Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Stellen, King of Frost
Ibend low over my wolf’s neck as she speeds across the border into the bloodlands, preparing for battle.
Leaving the Frost Kingdom like this, without any plan or preparation, is the most reckless move I’ve made in years.
But my chance to control the Oracle has arrived, and I won’t let her slip through my fingers. Not again.
Ahead of us, the landscape is pure night, the flat plain we’re racing across extending for at least another mile before it gives way to jagged rows of mountains.
Between the black peaks, valleys writhe with the bodies of the undead. Swarms of vampyrs lift into the air in the distance, their tattered, black robes billowing around them as they levitate upward in twining streams.
Their sheer number makes it impossible to distinguish one from the next, but their fleshy, white faces are like ivory dots, flashing in and out of view.
My wolf and I will be easy targets in this darkness.
Her snowy-white fur gleams. My pale skin, pale-gray robe, and long, white hair don’t help.
I won’t stop. No matter the danger.
I could tell myself that I want to break the curse the False Queen cast over the three kingdoms centuries ago. I could convince myself that I want to rescue my people from the endless winter that leaves them in danger of starvation all year round.
But my motivations are far more personal.
Far more selfish.
Three days ago, before I even beheld her, I heard the Oracle’s scream. A cry so powerful, it broke through the ice in my heart.
In that moment, I felt agony. Pain. Love. Hate. Grief. Happiness. Warmth. And every other emotion I chose, long ago, to purge from my soul.
With a single cry, she drove me to my knees.
And then…she wrenched all the feeling away.
Leaving me only with an insatiable need for her.
No matter what it takes, every light and every shadow in her soul will be mine.
My wolf’s speed is immense now, making us a blur of white nearly as fast as any eagle as we streak across the landscape, the ground so dark that I can’t tell if we’re running across ash or dirt or possibly even black bones ground to dust.
I have moments to decide which valley or mountain peak we should head toward, mere seconds before the vampyrs will detect our presence.
The Oracle told me to come for her when the stars go out.
But it’s her second command that consumes me now: find me where the light hides.
Finding anything in the bloodlands will be impossible, let alone a light where light simply doesn’t exist because otherwise, it would burn the vampyrs—
Ah.
But of course. If there is such a place within this darkness, the vampyrs will avoid it.
I need to listen for the spaces where they aren’t swarming.
My eyesight may not be as strong as my wolf’s, but my hearing is just as keen.
I inherited my acute hearing from my Lethian mother.
In a crowded, noisy room, she could isolate the scheming murmurs of those who wished for her death.
She could identify the crunch of snow beneath feet creeping through the night.
Even make out the whisper of frozen air wafting between icy boughs.
Sometimes, she hummed to herself the melodies she heard in nature, sharing them with me and my younger sister. Like secrets only we knew.
Now I have heartbeats in which to decide which direction my wolf should run.
Already, a stream of vampyrs breaks away from the main group in the distance and streams in our direction.
To her credit, my wolf doesn’t balk at the death coming for us. Like all Frost wolves, she’s a powerful fighter. She can leap far higher and run much faster than any other land animal. This isn’t the first time she and I have fought for our lives against malevolent creatures.
As she maintains a steady forward path, I close my eyes, block out my other senses, and expand my hearing, focusing past the cacophony of vampyric shrieking, seeking a space filled with silence. An absence of sound.
Perhaps even the sound of the Oracle’s breathing.
Maybe her voice…
My brow furrows deeply when I discover more empty spaces than I was expecting. Far more.
If anything, it seems the vampyrs are emptying out of the valleys and leaving the peaks, flocking from the east and the far west toward a single mountain ridge situated ahead and to our right.
I’m not capable of fear. Not of feeling it or succumbing to its debilitating effects on my body. I gave up my ability to feel dread when I destroyed my capacity to feel every other emotion.
But now my eyes fly open.
Instinct and logic warn me that the number of undead circling that mountain could be impossible to defeat.
I was wrong.
I won’t find the Oracle in the quiet.
No fear of light would keep starving vampyrs from the promise of food. They would risk burns for even a drop of her blood.
Whatever light she spoke of when she told me to find her where the light hides, its glow won’t save her.
My wolf, always attuned to my moods, gives a sharp growl.
To reach the mountain where the vampyrs are gathering, we’ll first need to cross two mountain ridges and two valleys between them.
Without me even uttering a command, my wolf veers in the direction of the first mountain ridge.
Acknowledging her courage, I lean lower and murmur, “Fight well, Nara.”
Her ears prick. No doubt at hearing her name.
I rarely use it, mostly communicating with whistles.
But if we’re about to meet our deaths together, I will respect her bravery.
As we catapult toward the first ridge, I take quick mental stock of my weapons. Two long swords in crisscrossing scabbards at my back, each blade with a pearly-white hilt and a razor-sharp edge, two pearl-handled daggers at my waist, and two smaller daggers, each inside one of my calf-high boots.
Finally, my frost power, which I’ve learned to control to pinpoint precision, not only to wreak maximum destruction on my enemies, but to avoid hurting Nara in the process.
She can walk on the ice I create, her paws resistant to the cold, but if my power touched her, it would freeze her flesh and bones as surely as it would shatter any other living creature.
I may not be able to feel the emotional weight of the trust Nara shows me, but I recognize its importance.
I won’t allow my ice to hurt her.
The stream of vampyrs that broke off from the larger group reaches the nearest mountain ridge at the same time as we do.
They pour down the slope toward us, but Nara doesn’t slow her pace, her strong legs carrying us up the rocky incline as quickly as if she were running on a flat surface.
The stream of undead spears toward us, their screams harsh in my sensitive ears.
“Blood!”
“Fresh blood.”
“Time to feast—”
I wait until the first creature is within twenty paces of us, its hands outstretched, mouth open wide, the gap between us closing in heartbeats, so close that I make out the wispy strands of yellowing hair on its mottled head and the mangled tips of its pointed ears.
Then I release my power.
Sharp stalactites shoot from my outstretched hands, three from each palm, spearing straight through the first six vampyrs before ramming and sticking in the bodies of the next six. Powdery snow explodes across them all.
Undeterred, they give gleeful cries. “Your spears can’t kill us!”
A smile tugs at my lips as the vampyrs reach me, on the verge of colliding with us.
Impaling them wasn’t the point.
A split second later, the snow carried on the spears does its work, freezing their innards and their undoubtedly brittle bones, shattering them from the inside out.
Their bodies separate as quietly as whispers.
As Nara speeds through the gore, I pour my power ahead of us, creating a tunnel along our path, an icy barrier that drives the remaining vampyrs back.
Nara runs along the tunnel, reaching the top of the peak within seconds, racing across its jagged top, navigating the uneven ground as she streaks toward the cliff’s edge.
I glimpse the valley below us as she leaps from the edge toward the ridge on the other side.
Into the air we fly.
Darkness yawns below us, the wide ravine oozing with black sludge that can only be the decomposing bodies of the undead who have finally succumbed to starvation. Or been killed by other vampyrs. I have no way to know.
But I certainly won’t become part of that ooze.
As powerful as Nara is, her momentum won’t carry us all the way across the ravine.
While the air rushes past me and the remaining vampyrs regroup behind us, I extend my right arm, ready, waiting another second…another heartbeat…until we’re close enough to the other side.
Ice pours from my hand, shooting across the air in a plume that latches on to the outcrop directly ahead of us, creating a jutting ledge of ice.
Nara lands lightly on it, her stride unfaltering as she reaches the safety of the outcrop.
Moments later, the ice crumbles behind us, shattered by our weight, but we’re back on solid ground.
The mountain ridge where the vampyrs are swarming is only a single valley away, but this one is wider than the first. Too far for Nara to jump.
She races forward and veers to the right, where the mountain dips and another outcrop creates a partial bridge between the two ranges, a narrowing of the pass across which she’ll be able to leap, bringing us toward the back of the swarm.
Her speed increases again, and I lean low, accepting the rush of air, the force of wind against my face and body as she evades the vampyrs behind us, nears the edge, and sails out into the air.
She lands lightly on the other side, slowing slightly to allow for a sharp left turn as we rush up the slope toward the highest peak.
Now that we’re closer to the main swarm, I can see that the majority of vampyrs have gathered on the far side of the mountain. From this angle, it’s impossible to tell if the mountain ridge ends in a sheer cliff on the other side or extends into a smaller ridge.