“Watch out!” Dayton cries, and we all duck. The fireball hurtles through the air before slamming into the ice a quarter mile from us. Ice shatters as the flare skids across the ground, a molten river in its wake.
“Ready to fill us in on your plan?” Dayton growls.
I pick myself up and stare at the sky. “Yes. I’m going to bring the stars down.”
I don’t need to look at them to know they’re exchanging glances.
“Care to elaborate?” Ez asks.
Taking a deep breath, I stretch my arms out, testing the range of my power, feeling each flake of snow, each shard of frost, the wisping Winter wind. “Faustrius said this was the fire of the Above, and no cold of the Vale could quench it. So I’ll need ice from the Above itself.”
Ezryn trains his gaze up. “The stars…they’re great boulders of ore covered in ice. Kel, can you do it?”
I close my eyes. The glaciers floating far out in the fjords, the storm rolling across the tundra in the north of the north—I am a part of Winter, as Winter is a part of me. Winter’s blessing hums low and loud in my chest, eager to finally be uncontained. This power first came from the Above, and ice is in my blood. “I can do it.”
“Fuck yes,” Dayton says. “Let’s tear the sky down.”
“What do you need from us, Kel?” Farron asks.
“I need to see the stars.”
Heat scorches across my face as another fireball blazes out of the volcano and over our heads, landing behind us.
“Clear the skies!” Ez commands. A rush of magic surges as the power of three more blessings careens forth. A great windstorm erupts, blowing my hair up. Ash and snow whirl around us, but I no longer smell that choking sulfur.
Instead, there are cherry blossoms on the breeze and a salty spray and the rich, earthy scent of a harvest of ripe apples and golden wheat. The wind spirals upward, cutting a hole through the smoke.
And that’s when I see it. The first glimpse of the night sky and the glittering stars hanging within the canopy.
Rosalina had stared at them as if she could pluck them from the sky. Now, I will do just that. For her.
My consciousness has spread all over Winter, but I must stretch it farther. Up to a place only my blessing remembers. To the very cosmos itself.
A howl sounds in my mind, and like a shooting star, my magic pierces up, through the edges of the Vale into the dark. A chill stabs through me, colder than I’ve ever felt before. My knees buckle, but I grit my teeth and urge my power on. The chillcreeps down my spine, capturing my bones. Ice forms over my hands, my chest. I am somewhere I am not supposed to be?—
But no. I belong here. Aurelia brought this magic from the Above and gifted it to her high rulers. I am ice. I am the cold. I do not freeze.
I set my gaze on one star: a small, twinkling one to the left, just visible through the gap my brothers have created for me. With a roar, I thrust my hand up, my magic an extension of my body. There’s a large mass of ice there; the blessing is drawn to it. I hook my mind around it andpullwith everything I have.
At first, nothing happens. It’s like trying to drag a mountain. Then it moves an inch. And suddenly, I feel it careening toward me, tumbling through the cosmos. I grasp for control of it, directing it down, down, down, to the tundra.
“By the stars,” Ezryn gasps.
His words are fitting, for a literal star—a glowing boulder encased in ice—plummets through the sky before slamming into the side of the volcano. The molten rock sizzles and bursts, then hardens. The lava hit by the star cools instantly, becoming nothing more than a second skin.
“That’s insane,” Dayton breathes, then turns to me. “Do it again.”
Wiping my forehead of its icy sweat, I reposition my feet and reach up. It’s easier this time, my blessing dancing in my chest. I picture one of Rosalina’s radiant arrows with a golden tail, surging out of me and lodging in the next star. Then I grab its trail andpull. The gleaming star plunges, this one landing at the base of the mountain.
But the volcano does not give in. More lava sloshes out of the top. The first wave of lava has reached the bottom of the volcano and begins to wash across the tundra. A glowing red tide of destruction.
Again, I hook another star and yank it down. It smashes into the tundra, solidifying the surrounding lava into rock.
A massive rumble shakes the ground, and I nearly lose my footing. The earth gives a pained groan as a fissure appears in front of us, cutting its way across the frozen landscape.
“Between the volcano and the stars, it’s causing a fracture in the earth,” Farron exclaims.
“I’ve got it!” Ezryn runs to the start of the fissure. He sinks tohis knees and throws off his gloves, hands on the ground. Ezryn lets out a bellow that sounds like the earth creaking. The fissure stops, then trembles, trying to knit back together. “Keep going, Kel!”
