“King Deri cast the magic to protect his borders, but he is no longer alive. The magic died with him.” The Winter’s expression turned pained. “And our Queen reversed the magic so we could get down here quickly and return home just as fast. Anyone can shift in and out of Winter right now. We’ve left her vulnerable.”
And with that, he was gone, along with the King’s crown.
* * *
Sophia and I found nothing but carnage as we searched the castle for any sign of life. The throne room was a graveyard. The Queen and King sat on their thrones with arrows protruding from their skulls. Every single Hunter they’d had to protect them had fallen just the same. No one had seen the Winter fae coming, and it looked as though no one had been alive to see them leave. Except for me and Sophia.
Worry knotted my stomach. So far, I’d seen no sign of my instructors or of Alwyn. It was almost as if they’d never even been here. We checked their quarters, the grounds outside, and we even checked the dungeons. And every time we passed another body, fear gripped my heart, fear until I saw that it wasn’t a familiar face, it wasn’t one of the males I was growing to love.
“I don’t understand,” I said when we had finally explored every inch of the castle grounds and had returned once again to the throne room. “They wouldn’t have just left me here.”
“Look.” Sophia pointed at a form in the furthest corner. One that was moving.
I sprinted across the floor and dropped to the male fae’s side, pressing my hands against a massive gash on his throat. He stared up at me, eyes wide, mouth bubbling with blood. I closed my eyes and focused my power on this fae. My hands warmed; my soul churned. All my power fled from the very depths of me and into this fae’s body.
As always, I passed out.
Sometime later, I cracked open my eyes and saw Sophia kneeling beside me. Within seconds, her words began to tumble out of her mouth. “The fae you healed saw what happened. Some Autumn fae shifted here after the Winters attacked. They took Kael and the others. Queen Viola has your mates.”
Chapter Seventeen
Before shifting to the Winter Court, I dropped Sophia off at the Academy. She was shaken up after the incident at the Spring Court, and she was desperate to make sure that Lila and the other changelings were okay.
“Looks like it was just a bluff,” I said when we strolled through the Academy’s doors to find the halls no more chaotic than they normally were. Changelings bustled about, enjoying the freedom of a week without classes. The normality of it struck me suddenly, and my chest ached because of it. My life had changed dramatically in the past few days, even more dramatically than it had when I’d first come to Otherworld.
It was hard to imagine that things would ever return to how they were before. It was even harder to imagine we would make it through this alive.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to come with you?” she asked for what I swore was the hundredth time.
“I’m positive.” With a smile, I dropped my hands onto her shoulders and squeezed. “Thank you, Sophia. I know you were scared back there, but you kicked ass. Just in case you don’t know...I didn’t mean what I said to Phelan.”
“I know,” she said, smiling back. “Now, go on and get your mates back. Just please be careful. Okay?”
“Sure,” I said. But I wasn’t going to be careful. I was going to burn the whole place down.
* * *
With the borders now open, I was able to shift straight to the Winter Court within moments. I didn’t know exactly where I was going, since I’d only ever visited a mountaintop with Kael, so I had to shift around a bit before I landed on the right spot I’d picked out on the map: the Winter Court’s castle.
Snow fell heavily from a cloud-studded sky, casting the entire looming castle in a white mist. It sat on the side of a steep mountain with jagged rocks overlooking a snowy canyon below. As for the castle itself, it was taller and wider than all of the other Court’s castles combined. Each corner rose into a sharp peak, towering high over the trees that were weighed down by everlasting snow.
In any other circumstance, I would yearn to stop and rake my eyes across the Winter beauty. It was such the opposite of Summer, and yet just as breathtaking. My breath puffed out as a cloud before my face. It was cold here. Bitterly cold, but the bite on my cheeks made me feel alive.
Inside this castle, I was certain I would find Queen Viola. She’d come here last for a reason. The magic she wished to cast relied on the ice here in Winter. She would need to stay here until she’d completed the transfer of power. I just had to hope I could stop her before then.
I took two steps toward the castle, my feet sinking into the snowy ground.
“There she is,” came a voice from behind me.
I whirled, hand clutching the stone I’d hidden deep within my cloak. The shadow spell kept me hidden, and yet—
“Footsteps,” Alastar said to the Summer fae beside him, pointing at the indentations in the snow. He was bundled up in at least three different cloaks. Summers were never good at handling the colder weather.
Shit.I took a step back, but that wasn’t about to help the situation in the least. Anywhere I turned, snow packed the ground. I’d never be able to lose them, not when they could track me like this.
“No need trying to hide, changeling,” Alastar said. “It will be better for everyone if you just come with us.”
I dropped the shadows. There was no point in clinging onto them if the fae knew where I stood.
