most breathtaking display of diamond-bright light flooding the sky as far as I could see. If the stories are to be believed, that light spread across all three kingdoms.
I was only five years old, but I had never seen anything so beautiful. In my innocence, I believed this female Oracle to be a savior, a bringer of peace, the ender of an endless war.
The years passed, and I realized the truth.
She hides peace from us, withholding her power and her pity, leaving us to our destruction.
She’s the reason I’m broken.
I head along the watery edge of the beach from its southern end, where I separated from my general, Lilis, only minutes ago, commanding her to find the Oracle by whatever means necessary. I have no fear for Lilis’s safety, nor for the two men she took with her. Others should fear her.
As they should fear me.
