Chapter 39
Colden Moeshka stares up at me with a look that frosts my skin. “Who are you?”
I stand unmoving under his gaze. Mere days ago, this moment would’ve felt like destiny. Just him. Just me. Him bound. Me with a hidden dagger.
But nothing is as it was supposed to be. The world has turned upside down. I meant to kidnap the Witch Collector, not kiss him. And I meant to kill the Frost King, not save him. And yet, here we are.
I touch the hollow of my throat and lips and shake my head.
Understanding dawns, and his pouty mouth slips into a frown. “Well, well. The Raina Bloodgood. I really hoped we’d meet under different circumstances. Somehow, I knew we wouldn’t, but no one ever listens to me.”
I’m not sure why hearing my name fall from his lips feels so strange, but it does. He knows me from Nephele, just like I know him from Alexus, but this is a man I’ve wanted dead for years. If anyone should be speaking to me with familiarity, it isn’t him.
“You look like Nephele. A little.” There’s an odd pause between us before he glances at the window. “What’s going on out there? Where’s Alexus?”
The sound of that name makes my chest tighten. I don’t want to tell Colden that the prince’s general took the Witch Collector’s life, but it seems wrong not to.
“General Vexx killed him,” I sign.
A cresting wave threatens, pricking at the backs of my eyes, making my tight chest ache, but I force it down.
From the way Colden watches me, I can tell that nothing I said registers. Alexus might’ve learned my hand language, and Nephele might’ve taught it to children at Winterhold, but the Frost King didn’t care to learn.
“I don’t know your signs,” he admits, “not well enough for all that, but your face speaks clearly. Something happened to him? Something bad?”
I nod. There’s little else I can do. Though the king seems oddly unfazed by this news.
“And what of outside? All the uproar?”
I shrug and turn back to the window. The mist has grown thicker now, prowling across the wood in a menacing eddy. That presence is everywhere, the smell of cold and pine and…something animal.
Before I can get a good look at anything more, the wagon lurches forward, sending me careening into the corner opposite Colden. I grab the metal rail that wraps around the walls, likely for tying animals. The jostling eases once the horses take to Winter Road, heading south.
I pull myself to the window, only to see the darkened forest flying by at a dizzying rate as we gather speed. But that mist. It’s following. Rushing up alongside. I can taste it. It carries a metallic bite, like sticking your tongue to silver.
Colden battles his chains to get to his knees. He glances at me with one cocked, burnished brow. “A little help would be excellent right about now, or you could just stand there and be of absolutely no use.”
My scalp tightens, and the dagger between my breasts is so tempting.
“Any day now,” he adds, swaying with the wobble of the wagon.
Though I’m thoroughly annoyed by the Frost King, even after a few minutes in his presence, I grab his arm and—with all my strength—help his arrogant arse stand.
He drags himself toward the window. A bump in the road causes him to slam into the wall, and that brings me a moment of delight, but he rights himself to look outside.
I stare up at him, just like he stared at me, watching the moonlight cascade over his face. Alexus wasn’t wrong. He called Colden exquisitely beautiful, and he is. He’s as feminine as he is masculine, something stunning in between. He’s captivating and breathtaking. Ethereal.
Even if also a complete and utter prig.
“This isn’t possible.” He peers hard into the night, and I can’t help but notice chills rising along his neck and the side of his face.
“I don’t know what the fuck Alexus did,” he adds, “but things are going to go very bad very quickly if I’m seeing what I think I’m seeing. You’d better ready yourself.”
I have no idea what he means, and I don’t get time to think about it.
I free the dagger from my bodice, unsheathe the blade, and then we’re rolling, tossed from side to side like we’re weightless.
Colden and his chains. Me and my dagger—until I lose it—my body thrown against the ceiling before being thrashed to the floor.
Wood groans and splinters and splits, over and over, before we come to a crashing halt.
All I can hear is my pounding heart, and I can’t breathe.
It takes a minute for my wind to return, a deep gasp filling my lungs with cold air as I cough out bits of earth and wood.
Most of the wagon lies around me in pieces, the steel frame warped and bent to one side.
Above, the night sky sprawls forever, the snow falling in big, white flakes.
But below, that cold mist slinks close, spilling over the road, wisps of malevolent white floating through the wreckage.
Hauling myself up, I get to my knees and crawl, slivers of pine stabbing my palms. The horses lie unmoving, and Colden rests near a tree, crumpled in a mess of chains.
One of the other wagons, the one ahead of us, is just as destroyed.
It’s close enough that I can make out bodies scattered everywhere, but some are blessedly moving, getting up.
The wagon behind us rests on its side, leaning against a tree. It’s still intact, though the Eastlanders are trapped beneath the weight of their wounded animals.
Nephele. Which wagon was she in?
Voices catch my attention. No—screams. And grunts. Steel clashing against steel, echoing from the camp. With each passing moment, the sounds grow louder.
The sounds of battle.
Colden isn’t far. I clamber toward him, the snow cold on my hands, the mist tangling around my wrists. I don’t know who the Eastlanders could be fighting. It must be whoever the prince spoke about—the visitor—though that sound certainly isn’t coming from a fight with one person.
Which means it can’t be Hel. More Witch Walkers? That doesn’t feel right either. Even the Frost King felt a moment of fear when he stared out that window.
Regardless, I need a hatchet and loads of newfound brawn. If I can free his chains, Colden Moeshka might be able to end all of this.
Though he’s as heavy as an anchor, I pull him over to his back. He lets out a long groan followed by a drawn-out, “Fuuuuuck.”
Gods’ stars. My dagger is lodged in his shoulder.
He blinks his eyes open and takes me in, then glances at the hilt jutting from his body.
“Get that damn thing out of me.” I yank it free, and he barely winces.
“Now, use it to pick the lock on these godsdamn manacles.” He struggles to a sitting position, the mist around us rising, and glances behind me. “For the love of devils, hurry.”
Oh yes, pick the lock. With a bloody dagger. In a hanging fog. Because that’s something I do every day. I can’t begin to think straight. Every part of me aches. My mind is as tossed as my body was, and my hands tremble, a leaf in a storm. I’m not even sure if I’m in one piece.
But there’s no hatchet, of course, and so I try to pick the lock, sticking the thin dagger into the mechanism as far as it will go. With shaking hands, I twist the metal back and forth, but I have no clue what I’m doing. Or what I’m supposed to be doing.
“Magick,” Colden bites out. “You’re colorful as a godsdamned firework. Surely you have skill. And don’t look at me like that. I can all but hear your mind cursing me. Just get these things off me if you want to live.”
Maybe he does have to die. We will never survive one another otherwise.
And he clearly doesn’t know as much about me as I thought. Marks or no marks, panic is not a good motivator. My mind is so blank that I can’t even recall the word for scrying, much less a string of Old Elikesh that might undo a lock.
“Forget it!” He jerks his hands away. “Just run. Find Nephele and run! Go!” His dark eyes lift toward the sky, fixed on something behind me. Those dark irises are shadowed with white, as though he stares into winter itself. He recoils. “This cannot be bloody happening.”
Something cold and icy slithers around me, colder than the mist. I go stock-still. Then I follow Colden’s line of sight over my shoulder.
The rolling fog rises, high as the trees, and coalesces into the form of a creature that’s as tall as Mannus the warhorse.
In the middle of Winter Road stands a naked, nebulous being with white hair down to his waist, pointed ears, and unmistakable lupine features—from slanted amber eyes to fangs tucked behind a curled upper lip.
His hands are enormous, and though they have fingers, each digit is dark and claw-tipped, his palms more paw than flesh.
He bears the lean, sinewy torso of a man, but he stands on the thickly muscled hind legs of a beast, covered in silky, pristine fur.
I swallow. Hard.
Part man. Part wolf.
Neri.
No wonder the prince ordered the camp to prepare.
Wolves creep from the foggy shadows of the surrounding wood, showing their teeth, growls vibrating in the backs of their throats.
There are hundreds—eyes sharp, fangs bared, maws wet with froth.
One skulks up beside me until its muzzle is a foot from my face.
It lifts its snout, blowing hot breath over me, daring me to move.
I clutch the tiny, bloody dagger Rhonin gave me in a death grip, but every inch of my body might as well be rooted to the ground, implacable fear trapping me in the moment.
Colden glares at the god as if he could slaughter him. “You son of a bitch. What did you do to Alexus?”
The mist that formed Neri crystallizes, rendering him corporeal yet still white as snow, his skin glimmering like it’s made of stars. He tilts his head, and his amber eyes flare. When he speaks, his voice is so deep and resonating that the forest shudders.
“What did I do to him?” The God of the North takes long, stalking steps toward us and looms over Colden.
He lowers his head, his neck longer than it has any right to be, and catches Colden’s face in his clawed grip.
“I granted him mercy,” he snarls. “Which is far less than he granted me and nothing like what I will grant you.” He fists the crossed chains at Colden’s chest and heaves him into the air until the Frost King’s feet are no longer on the ground.
“After three centuries, your time to die at my hand has finally come, Colden Moeshka. And there are no other gods here to stop me this time.”
Colden snarls back at the god. “There are worse fates than death. Be creative, at least, you mongrel.”
Neri growls, a low rumbling noise, and slams the king to the ground. Colden’s body bounces, the wind leaving his lungs in a gust of frosted breath.
Neri waves a hand, and Colden’s chains fall away as though unlocked by ghosts. Colden grabs Neri’s wrist, sending pale blue lines branching and webbing across the god’s pawed hand, ice forming and spreading in chilled vines along the god’s forearm.
But Neri laughs, and before the ice can reach his elbow, he flexes his fingers, and the frozen rivulets shatter and fall away.
“I gave you that power, you pathetic human. And I can take it away. This is my land,” he says through clenched fangs. “I don’t seat kings. The only crown in the Northlands belongs to me.”
“And yet you’ll stand here while the people of your land suffer a miserable eastern prince who means to raise your enemies from the dead.”
Neri’s face tightens.
“That’s what he wants,” Colden goes on. “To thrive off their power. And yours, too, if he can find a way. Then what will you do? Do you really think he will leave your grave intact for you to return to? If he can’t take from you, he will make certain you are no more than this”—he gives Neri a belittling once-over—“mist-made thing, for eternity. You can forget being a true god ever again.”
A growl leaves Neri, a sound that reverberates across the wood. Fury lights the god’s amber eyes, and he presses a massive hand to Colden’s chest, just over his heart, digging his blackened claws in too deep.
Heart pounding against my ribs, I bring the dagger up, certain that an attack would be a foolish attempt, but I can’t let Neri kill Colden.
Neri turns his beast-like eyes on me, and I can’t move. Not from terror, though there’s plenty of that roiling through my blood. But because he’s stopping me, as though all he had to do was think about stilling my hand—and the rest of me—and it was done.
The wolf beside me growls and stalks closer, snaps its teeth.
“Just do it!” Colden shouts in Neri’s face. “Just end me if that’s what you mean to do!”
The god slides his amber gaze back to Colden. The dark and vicious look on Neri’s face rattles my soul. It’s the savage expression of someone who enjoys torture and means to dole it out.
“There are far worse fates than death,” Neri replies, face contorting into a sneer. “Isn’t that what you just said? Perhaps I shall let you discover how very true that statement is.”
Neri pulls his hand away, and with it come threads. They’re so luminescent that I squint, astonished and trapped in Neri’s invisible vise as Colden’s long body bows off the ground.
He lets out a hair-raising shriek of misery, and the world around us grows colder than ever before.
Colder than the frozen lake. Colder than the bitter wood.
Colder than death. Cold, everywhere, chasing a painful chill across my skin, brittling my clothes, glinting on shards of splintered wood, even coating my dagger in a glaze of ice.
With a wrathful howl, Neri closes his fist and jerks his arm back, ripping the threads from Colden’s soul with so much force his blue velvet coat tears open, golden buttons scattering in the snow.
Those threads, ice blue and snow white, coil around Neri and melt into his skin, as though they belong inside him.
But…wait. They do.
Neri made Asha a deal. If she gave him her heart once again, this time for eternity, he would do the thing she could not.
He would make Fia Drumera immortal as well, but worse, he would cast within her the element of fire, and in Colden Moeshka the element of frost, that they may never—for all their infinite days—come together again.
Fuck. Neri just removed the curse he placed three hundred years ago.
And stole the Frost King’s power.