Chapter 6 #2
Exhaling sharply, I turned from the sight of her, bowing my head as I strode toward the door.
The moment the crisp night air filled my lungs, I welcomed the brutal sting of the cold, hoping it would freeze the raging darkness coiling through my veins.
I tilted my head back, eyes scanning the vast, merciless sky, and silently begged the goddess to take this ache from me.
To carve it from my chest, rip it from my ribs because if she didn’t, then I feared it would consume me whole, feeding the restless beast that clawed at the walls of my soul.
A door burst open behind me.
The slam against the frame sent a ripple of awareness down my spine, my instincts latching onto the sound. I turned toward the back of the tavern just as the door swung open again, and a scent as familiar as my own breath curled through the air.
Sylvi?
Peering around the corner, I caught sight of her moving swiftly, draping a cloak over her shoulders as she stepped into the street. My breath stilled. Call after her, a voice in my head commanded. But then I remembered Leoric, remembered that he would surely follow to walk her home.
So, I waited.
A minute passed, then another. But the sea captain never emerged. And Sylvi…she wasn’t heading home. My gut twisted as I watched her slip down the quiet streets, her silhouette shrinking against the lantern-lit paths. She wasn’t returning to her family’s house; she was moving toward the city gates.
Toward the Tanglevein Warrens.
Leoric had let her walk alone. Did he even notice she’d left?
I gritted my teeth, shoving down the spike of irritation.
Sylvi was more than capable of handling herself.
She was fierce, skilled, and stronger than most of my mother’s soldiers, but even she wasn’t invincible.
The city was treacherous at this hour. Thieves lurked in the shadows and dissenters prowled like wolves, waiting for weakness.
If anyone recognized her as captain of the guard…
Gods.
I didn’t hesitate.
Keeping to the darkness, I slipped into the night, following her.
The frigid air swallowed me whole, but it did little to cool the fury boiling like water on a forgotten kettle.
How in the depths of Náldrún’s realm had Leoric let her walk home alone at this hour?
A female he was courting. A friend, for fuck’s sake.
If he were any kind of male worth his salt, he wouldn’t have let her slip away unattended.
I gritted my teeth, forcing my focus back to the real problem: Sylvi had no business heading into the Warrens alone. And yet, there she was, moving through the streets with a purpose that sent unease curdling in my gut.
Where was she going? And for what?
Then it struck me.
Ravin’s intel. A meeting outside the city walls…
Was she following the same lead? Damn it, Sylvi. She was the captain of the guard, not a spy. She had no idea what she was walking into.
Where are you headed, my little trega?
I picked up my pace, weaving through the thinning crowd. The farther we moved from the bustling heart of Isenheim, the more the streets emptied, shadows stretching like claws across the icy cobblestones. Just as I was about to close the distance between us, a gnarled hand clamped onto my forearm.
I spun, magic surging to the surface, ice crackling at my fingertips, only to find myself face to face with an old crone.
She was draped in tattered furs, her skin like crinkled parchment, her bones frail beneath the weight of years. Her eyes shone like milky pools of moonlight, focused and knowing despite the hunched frailty of her form.
“The frost binds what was once free, Son of Ice,” she rasped, her grip tight. “But the winds have shifted, and the old blood stirs. The wolf wakes, and with her, the truth buried in the bones of this land.”
I tried to yank my hand free, but the crone held fast.
“Skadgard stands upon the edge of night,” she continued, her words slipping from her lips like echoing whispers, “its light fading, its heart forgotten. The darkness that rises is not only from beyond the walls, but from within. The storm coils in your own shadow, Prince, waiting to consume all.”
A chill that had nothing to do with the night coiled down my spine.
“Who are you?” I demanded, but before I could wrench myself free, the world tilted and I was somewhere else…
A battlefield stretched endlessly before me, the ground slick with rivers of ice-laced blood, the air thick with the screams of the dying. Lightning split the charcoal sky, revealing a monstrous army charging the walls of Isenheim.
And amid the carnage…
Sylvi?
She stood tall, cloaked in silver light, raven hair billowing behind her, glistening canines protruding from under her lips, power crackling at her clawed fingertips, her eyes aglow with magic that should not—could not—be hers.
I staggered back, my breath hitching.
The crone released me, and the vision shattered. I stumbled, gasping, cold sweat dampening my collar.
A knowing smirk curled the edges of her lips, her voice a warning song carried by the wind.
“She is the flame in the frost, the light in the darkness. The blade yet unsharpened. A love bound by blood and by magic, both fates entwined, the blessed daughter of Selvarg will be your ruin and your salvation.”
As if the power that had surged from her suddenly disappeared, her gaze dulled, her body sagging, the light in her eyes flickering out like a dying flame. She looked up at me with the muddled, vacant confusion of someone lost to time.
My heart still thundered in my chest, my mind spinning with what I had seen, when a cry broke through the night.
Fuck.
I ran, my heart pounding fiercely with every hurried step. By the time I reached the alley, the stench of blood had already thickened the air. Three males had Sylvi pinned to the ground, their hands clawing at her skirts, their laughter cruel, their grotesque intentions clear as day.
A brutal, unyielding rage unfurled in my chest, and the temperature dropped to a deathly low. Hoarfrost exploded from my hands. The bastards barely had time to turn before I descended upon them like the wrath of Náldrún himself. I didn’t reach for my sword—there was no need.
I seized the fool who’d threatened to break her jaw and wrapped my hand around his throat, ice blooming over his flesh, turning his scream into a gurgled choke.
He flailed, his breath stolen by the ice creeping into his lungs.
I squeezed harder, crushing his windpipe until his spine gave way under my fingers.
His head toppled to the cobblestones with a dull thud, and the rest of his body followed in a heap of lifeless limbs.
I flung what remained of him against a wall, the wet crack of splattered guts and shattered bone echoing through the alley.
The second bastard barely had time to slash his knife before I shot a jagged spear of ice from my hand, impaling his gut, pinning him to the stone behind him like a carcass on a butcher’s hook.
He choked on his own blood, his hands scrabbling at the ice lodged in his belly. His lips trembled, begging for mercy.
I grabbed him by the hair, forcing him to look into my eyes before claws of ice sprouted from my fingertips, piercing into his ribs.
He gasped, spine arching, agony twisting his face as I tore through flesh and bone until his still-beating heart was clenched in my grasp.
I let it drop to the ground with a sickening splat.
The last man ran.
I let him cling to hope before sending blades of ice hurtling through the air, severing his limbs one by one.
His armless, legless torso collapsed onto the blood-slicked cobblestones, his screams reverberating off the alley walls.
He writhed, whimpering, drowning in his own gore.
I knelt beside him, my breath steady, my pulse quiet in my ears.
His horror-stricken eyes locked onto mine, pleading.
“Let Náldrún know I sent you,” I whispered before stomping my boot down onto his skull, caving it in.
The air crackled with lingering power, frost clinging to the walls, creeping over what remained of the bodies.
My vision blurred at the edges, shadows stirring in my periphery.
I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply, letting the scent of ice and gore coat my lungs.
A snarling smile curled my lips as something ancient and unholy, wicked and monstrous clawed to break free, filling me with blood lust.
Then a pained groan brought me back to the present, and I shook myself out of the stupor. What in the seven kingdoms…
Sylvi lay crumpled on the ground, blood soaking her blouse, her breathing ragged.
I dropped to my knees, hands trembling as I checked her injuries, the vile creature that had transformed me slithering back into its cave.
A gash at her temple seeped blood, but it was the wound in her abdomen that sent cold fear knifing through me.
“Fuck,” I muttered, ripping strips from my cloak and pressing them to her side, trying to staunch the bleeding. The makeshift bandage wouldn’t hold for long. I needed to get her to the palace healer immediately.
“Stay with me, Syl,” I murmured, brushing a strand of blood-streaked hair from her cheek. I gathered her into my arms, holding her close and shielding her from the cold as I rose to my feet.
Her lashes fluttered. “Jack?” she whispered weakly.
“I’ve got you, elskan mín. You’re safe now. You’re going to be okay.”
Without masking my presence or bothering to hide the blood coating my hands, I carried her through the streets of Isenheim, past the torch-lit roads, through every watching crowd.
Screams erupted behind us when curious eyes spied on the carnage I’d left.
And for the first time ever, I didn’t care if the people of Skadgard saw the monster that prowled beneath the skin of their prince.
Because the only thing that mattered—the only thing keeping me from unleashing the hoarfrost in my veins—was the fact that Sylvi still breathed.