The cold hits me like a wall. My breath crystallizes instantly, and the wind claws through the seams of my clothing, sharp as daggers. It whistles around us, high and mournful, like the cries of something ancient and forgotten. It makes my eyes water, freezing the tears as they fell. Athanasius hands me the googles, and I slip them on, sighing in relief.
We walk. And walk. Correction, I am not walking because Athanasius has decided I am a princess and do not need to walk. He is carrying me, and it amazes me how immune to the cold he is. His eyes don't even squint in the swirling wind. Time unravels in the storm—seconds stretch into eternities. My limbs feel numb. What little skin is expose feels burned. It feels like the cold is trying to unmake us.
Then Delilah stops. She raises her head, fur rippling with the force of the wind, and lets out a long, haunting howl that splits the storm in two.
A moment passes, then another—and the wind carries a reply. Then another. Then more.
From the whiteness emerges six wolves, tall and strong, their coats thick and flecked with ice. They approach with a reverence I didn’t expect, lowering their heads the moment they see Luciara. She slides off Delilah’s back, landing lightly in the snow. The wolves nuzzle Delilah, brushing their flanks against hers. They bow their heads to her, and I see it clearly then: Delilah is the only one cloaked in pure black. The others wear coats in varying shades of gray, silver, black and white. Delilah lifts her front paw—white as bone, marked like marble—and touches each of their heads in turn.
“Delilah is the prophesied one,” Athanasius says close to my head, his voice hushes with something like awe. “She is their leader. The one foretold to unite the blood of the wild.”
The snow begins to soften, the wind retreating to a whisper. Through the thinning veil, I see it—looming in the distance, shadowed but unmistakable. A fortress carved from mountain and stone, ringed by spires. Green flags whip violently at its peaks, bearing symbols I can't yet decipher.
As we neared, Rose lets out a breath—and stretches. Her bones crack, her form ripples, and then she is no longer a woman but a sleek black jaguar, muscles taut beneath obsidian fur. She stalks forward with regal intent, paws silent on the snow.
At the top of the tallest tower, a figure appears. The mage.
He's young—shockingly so. Barely older than me, with a sharpness to his face that makes him look like a statue chiseled from marble. His eyes burned with anticipation as he looks down at us, hands already beginning to glow.
He was waiting.
He was ready.
Here goes nothing.
Chapter twenty-six
A Way Up
Ione
"Delilahsaysthereisan electrical power source in the bottom of the fortress." Luciara states. "Rose and Chronomir?"
"Of course," The Primordial sighs. "Come, my darling." His cane turns into a sword, and Chronomir moves his hair away from the wizened side of his face. "Don't take long." He and Rose are dash across the snow towards the back of the fortress.
"Delilah and I will take 2 wolves and make our way towards the top." Luciara continues. "There are 10 floors."
"He's at the top." Athanasius shifts me in his arms. "He won't keep the staff far from him." Looking down at Caspian, Athanasius nods at him. "Keep up."
"You don't have to tell me anything, boss man." Caspian winks at Moireth. "Stay safe until I get back?"
"Please," Moireth turns to the four wolves beside her. "Shall we?" She takes off like a blur with the wolves fast behind her.
"What about us?" I ask, the mage has left the top of the fortress, and the wind is starting to pick up again.
"I'll get us in as far as I can." Athanasius sighs. "Stay close to me, both of you."
One moment, I was in Athanasius’s arms, the cold comfort of his presence anchoring me to something real. The next—he dissolved. He could have given me a warning or something, but nope, snatched into darkness. Like smoke in wind, he unraveled beneath me, his body thinning into shadow, until I was falling into nothingness. Darkness swallowed me whole. No sound. No ground. No breath.
The silence was absolute. The cold, total. Remind me, when this is over, to kick his ass for all this shit he sprung on me. He made it seem so simple, so easy. No. I couldn't hear my own heartbeat. Couldn't feel my fingers, or limbs, or anything but the suffocating void that clamped over me like a shroud. I screamed—I think I did—but nothing came out. I was unmade. A thought without form. A woman without flesh.
Just when I thought the black would crush me entirely, the world exploded. Light. Sound. Color. Motion. Blazing, alive chaos. I gasped in air like it was fire. My vision spun. Wolves—massive and snarling—tore through figures with skin like marble fractured by ink, black and white in mottled patches, like something that didn’t belong to this time or any other. Their armor clashed—Victorian buttons, modern boots, medieval steel. Soldiers from nightmares.
And in the heart of it all, Moireth danced. Her twin daggers sang as they carved, slicing through flesh and bone with feral grace. One blade caught the edge of a soldier's throat; the other slashed his thigh, and he fell twitching as the wolves lunged, dragging him away.
Athanasius reformed at my side, solid and cold again. He set me gently to the ground. “We’re on the sixth floor,” he said, as if we’d just stepped off an elevator.
I didn’t have time to ask what that meant. One of the black-and-white horrors lunged toward Caspian. He barely flinched—bow already drawn. The arrow shot straight into the creature’s mouth. The thing flew backward, crashing into another soldier before both burst into a cascade of shimmering shadow. “Call me Legolas.” Caspian quipped, grinning as he pulled another arrow from the quiver.
