Behind her looms an enormous man wearing a dark fur, his big fist gripping Lilis’s silvery-white hair, right at the scalp.
He’s unlike any fae I’ve ever seen before.
His face is scarred, his hair is matted, and his skin is leathery. He wears a beard braided in three places. A thick fur rests around his broad shoulders and falls to the ground, covering his tall frame, his height rivaling Stellen’s.
A gray wolf, not giant like Nara, the size of a big dog, rests on its haunches on the man’s left, sniffing the air.
A white crow perches on the man’s right shoulder, cawing softly into the near silence.
These must be the three unfamiliar heartbeats Stellen spoke of.
A man. A wolf. And a crow.
But behind them…
Oh.
Stellen’s tall frame can’t shield me from the blood-splattered field.
Silver-armored bodies are strewn across the white expanse, Frost Fae missing heads and limbs, the carnage making it impossible to know how many have died. It could be five or maybe ten.
“Northerner.” Stellen’s tone is flat, no intonationat all, a sharp contrast to the powerful melodies he’s capable of making. Such a difference that it’s like a slap of ice across my face.
A much-needed slap that shakes me from the stomach-churning horror of the sight in front of me.
I hear, rather than see, ice form across Stellen’s blades as he holds them in front of himself, and I recognize the shifting muscles across his back as he frees up one hand, no doubt having bound both blades to one fist.
“King of Frost,” the man growls, a sound like a snarling beast rumbling from his mouth. “This woman tells me she’s your general.”
He shoves Lilis to the ground, ripping strands of her hair, his boot stamping toward her as she plunges to the snow.
She moves quickly, tumbling to the side before he can stomp on her back, bringing herself fully into my view. Springing back to her feet, she sprints toward Stellen.
The Northerner’s foot hits the empty snow, but he guffaws loudly. “Well, she moves fast. But not faster than Fable.”
The wolf’s ears prick up, and a second later, it launches forward, streaking across the snow after Lilis.
Just as the man said, the wolf is fast.
Faster, it seems, than a Frost Fae.
Lilis screams as the animal hits her back, knocking her down a full five paces away from us.
I have no love for Lilis, but a cry strangles in my throat as she rolls and thrashes, managing to get her arms up to protect her face while the wolf gnashes at her throat.
For some inexplicable reason, she doesn’t blast her frost power through the animal to defend herself like she could.
I jolt toward her, only to meet Stellen’s firm hand.
He hasn’t stepped in to help, and Lilis hasn’t screamed for assistance.
Oh, those damn rules about asking for help!
While the gray wolf snaps and snarls at Lilis’s throat, barely refraining from biting her, Stellen nudges me farther behind him.
The Northerner raises his voice across the distance. “You can’t protect her forever, King of Frost.”
It isn’t clear to me if he means Lilis. Or me.
