Maybe he wants me to defy the Frost King and come to him.
Maybe…he’s saying goodbye.
Tears burn my eyes, but I’m too dehydrated to shed them. Too depleted to do anything more than slump to the rocky ground.
I’m barely alive. Barely awake. Unable to move, let alone fight. Let alone feel…
Nothing.
Far better to feel nothing.
Step by step, the Frost King returns to me, the ring of steel sounding as he slides his pearly-handled long swords back into their scabbards.
Still facing Azul and Antony, he pulls me up into his arms as if I weigh nothing, drawing me to his chest. My left arm is squished between us, and my right arm rests along my side.
He draws my head to his right shoulder, cradling me far more gently than I expected.
A quiet whistle leaves his lips, haunting in the heavy silence, and a moment later, weightlessness overcomes me, a sensation of lifting into the air before gravity takes hold once more, and I sense we’ve landed on the white wolf’s back.
Air rushes across my back as the powerful animal launches into a sprint and speeds along the mountain ridge.
Away from Antony and Azul.
I can’t see them, my face pressed too close to the Frost King’s chest.
His voice hums in my ear. “Use these moments to breathe, Oracle. The vampyrs will not let us go so easily.”
A moment later, we’re weightless again, my mind catching up with my body as we soar across a gaping darkness—a ravine. The wolf lands smoothly on the other side, turning and racing along the next ridge.
My best view is of the black sky above us.
A view that tells me danger is coming for us. Fleshy, white specks surge along behind us. And ahead of us.
And on either side of us.
As the white wolf speeds down a slope onto a flat plain, four swarms converge across the sky, filling the air with the chilling sound, not of shrieks this time, but of flapping material. Dark robes, torn and mangled, catch the air as they fly toward us.
The white wolf doesn’t slow, her growls reaching me through the black air, along with the Frost King’s whisper.
“You’re tired,” he says, a low murmur that makes my forehead pucker as I seek to see his face, but from this angle,I can only discern his sharp jaw and stern lips. “I know you want to sleep.”
More than anything.
His voice remains a whisper, a murmured hum. “You must not fall asleep.”
I try to speak, but my mouth is too dry, my lips working but no sound coming out.
His focus remains on me. Dangerously so. Confusingly, not paying attention to the vampyrs who will reach us within heartbeats.
“My power is almost spent.” The first hint of strain has entered his voice.
Is it pride? Or frustration? I can’t tell.
“It’s now up to you whether we live or die.” His focus finally flickers to the vampyrs, but he remains impossibly calm. Not a crease in his forehead, no widening of his eyes, no growing tension in his arms where they’re wrapped around me.
Softly, he adjusts his hold, and I shiver as his hand trails down my upper arm—my right arm—his fingers stopping to wrap around my wrist.
He lowers his lips toward mine but doesn’t make contact, his wintry breath cool and crisp, brushing across my cheek, my chin, my lower lip. “If you wish to survive, Oracle, you must scream.”
