I raise my eyes to his. “Or remind us of who we are.”
His lips part, as if he would say more. Maybe he wants to disagree with me…but he falls silent.
I let the quiet settle between us, accepting the chill breeze across my face, grateful now for the slap of cold clearing my head.
Turning my face briefly into Nara’s side, I inhale the soft scent of her fur.
Stellen told me to take peace where I find it. Even on a bloodied battlefield.
Peace, right now, is Nara’s steady breathing, the calm rise and fall of her chest.
“Once I chose to scream…to save myself…the future stopped spinning and splitting.” I catch my suddenly constricted breath, trying to calm my heart. “I foresaw something I’ve seen before. But it was in a blade vision, not an Oracle vision.”
Stellen’s eyes widen. “A blade vision merging with an Oracle vision? Tell me.”
It was the blade vision I had when I first met Maxim. A vision of claws and teeth and finally, the crunch of hot sand beneath my feet.
“I need to warn you, blade visions are vague,” I say. “Full of symbols and metaphors. There was only one part of this merged vision that was clear.”
Stellen inclines his head, peering at me between the strands of his long, white hair. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
“I’m running as fast as I can,” I say, focusing on regulating my breathing so I don’t succumb to the wash of fear I felt during the vision. “I don’t know where I am. I can’t see what’s around me, but the air is filled with growls and shrieks, and I can feel the hot breath of beasts at my back. Whatever’s chasing me, I can’t outrun them.”
I pause to take a deep, calming breath.
Stellen quietly repeats what I screamed, and I guess it now makes sense to him. “Growls and shrieks. Breath of beasts. Feathered fur, fly west, not east.Fable’s memory and your blade vision collided.”
His hands twitch toward me, but he presses his palms back to his knees. I’m not certain why he’s suddenly avoiding touching me, and I need to ask him about it, but for now, I stay focused.
“What I just described to you is one of the blade visions I had back at the coastal village when I first picked up the Dragonstone Blade. But this time, that wasn’t the end of it. This time, I also heard a shout. I heard Brunkil’s voice. I couldn’t see him, but he roared a single phrase over and over until it was like a beat I was running to.”
“What phrase?” Stellen asks, but the tension in his body tells me he’s ahead of me, given my question before.
“‘I invoke the Winter Strife.’”
A snarl leaves Stellen’s lips. “Now we come back to it.”
His focus swings in the direction that the Northerners disappeared, but he doesn’t hesitate to answer my original question. “The Winter Strife is a challenge for the throne. But it’s nearly impossible to invoke.”
“How so?”
“The challenger must first draw the Frost King’s blood.”Stellen’s attention returns to me, and his stare is hard. “And live long enough to speak the words to invoke the Strife.”
“What constitutes drawing blood?” I ask, my focus flickering to Stellen’s chest, where he said his heart was wounded.
“The Frost King’s blood must hit the ground. That is a difficult condition, given how quickly my blood congeals.” His eyes gleam. “In case you’re wondering, the fae who inflicted this wound no longer walks this world. They certainly didn’t live long enough to invoke the Strife.”
I can only imagine how difficult it would be to get close enough to Stellen to cut his skin and then remain alive for even a heartbeat, let alone enough time to speak a five-word phrase.
“What happens if the Winter Strife is invoked?”
Stellen’s countenance becomes icy cold, a wash of freezing air that causes me to wrap my arms around myself and retreat again to Nara’s side.
“War, Thyra,” he says. “A fae who invokes the Strife must have an army behind them.”
“Then…not a one-on-one battle?”
He shakes his head. “I may be heartless, but it’s illogical to wish for a kingdom at war—or a victory that could come with a significant loss of life.”
