I struggle to make sense of what I saw in my vision, but I know one thing for certain: these beings fear blades and will attack anyone carrying steel.
Stellen incurred their anger the moment he forcefully sliced open the web to gain access to this forest.
I press my hand to his heart, my voice suddenly and unnervingly strong. “Stellen. Stop.”
His pale eyes widen at my command—or perhaps it’s my use of his name—but his features remain drawn, a fierce tension growing around his eyes and mouth while his sword stays upraised.
Conscious of how still the air has become around us, a pause in the frenzied weaving of the cocoon, I quietly urge, “Put down yourblades.”
His responding snarl is equally soft, but it carries an edge of determination. “Do you wish to die?”
A sudden, uncontrollable sob rips up from my chest. “I’m already…”
I’m forced to acknowledge the warning in the memory of my father’s final moments—a memory that came so sharply back to me when I woke up immersed in snow and clutched to the Frost King’s chest.
I’m experiencing the final surges of my Oracle power.
It’s the only reason I’m still alive and how I’m able to speak right now.
As hard as I try to suppress the memory, my father’s voice echoes back to me.I’m already dead.
He was stabbed, his heart irreversibly damaged. There was no hope for him.
But there’s hope for me. I can still save my limbs. I can save my body.
Stellencan save my body.
A possibility he seems determined to make true.
His lips lower to my mouth as if he could force his will on me simply by capturing my exhalations.
“You will die when I decide,” he declares, his voice once more a toneless whisper.
My sigh fills the air between us, and my palm softens against his chest.
Blinking hard against the burn of tears I can’t shed because I’m beyond dehydrated, I say again, “Put down your blades.”
He gives a stern shake of his head, the tension in his body only growing.
How can I explain the inexplicable?
Then I remember his earlier words to me.
Your voice is small. Your hands are weak. But even awhisper from you right now will carry the power we need to survive.
I’m certain that, before I passed out in the bloodlands, my armor had struck outward. I didn’t stay conscious long enough to see what happened after that, but I’m sure the Lethian threads became a terrible weapon protecting me.
The problem is that I don’t know how to control them.
When I first put on the armor, it was shaped like a dress that conformed to my size, becoming what I needed: the robes of a queen. Then it reshaped itself into a protective suit and, when I wanted to reveal parts of myself to Antony…the threads parted for him. I don’t know exactly how those things happened, but they must be connected to my voice, since Voice is the heart and soul of the Lethian power with which the threads were spun.
Now another breath builds within my chest, a quiet need tearing up through my heart and into my throat, compressing into the quietest sound.
A whisper demanding my survival. “Let me be warm.”
Stellen’s forehead creases, but I’m certain he will quickly realize my request was not aimed at him.
Silver threads pour from my body, starting with my left arm, unwinding from my armor and flowing to the rocky ground beside us.
