Pressing my closed fist to my cold heart, I can’t stop the hollow snarl rising to my lips.
I’ve stayed too long in the catacombs. Far too long spent trying to regain my strength. I calculate it’s been three days since I went to the village on the western coast where the Oracle was hiding. Three days since she slipped through my fingers.
I came to the temple to study the ancient scrolls for clues as to the meaning of her command:
Come for me when the stars go out, she said.
Then, an assassin came for me, his wooden-handled blade striking so close to my heart that I slipped into unconsciousness, sinking toward death.
Only to be wrenched back to myself by the crying voices of my ancestors and aboomthat had crashed through my heart.Music that demanded I defy death. My icy heart obeyed the call, even though I have no idea what magic brought such music to my ears.
That was yesterday.
It’s taken me a whole day to regain enough strength to consider leaving the catacombs.
I have no doubt my heart is damaged. The full consequences of this are now a darkness hanging over me. A noose that could close around my throat. To reveal any physical weakness to my people, even to my General, Lilis, will only give them hope that they can kill me.
I take a last glance back at the adjoining room on the far side of the catacombs, where the crystal coffin housing the Oracle’s late father rests.
I placed the assassin’s wooden-handled dagger inside the coffin beside the knife that killed the Oracle’s father. Nobody will be able to steal the knives, not unless they want their hands to shatter on the ice with which I sealed the coffin.
Squaring my shoulders and closing off my expression, I lift my hand from my chest and prepare to break through the icy wall that has protected me while I recovered.
It’s far too thick for any other Frost Fae to break.
Allowing my icy power to flow to my hands and then up my arms to my elbows, I take another breath, harden my resolve, and smash my fists into the frozen surface.
The wall shatters. Chunks of ice crash across the shadowed stairwell that leads up to the temple’s main room, a simple hall whose beauty is in its stained-glass windows, which extend along both sides.
Making it to the top of the stairs, I’m acutely aware of the increasingly hard thump of my heart, a loud beat in my sensitive ears, warning me of an exertion I wouldn’t have experienced before the knife attack.
I have no time to catch my breath.
Lilis waits for me within the hall, the filtered purple and pink light shining through the stained glass windows flickering across her pacing form.
She jumps at my appearance, one hand snapping to the sword at her back, her purple eyes bright, and her silvery hair flying about her face. “My lord!”
I stride past her, ignoring the sharp assessment she gives me as she lowers her head and shoulders into a deep bow.
“My lord,” she says, “there’s been a development.”
With my acute hearing, I pick up the threads of deep tension in her voice. Unusual for her. She’s normally flawlessly calm.
She hurries out after me as I step across the entryway and onto the snow-dusted path at the front of the temple.
The final rays of sunlight sparkle across the snow.
My wolf waits for me beside the path, her head already raised, her soft growls reaching my ears.
Warning growls.
Slowing my pace, I take another look at my surroundings, assessing the barren slope stretching out ahead of me. The few leafless trees along the path, their gray boughs dripping with icicles. The temple is situated on a high enough hill that I can make out the sparkling city in the far distance and the palace at its center, its frost-blue stone never so beautiful as right before the sun sets.
Lilis’s quiet footfalls tell me she’s right behind me.
“Speak freely,” I command her.
Her words come quickly. “Beasts have been sighted at the edge of the northern wilds.”
