PROLOGUE #2
Even though my mind felt numb, incapable of decision, my body was in full control.
My arms came up, palms facing outward toward the guards and my parents' lifeless bodies.
The temperature plummeted—I watched my breath turn to steam, saw frost creep across the grass beneath my feet in radiating patterns that were almost beautiful.
The tears on my cheeks froze into lucent trails.
Above, the sky responded to the darkness that was building inside me. Clouds rolled in from nowhere, dark and heavy, blotting out what had been a clear afternoon. They moved too fast, gathering overhead like an audience assembling for some great performance.
Then the rain came.
First in scattered drops that hit the blood-soaked ground around my parents, then in sheets so thick the guards and the hounds became blurred silhouettes. Thunder cracked overhead, so loud it rattled my teeth, and lightning split the sky in jagged white veins.
"There! The witch!" The captain spotted me through the deluge, his sword still dripping with my father's blood—blood that was now blending with the rain. "Dispatch her. Now!"
The guard nearest him moved forward, blade drawn.
I barely registered him. Instead, my gaze remained locked on my parents—on the way the rain washed away their blood in pink streams, on how small they appeared collapsed in the dirt. My mother's hand still reached toward my father, fingers curled as if she'd been trying to touch him one last time.
Around the cottage, ice began to form.
Not slowly, like a winter freeze, but explosively.
Massive blocks erupted from the ground in frosted walls, rising twenty feet high and spreading outward in a perfect circle around the property.
The rain striking them froze instantly, adding layer upon layer until they gleamed like polished diamonds.
The downpour intensified. What had been heavy rain became a deluge, water hammering down so hard it bounced back up from the ground. The earth couldn't absorb it fast enough. Puddles formed, then pools, then a rising flood that swirled around the guards' boots.
The guard reached me, sword raised.
I still didn't look at him. I couldn't tear my eyes from my mother's face, peaceful now in death.
A blade of ice materialized in the space between us.
It formed from the rain itself—drops coalescing into a gleaming spike as long as my arm. I felt it happen more than I saw it, felt the water answering some wordless command from that dark, furious place inside me.
The ice blade shot forward like an arrow.
It punched through the guard's chest, through the king's crest, with a wet crunch, the force of the impact lifting him off his feet and hurling him backward.
He hit the flooded ground with a splash, his armor clanging against our stone walkway.
Blood bloomed in the water around him, spreading in crimson ribbons like some beautiful but deadly blossoming flower.
The water kept rising.
More guards charged through the flood, water splashing around their knees as they raised their swords at me. Their war cries cut through the thunder and rain.
I watched them come with a detachment that frightened me more than the rage had. Something inside me had been unlocked—some incredible power born of rage and devastation. Or perhaps I was just broken. Either way, I couldn't stop what was happening.
Ice blades erupted from the churning water faster than my eyes could track.
One, two, three—they materialized in rapid succession, each perfectly formed and sharp enough to catch the lightning's reflection along their edges.
The guards couldn't even slow their paces before the blades found them, punching through armor and flesh with finality.
The first guard dropped, blood mixing with rainwater. The second staggered, eyes wide with shock as he looked down at the ice piercing his stomach. The third managed half a scream before he fell.
The water kept rising.
What had been ankle-deep moments ago now swirled around their knees in muddy currents. Around me, the water churned and eddied, but where I stood, the water created a perfect circle of dry ground.
I took a step toward the captain.
The water parted before me, as if I were its queen. It pulled away from my feet, leaving a path of wet earth and drowning grass exposed before me. With each step I took, the flood carved the path forward, as if the water itself recognized me as something other. Something more.
"Kill her!" The captain's voice cracked with something that might have been fear. He gestured wildly at the remaining guards. "Kill the fucking witch!"
But none of them moved.
They stood frozen in the rising flood—now up to their thighs—with faces gone white with fear beneath their helms. One guard's sword trembled so badly that the blade caught the raindrops and sent them scattering. Another backed away, shaking his head in slow denial.
"I said after her!" The captain grabbed the nearest guard by his pauldron, shaking him. "That's an order!"
The guard wrenched free and ran.
Or tried to. The water was up to their hips now, thick and resistant, slowing their movements to a nightmarish crawl. The fleeing guard high-stepped through the flood, making for the ice wall that still surrounded the property in a perfect circle.
The others followed. Training and courage abandoned them as they fought through what was now chest-deep water. Their armor dragged at them, weighing them down, making each step a struggle.
"Cowards!" The captain's bellow turned desperate. "The king will have your heads for—"
He swallowed the rest of his threat as the water climbed past his sternum.
The iron hounds were already done for, their massive forms dragged down by the weight of their own enchanted metal.
They'd disappeared beneath the churning surface minutes ago, sunk like stones to the bottom of what had once been my family's modest yard.
Now only streams of bubbles marked their locations—silver trails that rose through the dark water like departing souls, the last gasps of their magical animating force bleeding away into the flood.
The first guard reached the ice wall and grabbed for purchase on its smooth surface. His gauntleted fingers scrabbled against the lucent barrier, searching for any handhold. For a moment, his hands found a grip.
Then the wall grew.
Right where he touched it, the ice surged upward in a fresh column, smooth as glass and twice as high. The guard's hands slipped free, and he crashed back into the water with a strangled cry.
Another guard attempted the same fifty feet down the wall. Same result—ice flowing up wherever flesh met the frozen barrier, as if the wall itself refused to be climbed.
The water reached their necks.
Panic transformed them from the king's elite forces into drowning animals. They thrashed and kicked, armor weighing them down as they fought to keep their chins above the surface. Their shouts dissolved into gurgles.
The captain was the last I saw clearly. His cold gray eyes found mine across the flood, and in them, I recognized something I'd never seen before in a guard's face.
Terror.
Then the water closed over his head.
Run, Guinevere, a woman's voice sounded in my head—one I didn't recognize. You must leave this place. There will be more of them coming.
My parents, I thought in response, hating the idea of leaving them.
Are dead, the voice insisted. And you will be as well if you remain. Go now and seek refuge in the woods.
So I did exactly that. I turned around, and the water parted for me as I headed back to the treeline that had originally hidden me.
Tears streamed down my face, and I could scarcely breathe.
But I ran through trees that clawed at my clothes and branches that whipped my face.
I ran until my lungs burned and my legs gave out, until I collapsed in a hollow between ancient roots and retched into the moss.
When I finally looked up, night had fallen.
But I could hear the distant sound of horses' hooves.
And worse—the barking of the Iron Hounds.
The King's Guard had picked up my scent.
They were after me. And after what I'd done to their brothers-in-arms, punishment would not be lenient, nor would it be swift.
I forced myself back to my feet and continued to run through the Eldergreen woods that bordered my home until I reached the edge of the wood where no one ventured.
The Whispering Wilds—the haunted woods.
With no choice left to me and the sound of pursuit growing closer, I hurled myself headlong into the Whispering Wilds.
The moment my feet crossed the threshold from ordinary forest into this cursed realm, the air around me changed—thickening with an almost tangible weight of ancient magic that made my skin prickle and my breath catch.
Run, Guinevere, the woman's voice insisted once more. Do not stop.
I ran deeper into the twisted maze of skeletal trees, their gnarled branches reaching toward me like the desperate fingers of the long-dead.
The whispers started as barely audible murmurs but grew louder—voices sounding from everywhere and nowhere all at once.
Glowing fungi painted the bark in shifting patterns of blue and deep purple, the light pulsing in rhythm with my racing heartbeat.
The deeper I ventured into this cursed realm, the more the forest defied everything I thought I knew about the natural world.
Shadows moved independently of their sources, sliding across the forest floor like living things.
Tree roots writhed beneath my feet, forcing me to leap and stumble to avoid tripping over them.
Somewhere in the canopy above, something rustled through leaves that shouldn't have existed on these bare branches, and I caught glimpses of eyes—too many eyes—watching my frantic passage through their domain.