As if from outside myself, I experience a vast pulling sensation, a sudden constriction, a tightening all around my body, and then an immense release.
Light explodes around me. Sharp. Sparkling. Silver.
Maybe daggers. Maybe snowflakes. Maybe little chunks of my heart.
Within the explosion, the Frost King’s icy features imprinton my mind, eyes glistening with frozen teardrops, lips twisted with pain, while a rippling hum of sound washes around him and me. My scream. His voice. Too many shattered hopes. Nothing I can hold on to.
Pieces of myself spiral outward into the darkness, taking my mind with them.
Chapter Six
Stellen
The agony on Thyra’s face kills me.
It shouldn’t.
I shouldn’t be able to feel this regret.
But in the moment when her lips part and her eyes fly wide and her heartbeatthumpsand her back arches, I hate the ice I trickle across her forearm.
The smallest spark to cause the deepest agony.
Then she screams, her voice carrying more power than she must be aware of, because if she understood the weapon she’s wearing, she would have fucking used it already.
She would have protected herself against the Iron King’s fangs, the vampyrs, and me.
She would have struck me down. Or tried to.
Her scream peals out around us, a rippling energy vibrating across her body.
With it, she triggers the Lethian armor.
Every thread separates, splintering outward, projected by her screaming voice.
My breath hitches as the impact of the Oracle’s scream hits everything around her simultaneously.
Nara stumbles, her teeth gnashing the air, her howl echoing as she skids to a stop, dropping to the ground, her legs giving way.
My hearing shatters, my eardrums burst, warm blood gushes down my neck as my arms are forced open.
Sparkling and silver, a thousand needle-sharp Lethian threads explode out from the Oracle’s body with aboomthat rocks me to my core and leaves her naked in my arms, her chest settling to mine, her left arm sliding around my waist, her right arm aloft because I’m gripping her forearm as tightly as I can, only now shutting down my power because the damage?—
The carnage the armor is causing?—
The vampyrs cry out an instant before the razor-sharp threads spear through them, cutting them to pieces, countless blades shredding and tearing.
Filling the air with the hum of Lethian vengeance and then…
A deadly silence falls as the threads turn on me and Nara.
We’re stopped still, only halfway across this black plain, a sea of gleaming blades pointed at us from all directions.
I force myself to drag in a breath, drawing in air filled with the evil scent of vampyric blood, which, by some miracle, has not splattered us.
I expel my breath carefully. Slowly. While Nara remains kneeling in the black dirt, her head lowered and shoulders hunched, the rise and fall of her chest tells me how shaken she is.
With another carefully controlled breath, I draw to mind a memory I banished a long time ago.
