Chapter 41
Draven
“Ithink the emissary is on to something,” Eryx began without preamble as soon as Soren and I stepped into the war room.
The Autumn spy didn’t always accompany me, but Eryx had come to trust him incrementally more since he verified some of the reports Soren had passed along.
Soren raised his eyebrows. “Naturally, but about what.”
The Lord General braced both hands on the table, his shoulders bowing beneath whatever information he was about to share.
“I wasn’t going to bring this to you until I had full confirmation,” he said, voice stripped of its usual steadiness. “But I received these reports a little under an hour ago.”
He slid a stack of parchment toward us. The pages were damp around the edges, ink blurred where snow had melted.
“Two outposts,” he said, “are confirmed to be down… With no survivors.”
A muscle ticked in my jaw. “Where?”
Eryx unfurled a larger map, flattening it with both palms before placing two markers—one southeast near Silverfin Lakes, another to the west in Crystalvale Forest.
Neither were close. Not remotely.
Frostbeasts had been striking at random across the realm for months. So on the surface, it could have been coincidence. But something in my gut twisted sharply, and I already knew that wouldn’t be the case.
Eryx dropped four more markers onto the map—each one landing with a soft, damning tap.
Six in total. Scattered. Uneven. Unrelated.
Until they weren’t.
“I’ve heard from every other outpost,” Eryx said tightly. “Except these.”
Soren leaned in, eyes narrowing. “That’s—”
“A ring,” I finished.
Eryx nodded grimly. “A perfect one. If these four are down—or compromised—the outposts form a circle around the palace. A wide one, yes. But deliberate.”
Cold seeped through my skin, frost blooming in splintering veins across the floor. Someone, or something, had drawn a perfect circle around the heart of my Court.
Like a noose.
And the Winter Palace stood at its center with the rope already cinched tight.
Soren swallowed, voice low. “Frostbeasts don’t strategize like this. They’re instinctive.”
“They used to be,” Eryx replied. “But we’ve seen how much they’ve changed. Pack behavior. Coordinated strikes. Moving in daylight. Setting traps.”
My pulse hammered through my veins. Images flashed through my mind. Tharnoks swarming. Mirrorbanes hunting midday. And the Korythid—watchful, calculating, almost… curious. Learning from us. Toying with us.
Then another image hit harder still.
The ruins of Noerwyn’s estate. The bodies. The monstrous ambush.
And the way the frostbeasts had been drawn there—not by instinct, but by bait. By design.
“They’re moving with purpose,” I said, voice cold. “Too much purpose.”
Eryx nodded once. “Purpose doesn’t emerge from nothing.”
“Something is driving them,” Soren agreed.
I exhaled slowly, frost fogging the air. “Or someone.”
And the memory of the slaughter at Thistlerun—of monsters driven there like obedient hounds on a leash—made the conclusion feel inevitable.
A thunderous boom shattered the silence—followed by a scream, sharp and abruptly cut short.
Our attention snapped toward the windows where the world beyond the palace was already burning.
I crossed the room in three strides, flinging open the balcony doors as shadows swept overhead and vast shapes swallowed what little sunlight remained.
Scales glinted like fractured sapphire, broken up by sickly black frost. Wings beat unevenly, membranes marred by fissures of ice. Their very presence left drifting trails of hoarfrost… like ash from a dying fire.
Then the first opened its jaws.
Blue flames erupted across the treetops and stone, hammering against the wardline until it shuddered beneath the assault.
“Frostdrakes,” Soren breathed. “Three, no, four—”
Villagers burst from the treeline beyond the palace gates as more screams rent the air. They tripped and stumbled through the knee-deep snow, panic twisting their limbs into clumsy desperation.
One of them almost reached the wardline… almost.
A Frostdrake plunged, jaws unhinging in a grotesque arc before closing around the desperate fae with a sickening crack.
“Noerwyn,” I snarled as more villagers fled the forest only to be overtaken and devoured before they made it halfway across the clearing.
Eryx stiffened. “She’s out there?”
“She went to help the injured,” I said tautly. “To bring them back to the palace after the Brakhound attack.”
“Hells,” Soren whispered, paling. Eryx was already moving for the door, but neither of them would reach her in time.
“Both of you get to the lower courtyard,” I ordered. “Get everyone you can behind the wards—”
A spike of fear slammed into me through the bond. Everly’s fear.
Draven. What’s happening? What’s wrong? Her voice trembled in my mind. I couldn’t shield her from this, even if I wanted to.
Frostdrakes. They’re attacking the villagers before they can reach the wards.
A sharp breath echoed through the bond. Panic followed.
Wynnie—
I will find her, I answered instantly, frost already curling around my legs like a living thing. I’ll bring her back.
Soren shouted after me. Eryx cursed violently. But I was already disappearing into the ice—already stepping into the cold that welcomed me like an old, merciless friend.
Winter’s fury surged with me.
And I dove straight into the fray.