Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
Jack
When I’d finally found her amongst the soldiers, she’d dropped her gaze, refusing to meet my eyes, refusing my piss-poor apology.
And gods, it felt like she’d driven an ice pick straight through my ribs and hammered it into the softest part of my heart.
But I deserved it. She had every right to be furious.
Her deepest fear had always been being seen as less than—less capable, less worthy, less powerful than the soldiers who served the crown. And what had I done?
I’d caged her like a porcelain doll inside a fortress made of frost, exactly as she’d warned me not to do.
I’d used my title and my blood-bound magic to force obedience, to steal her choice.
I’d not done it out of malice, though.
But out of bone-grinding fear.
Because the moment I saw those bodies by the lake, twisted and hollowed, something in me broke.
The thought that such a monstrous thing had breached our camp, my camp, undetected, was enough to make my blood crystalize in my veins.
Sylvi had been out there. Ravin had gone after her. If they hadn’t returned when they had…
If I’d lost her...
The panic that had gripped my chest still hadn’t let go.
I’d always been possessive of her, and perhaps it was something in my nature, but what I felt now was something else entirely. Wilder. More consuming.
That kiss… Skadi, that kiss. I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to go on breathing if that one stolen moment was all I’d ever get. If that single taste of her lips was the only time I’d ever feel her surrender.
I’d rather fling myself into the depths of the Isaldr Sea than never kiss her lips ever again.
Mine.
The word kept pulsing in my skull, relentless. Ever since that kiss, something inside me had shifted. Like a countdown had begun. And with it, an ancient, unrelenting need to shield her, to hold her, to keep her from ever knowing pain again.
The thought of those creatures near her, their claws reaching for her skin...
It made something savage curl inside me, teeth bared.
I tried to shake the thoughts from my head.
This wasn’t the time. I needed to be sharp, present, focused. I wasn’t just protecting Sylvi; I was responsible for every soul in my camp. Letting myself get swept up in the fire she lit beneath my skin would only blind me. And if I lost sight of what mattered most, I’d risk all of them.
The lake had already proven that.
I’d been drowning in her taste, her scent, in the feel of her body beneath my hands when those creatures struck.
I should’ve sensed them, should’ve felt the shift in the magic around us.
But every one of my instincts had been anchored to her, and I’d missed the warning signs.
By the time I’d realized we were under attack, it had been too late.
I didn’t regret the kiss. Gods, I could never.
But I couldn’t ignore the truth, either—my lapse had likely cost four of my soldiers their lives.
A soft nicker rumbled in Draumskelmir’s throat, drawing me back to the present.
Mist curled around his hooves, his muscles tensing with each careful step, nostrils flaring as he tossed his head.
I reached down, giving his flank a gentle pat, but even my touch couldn’t ease the wariness rolling off him.
Like the rest of us, he, too, could feel the unnatural chill snaking around us the deeper we rode into the forest.
Trees loomed tall and skeletal on either side of the trail, their charred-like bark veined with some type of liquid-coal substance, as if the trunks were bleeding thick black blood that seeped into the ground.
No owls hooted, no rustle of branches. The only sound was the steady clop of hooves and the distant echo of our breath.
It was too quiet.
Ravin rode to my left, uncharacteristically silent, his shoulders tense beneath his leathers, eyes scanning for danger in the darkness.
It was strange seeing him outside his tailored silk clothes.
Dressed in all his finery, it was easy to dismiss him as a spoiled young lord squandering his fortune on eldbrann and sex.
But with his twin daggers strapped crosswise over his chest, blades secured to both thighs and calves, curls tied back in a knot, and the playful gleam in his eyes muted and shaded, he looked as fierce, if not more so, than any of my warriors.
Astrid and Torin followed right behind us while Varik and Vigmund brought up the rear.
No one spoke, not even a whisper.
Because we all felt it.
The sense of something watching us.
I shifted in my saddle, the leather of my fitted armor creaking softly. The pain along my healing scars had faded, but the tightness in my shoulders hadn’t. Still, the lighter leather plating I wore now was a relief. Easier to move in, easier to fight in.
The cold kissed the bare skin of my neck, stinging like needles, but I welcomed it. It kept me focused.
Varik rode up beside me, his horse sidling a little too close.
“We’ve been riding for nearly an hour, Your Highness,” he said, eyeing the forest around us, his tone edging toward irritation.
“No tracks. No sound. No sign of a threat. We might’ve gone too far from camp.
How do we even know this wasn’t just a frostwraith that wandered too close to the edge of the lake? ”
“It wasn’t,” Astrid snapped behind him. “I know what I saw.”
Torin snorted. “You were shaken, that’s all. Could’ve imagined the whole thing in a panic. We all know how dramatic females can—”
“If she imagined it, then explain the bodies,” Ravin cut in before the idiot could finish.
“Explain the fact that their flesh looked sucked dry, their eyes caved.” He leaned forward, his voice rough, though he didn’t mask the snark in his tone.
“We already discussed this back at camp, unless you’re too much of a dimwit to remember.
Frostwraiths drown their victims; they don’t hollow them out. ”
The warrior glowered, jaw tightening. “Watch your tongue, pretty boy, lest you’ve forgotten you’re not on the itinerary. Wouldn’t take much for someone to go missing in this forest.”
My sword was at Torin’s throat before anyone even registered the singing of the steel as I unsheathed my weapon from its scabbard. Its point brushed the pulse beneath his jaw. “Threaten him again, Lieutenant, and Varik will need to ship your body back home in pieces.”
Torin eyed my blade, his chest halted mid-breath. “Apologies, Your Highness. I only jest,” he said, trying to crack a smile.
I held his gaze a beat longer, then sheathed the blade with a metallic hiss. That’s when the first whispers ghosted over my ears. Soft, serpentine, like wind curling through the cracks of a forgotten crypt.
“Release us…”
My spine straightened. I turned my head slowly, tipping my head, but no one else reacted.
“Son of Ice…”
“What is it?” Ravin asked.
“Release us…” the voices whispered again, like a churning pit of vipers. “Release us, Son of Ice…”
More distorted whispers echoed around us, as if coming from every angle, behind every tree. I pulled on the reins, tension wrapping around my shoulders, but I couldn’t find the source of the hissing voices.
“Dark one… Release us… Son of Ice… Embrace the darkness… Your destiny… RELEASE US.”
“You don’t hear it?” I asked, voice rising, breath fogging in the air. Draumskelmir shifted beneath me, nickering.
The rest of the horses grew skittish, hooves stamping, ears swiveling toward some unseen threat. Astrid was the first to draw her weapon, axe clenched in one hand while she held the reins in the other. Around me, the hiss of steel leaving scabbards rippled through the mist-heavy air.
“I don’t hear anything,” Ravin said, though a second later, deep growls rumbled through the trees as a thick, black fog slithered in out of nowhere, bleeding across the forest floor, a cloud swallowing everything with purpose, breathing, sentient, almost…alive.
It coiled around the horses’ legs like shackles. Draumskelmir stamped his hooves nervously as we were all enveloped by the impenetrable darkness.
“Fuck, I can’t see anything in this f—” A sickening crack of bone against bark cut Torin short.
Another shriek tore through the air as another rider was thrown from their saddle, the scream interrupted by a sickening crunch.
“Ravin!” I shouted.
“I’m fine…just a scratch,” he grumbled, though unconvincingly. “But I’m blind out here…”
Deep, guttural snarls echoed around us as if we were being surrounded by wolves.
“Ambush!” Astrid bellowed.
Steel clanged, horses neighed, and another body got slammed against a tree.
Enough of this. I reached into my core and ignited my magic. Blue-white power blazed from my hands, flooding the forest with icy light.
Now, I could see—we all could.
And it was utter chaos.
Atop her horse, Astrid swung her axe in wide arcs, caving wolf skulls with terrifying force.
No, not exactly wolves…
Gods help us.
Towering over even the largest Skadgardian warhorses at nearly seven feet tall at the shoulder, monstrous wolf-like beasts ringed us in, their hulking forms cloaked in black, matted fur that shimmered with a ghostly sheen.
Their eyes gleamed like shattered moons, silver yet soulless, and their unhinged jaws revealed a row of fangs that glinted like black glass, dripping with venomous saliva that resembled the coal-like substance seeping from the trees, hissing like acid when it hit the ground.
Mist curled off their bodies like living smoke, limbs shifting in and out of shadow as if they weren’t entirely bound to this world.
Fuck. Nyrvendir—wretched beasts of the Shadow Court spawned from the twisted dreams of the cursed Fae of Nykraveld. They’d corrupted the majestic wolves of the north, turning them into nightmares. The monsters were believed to have gone extinct over a thousand years ago.
Seemed we’d been wrong.