Chapter LV. Ellery
LV
ELLERY
WINTER
Ellery Caldwell didn’t.
While she and Domenic stared at each other, subtly, Ellery flattened her palm against the alban that held her prisoner. Within it, Summer’s magic pulsed, fervent and warm, but she thought of what she’d done at the Barren, and she poured her magic into the wood, and she claimed the tree for Winter.
The golden leaves above withered.
The branches binding Ellery released their hold.
The roots ruptured from the broken earth, and while Domenic flailed back, Ellery lunged forward.
She snatched Iskarius. She raised it to his heart.
Domenic’s expression went stricken, and as he righted himself, he sputtered, “El—”
She cast her spell.
Ice burst across his chest, radiating outward, and immediately, whatever words he meant to say broke into a scream.
It clawed a violent path across his skin.
Its shards punctured through his shirt, making crimson seep and spread through the white fabric.
It encased his hands, his face. Until the lips that had once pressed against hers turned purple.
Until the light of his shadow vanished. Until her sense of him dimmed, dimmed, to the barest flicker of a flame.
Ellery sobbed through every moment of it. No matter how much she’d longed to believe otherwise, there was no love stronger than destiny. There was no fate colder than this.
At last, the warmth of his magic extinguished, and he was gone.
She’d won.
Yet although it was Domenic’s life that had ended, not her own, Ellery still felt as if she’d taken her dying breath alongside his.