Chapter 95 Keldarion
Keldarion
Looking down from the walls of the keep, I can tell there’s an air of desperation in the streets.
The snow that gathers on every corner is stained black with falling ash.
People move quickly, gathering food into burlap sacks and loading carts pulled by reindeer and horses. But there’s nowhere to run to.
Lava will spread across all of Winter until each citizen has paid for the injustice of our first high ruler. Will Faustrius’s thirst for vengeance finally be quenched?
We’ll never know. I won’t let it happen. Not to my realm, not to my people. Not to Faustrius. Because only when this deed is done will he discover how thickly blood coats your hands. How impossible it is to scrub off.
Ezryn, Dayton, and Farron remain a step behind me in their fae forms, their presence giving me strength as I venture beyond the keep out into the city. People are shouting, crying, pointing up at the plumes of smoke covering the sky. But they stop as soon as they see me. See the wolf.
My paws make heavy imprints in the snow as I walk toward the square. I keep my chin raised high, gaze forward. My people’s stares feel like shots of lightning.
What do they see? A monster made of ice and snow, come to destroy them before the volcano can? This is what I tried to shield them from all these years. Is there a difference between the beast and whatever I am now?
I look behind me to the keep, ready to run back before my people abandon the notion of fleeing and choose to mob the beast instead, when something catches my eye. Someone standing atop the rampart, smiling down at me.
Astrid.
Standing tall, with her thin white hair draped over her shoulders, red eyes gleaming. Not a hare but herself, the brave girl who’s followed me for over twenty-five years, no matter what form I’m in.
I’m not a monster to her. My love—Rosalina’s love—created this form. And created the man within it.
I keep marching.
The townsfolk have restored the square from Caspian’s destruction. Never again will I allow my city to come to ruin. Frostfang stands strong once more. The platform where Rose and I exchanged our vows remains untouched, the ice arch above it glistening in the cold light.
The wolf has shown himself. Now, it is time for the high prince to reign.
Shielding myself behind the platform, my form shifts, shivering into the fae man once more. My brothers quickly outfit me in armor of silver, and Ezryn lays a blue cloak around my shoulders.
“It is time,” he says.
They walk out to the front of the platform, awaiting my next move.
I take a deep breath. My citizens have not fled from the sight of the wolf. They peer around questioningly, looking for him, eyes wide and uncertain.
I step out from behind the platform, then walk up the wooden steps. A part of me wants to shrink away from their gazes. There are so many people staring at me. But I have hidden from them for long enough.
The courtyard is filled now. Whispers ripple through the crowd, causing even more to gather. People peer out from windows and around corners.
An old man steps forward, body trembling as his cane struggles to find purchase on the rough cobblestone. But his eyes are bright and curious, trained on me. “Erivor?”
The word catches flame, inciting gasps and murmurs.
“Erivor?”
“Erivor has returned to us.”
“The Great Prince has come to save us.”
I sweep my gaze from the ground and find the voice I thought long lost. “No, it is not Erivor. It is I, Keldarion.”
The gasps switch tone, and the whisper of my father’s name changes to mine.
“Men and women of Frostfang, of Winter, I know how fear seizes your heart. Our home has suffered so much already, and tonight, we stand on the edge of disaster. But now, more than ever, we must hold fast to our courage. Frostfang has been built on the resilience of its people. We rise and rise again.”
“We cannot hold fast against a volcano, my prince!” someone calls from the crowd. “It will swallow all of Frostfang and the tundra beyond.”
I take time to look in the eyes of each of my citizens.
“The strength of a realm does not come from one person. It comes from all of us helping one another. Protecting one another. For years, you, the people, have been the true saviors of Winter. In spite of war, corrupt leadership, and a missing high ruler, you have persevered. Now it is time for me to protect you.” I stare up.
The night sky and stars are but a memory hidden beneath the black shroud.
“I vow to you, my people, I will stop this volcano. And Winter will rise again, stronger in its wake.”
“Keldarion, High Prince of Winter,” a voice says.
I look to the corner to see one of the Deep Guard who was saved by Rosalina’s shifting spell. He thumps a fist over his heart.
“Keldarion, High Prince of Winter,” another calls. It’s Eirik Vargsaxa, leader of the Kryodian Riders, standing tall at the back of the crowd.
A woman, dressed in the thick furs of a Tundrafolk shouts, “Keldarion, High Prince of Winter!”
This time, my name doesn’t just ripple through the crowd. It soars, an avalanche of words as a chant begins.
My platform wobbles as three great weights leap upon it. Ez, Dayton, and Farron stand by my side. Ez crosses his arms. “Alright, High Prince of Winter, go save Winter.”
Dayton ruffles my hair. “But you’re not doing it alone.”
“We’re coming with you,” Farron adds.
I look from Ez’s reflective visor to the turquoise of Dayton’s eyes to the gold of Farron’s. Just like the people of Winter, I abandoned them for years.
And yet they still stand with me.
I could not ask for three better men at my side.
The words are a low growl. “Let’s show the world what the high rulers of the Vale are capable of.”
My brothers and I slow to a walk on the tundra outside Frostfang. My clothes are already stained with soot. The air sears my lungs. Standing sentinel on the horizon is Mount Rhuvenmark.
Lava surges down its banks, glowing a vibrant orange, like sunlight molten in a forge. It’s a color I can’t help but think we Vale fae are not meant to see.
And the rate it’s moving, how fast the lashes of lava run down the sides—this can’t be the natural way of the world. This is no mere eruption. And it will take no mere amount of power to stop it.
“How long do we have?” I ask.
Farron chews on his lips. “By the speed of that lava, it’ll reach Frostfang in two hours at the most.”
Two hours. I look up into the sky, so choked by smog. Will I be enough?
The volcano gives a mighty belch, and a massive ball of fire surges out of the top.
“Watch out!” Dayton cries, and we all duck. The fireball hurtles through the air before slamming into the ice a quarter mile from us. Ice shatters as the flare skids across the ground, a molten river in its wake.
“Ready to fill us in on your plan?” Dayton growls.
I pick myself up and stare at the sky. “Yes. I’m going to bring the stars down.”
I don’t need to look at them to know they’re exchanging glances.
“Care to elaborate?” Ez asks.
Taking a deep breath, I stretch my arms out, testing the range of my power, feeling each flake of snow, each shard of frost, the wisping Winter wind. “Faustrius said this was the fire of the Above, and no cold of the Vale could quench it. So I’ll need ice from the Above itself.”
Ezryn trains his gaze up. “The stars…they’re great boulders of ore covered in ice. Kel, can you do it?”
I close my eyes. The glaciers floating far out in the fjords, the storm rolling across the tundra in the north of the north—I am a part of Winter, as Winter is a part of me.
Winter’s blessing hums low and loud in my chest, eager to finally be uncontained.
This power first came from the Above, and ice is in my blood. “I can do it.”
“Fuck yes,” Dayton says. “Let’s tear the sky down.”
“What do you need from us, Kel?” Farron asks.
“I need to see the stars.”
Heat scorches across my face as another fireball blazes out of the volcano and over our heads, landing behind us.
“Clear the skies!” Ez commands. A rush of magic surges as the power of three more blessings careens forth. A great windstorm erupts, blowing my hair up. Ash and snow whirl around us, but I no longer smell that choking sulfur.
Instead, there are cherry blossoms on the breeze and a salty spray and the rich, earthy scent of a harvest of ripe apples and golden wheat. The wind spirals upward, cutting a hole through the smoke.
And that’s when I see it. The first glimpse of the night sky and the glittering stars hanging within the canopy.
Rosalina had stared at them as if she could pluck them from the sky. Now, I will do just that. For her.
My consciousness has spread all over Winter, but I must stretch it farther. Up to a place only my blessing remembers. To the very cosmos itself.
A howl sounds in my mind, and like a shooting star, my magic pierces up, through the edges of the Vale into the dark.
A chill stabs through me, colder than I’ve ever felt before.
My knees buckle, but I grit my teeth and urge my power on.
The chill creeps down my spine, capturing my bones.
Ice forms over my hands, my chest. I am somewhere I am not supposed to be—
But no. I belong here. Aurelia brought this magic from the Above and gifted it to her high rulers. I am ice. I am the cold. I do not freeze.
I set my gaze on one star: a small, twinkling one to the left, just visible through the gap my brothers have created for me.
With a roar, I thrust my hand up, my magic an extension of my body.
There’s a large mass of ice there; the blessing is drawn to it.
I hook my mind around it and pull with everything I have.
At first, nothing happens. It’s like trying to drag a mountain. Then it moves an inch. And suddenly, I feel it careening toward me, tumbling through the cosmos. I grasp for control of it, directing it down, down, down, to the tundra.
“By the stars,” Ezryn gasps.