Chapter Forty-Six
Calista
What felt like a lifetime later, Frostcrag rose ahead like a promise carved from winter.
Even from this distance, the fortress looked unreal, a jagged crown of black stone and ice perched on the cliffs like it had been grown there rather than built.
The outer walls caught the remaining slivers of Selraya’s light and threw it back in cold shards.
Iron gates waited at the base, massive and silent, and beyond them the winding climb to the heart of the stronghold.
Tears pricked my eyes at the sight of it.
Goddess, it was finally within reach.
I should have felt triumph, but all I felt was pain. My vision pulsed at the edges with exhaustion, breath sawing in my throat like I’d swallowed snow.
Four hours ago, I’d been forced from a sanctuary. Now the world felt determined to make me pay for surviving it.
A frozen river cut across the last stretch before the gates, wide and slick, its surface a glassy sheet in the moonlight. Frostcrag’s shadow lay over it like a warning.
I swallowed hard and limped down the bank anyway. Almost there.
A growl rolled out of the darkness. Much too close.
Frost take me. I froze.
A shape prowled from between two snow-laden pines, smaller than the hulking beasts I’d seen earlier, but fast and compact. Russet fur and pewter runes bristled along its spine. Moonlight turned its eyes into pale coins. A snarl peeled its lips back, exposing too-long canines.
My blood went cold. No. Not here. Not when I could finally see the gates.
I dragged my crescent free, fingers numb around the grip and planted my weight evenly. Thank the goddess for that miraculous healing.
The Wolvryn’s head lowered, shoulders bunching. I suddenly recognized the dark gray rune shimmering across her forehead. Mistvale.
“Alma?” I murmured.
I backed up a step, and my heel hit ice. My heart hammered. “Don’t…”
The beast prowled forward. I lifted the crescent with everything I had, squaring my shoulders and gritting my teeth.
She lunged.
A line of light broke along the horizon, and the full moon’s hold snapped like a thread cut clean. The first rays of sunlight streamed across the muddled sky. The russet beast skidded to a halt a mere foot away from me, claws scraping on ice.
Its body shuddered violently.
Bones shifted under skin with sharp, sickening pops.
Fur rippled and sank as if being swallowed.
The creature’s spine arched and twisted.
Its ribs flared as the chest narrowed, shoulders pulling into a Fae shape.
The jaw shortened. The snout retracted. The snarling mouth became lips dragged back over teeth that were still too sharp for comfort.
Alma dropped to one knee in the snow, completely bare and gasping, hands pressed to the ground like she was trying to keep herself from falling apart. Then the female lifted her head.
Dark, braided hair clung to her face, damp with melted snow. Her eyes were bright and familiar, wicked even through the remnants of the moon’s wildness.
Thank the goddess.
Relief crashed through me so hard my knees nearly folded. “Alma,” I rasped, half laugh, half sob. “It’s good to see your face.”
She panted, forcing air into her lungs, blinking rapidly as if the world had to come back into focus. Then her mouth curved into something close to a grin. She didn’t even seem to care she was still completely nude.
“Well,” she said, voice rough with the last edge of the beast. “Look at us. We made it to the end.”
My throat tightened. “I thought you were going to—”
“Eat you?” Her grin widened. “Tempting, but no. I find Fae too stringy.”
The warmth of familiar banter loosened something in my chest, before self-preservation cut in. Alma and I were not friends, we weren’t even allies.
She stepped closer, hands lifted as if to show she carried no weapon.
“You’re shaking.” Her eyes flicked to the crescent in my hand. “Come on. We’re nearly there. Let’s finish this together.”
I hesitated, Everest’s words echoing in the back of my mind. You cannot trust any of them.
Alma marched toward the frozen river. The wind coming off it was sharp enough to cut. She tested the ice with her heel, then looked back at me. “Take my hand,” she said lightly. “Unless you’d like to crawl.”
I huffed a shaky breath, but I didn’t move.
“Come on, Hollow.”
Indecision tore through me. If I didn’t follow her, she’d get ahead of me.
She took a step onto the ice, inch by careful inch. The gates loomed larger. Frostcrag’s walls felt like they were watching.
Frost this. I had to move. Now.
Halfway across the river, Alma glanced toward the fortress then back at me. Something in her expression shifted, subtle as a cloud passing over the sun. “Where is your trusty Black Wolf?”
My stomach dipped.
Something flashed in her eyes, raising the hair at my nape.
Her arm jerked, and a short dagger flashed from a scarf tied around her braided hair.
I barely had time to register before she lunged.
Instinct took over. I ripped my crescent up with both hands and caught her strike with a ringing clang that vibrated through my bones. The impact drove me back a half step, and the ice slicked under my boot.
Alma’s eyes were bright and unapologetic. “I’m sorry,” she said, breathless. “But I need that throne.”
My pulse hammered. “Not more than I do.”
She came again, fast. Not heavy like Ironcliff’s hunter or brutal like Trystan. Alma fought like Mistvale itself, a storm that didn’t look dangerous until it was already on top of you. Her blade darted and slashed, forcing me to block and twist on the precarious ice.
I parried, stumbled, and barely recovered. My crescent rang against her steel again and again. Each impact sent jolts up my arm. My breath turned to ragged fog.
“You’re bleeding.” Her observation was almost cheerful as she feinted left and struck right.
“I’m alive,” I snapped, swinging wide in desperation.
Alma slid away from the crescent’s arc with infuriating ease. “For now.”
My right boot lost its grip, and I went down to one knee on the ice, the shock rattling my teeth. The crescent slipped in my hand for half a heartbeat.
Alma’s blade lifted, but her gaze didn’t waver. “Nothing personal, Calista. I actually liked you.”
Cold terror washed through me. I tried to raise the crescent again, but my arms felt full of stones.
A blur moved across my peripheral vision, a shadow cutting across the snow. Alma turned toward the movement, and for one ragged heartbeat I saw my opening.
I leapt up.
My crescent followed on pure instinct. Just desperation and the savage need to survive. The blade drove beneath her ribs before either of us could think better of it.
Alma gasped.
As did I.
Her eyes flew wide, all that sharp amusement vanishing at once. For a terrible second, we were frozen there together, pressed too close. My fist clenched around the hilt, her breath spilling warm against my cheek.
“No,” I whispered. Even though I had already done it, and there was no taking it back.
Her mouth parted. Blood welled bright and shocking between us.
My stomach twisted so hard I thought I might be sick.
Her hand jerked toward her blade, then toward me. Some last scrap of mercy died under the hard, ugly truth of it all. A broken sound clawed up my throat as I ripped the crescent free and struck again.
This time Alma crumpled. She hit the ice on one knee first, then both, staring up at me as if she couldn’t quite believe I had done it. Neither could I.
“I’m sorry,” I choked out, the words useless and wild and far too small for what I had just taken. “I really am sorry.”
Blood spread dark beneath her, threading through the cracks in the ice.
For one heartbeat more, she held my gaze. Then she twisted her head over her shoulder, eyes glassy, and her mouth curved around one word. “Rhosyn…”
Then the light in her eyes went out.
I stood there shaking, crescent slick in my hand, breath sawing in and out of me like it hurt to keep breathing.
Rhosyn.
My knees nearly buckled. But I had no time for grief. I swallowed hard against the ache rising in my throat and tightened my grip on the blood-wet hilt.
Thornwild’s daughter stood along the riverbank like a curse given flesh, breathing hard, red hair whipping in the dawn wind. Her eyes were bright with something brutal and satisfied.
“Thank you,” Rhosyn hissed. “For doing my work for me. I didn’t think you had it in you, Hollow.”
For half a heartbeat, the world went silent except for my own frantic breathing. Then I forced my mind to clear, to concentrate on Rhosyn’s dark gaze, locked on mine with a predator’s focus.
My stomach lurched. I forced my legs to move, stepping backward on the ice.
Rhosyn strode toward the crossing, blade slick with blood. “You should have died in the Shoal,” she said softly. “Or under Trystan. Or in the snow with a beast tearing out your throat.”
I staggered back until the ice ended, and my boots hit the blessed snow on the opposite side of the riverbank.
Rhosyn smiled. “Still breathing. Stubborn little Hollow.”
I didn’t wait for her to close the last distance. I turned and ran.
Another voice rose across the river. Female. A familiar one. Halla of Saltspire, maybe?
I didn’t spare a second to look back as more screams broke the dense air. I was barely running. More like falling forward repeatedly and refusing to stop. Snow grabbed my boots, and my body screamed with every step, but the gates were right there. They were looming and open enough to swallow me up.
Rhosyn shouted behind me, then that other voice rang out again. A muffled groan and then boots hitting the ice, fast and sure.
Closer. Closer.
My lungs burned.
I reached the gates.
They were open.
There was no line of Court members, no gathered Wolvryn, no roar of approval or jeers. No torches, no ceremony. Nothing that said a crown awaited.
Only silence.
The hair on my nape rose.
A few masked sentinels stood along the outer walls, spaced far apart, still as statues. Their helms hid their faces.