Chapter 66
Thyra
My stomach turns at the sight ahead of us.
I count eight bodies and ask, “Which one is Iker?”
“The one on the far left,” Stellen replies. “The other seven are his children.”
My dread builds as figures finally appear within the distant gate.
Dozens of men and women spill from the opening and take up position on the snowy expanse in front of the wall. They’re all wearing fur coats, their hair matted and skin leathery.
Those must be the nearly forty heartbeats Stellen said he could hear. Which means that every other Frost Fae who was living here is now dead.
I don’t second-guess my ability to see the details of the shapeshifters’ features across the distance. Or how I sensed that the compound was overly quiet before.
My eyesight is heightened and so is my hearing. Abilities that have been brought sharply to my attention now that I know what the blood bind is doing.
I need to tell Stellen about it.
I want…more than anything…to trust that he won’t hurt me.
I promise myself I’ll overcome my fear and give him that chance when Lilis is safe and I can breathe again.
As the shapeshifters form ragged lines a hundred paces away, I look for Fable among them, but I don’t see her. Neither do I see Brunkil.
Stellen’s calm voice breaks through the storm building within my mind, making me grateful for his cold nature. “Remember how I told you a single minute can be a lifetime?”
He slips from Nara’s back and reaches up for me. “This next minute can stretch as long as we need.”
I take deep breaths, steadying myself as my feet find the ground.
“Nara,” he says to her, “stay near Thyra at all times. Do not leave her.” Then he turns to me.
“Thyra, I need only for you to stay alive. I will get Lilis. If anything goes wrong, head due west for the Alak-Teah and take shelter within it. The palace would be closer, but you can’t risk drawing the Northerners there. ”
I immediately think of Juniper. As well as the city-dwellers. “I understand, but I won’t leave you behind.”
Stellen’s lips soften. “The Northerners could have waited for us to enter the compound. They’ve come out to us, which indicates they don’t want to fight where they’re confined.
If I can, I will draw them inside, where I can use the buildings to my advantage, blocking them with ice walls and such.
If I go in, I don’t want either of you to follow me, do you understand? ”
Again, I nod, but slower this time.
Stellen reaches for my hand, pressing it to his heart. “I expended a lot of energy this morning. I expected to face Frost Fae here who would seek to play political games, not shapeshifters who are more likely to seek a bloodbath than negotiate. I need to be smart about how much power I use.”
“What about your Lethian power?”
“It affects everyone who hears it, not only my intended target.” Shadows cloud his expression as he speaks. “I won’t use it for harm as long as you’re within earshot.”
He reaches for my braid, running it through his fingertips. “That’s why, as soon as I have Lilis, I need you to run.” His voice becomes more intense and I detect strains of power in it. “You must run, Thyra. Can you promise me that?”
“But—”
“Once you’re all out of earshot, I can do what I need to do.”
“I understand.” I take a deep breath, not liking that it might mean leaving him behind but trusting it won’t come to that. “I’m ready.”
Stepping back and drawing his swords, Stellen takes another moment, a hint of frost dusting his features, icy power growing around his form.
His pale gaze sweeps across me and now his voice grows softer. “As long as you’re safe, all is right with my world.”
My lips part, the cold air I drag into my chest cooling my rising dread.
Before I can reply, Stellen focuses on the shapeshifters and begins stepping toward them, staying slightly ahead of me in a protective position.
Every step we take brings us closer to their ferocity.
With wild grins and sharpened teeth, the shapeshifters study our approach while Stellen keeps his swords raised and I brace for an attack at any moment.
“Close enough,” Stellen murmurs when we’re twenty paces away from the nearest shapeshifter. Then he raises his voice. “Where is your leader?”
Movement from within the gate draws my attention.
Brunkil finally lumbers through the opening, dragging Lilis beside him.
Her face is bruised, blood clotted across her temple, and her silver armor has deep vents. Claw marks. I can only imagine how much damage has been done to her flesh beneath her armor.
Her hands are bound with the same rope from which the Silverstens hang, and she appears barely conscious, her eyes closed.
Brunkil stops just outside the gate, behind the rows of shapeshifters, where he drops Lilis to the ground. She lands heavily and doesn’t stir.
The alpha wolf maintains his distance, a hunkering form in his thick fur coat, his beard braided in three places, his scars stark in the midday sun.
Again, I look for Fable and finally, I spot her.
She’s in her wolf form, a dark-gray shape keeping to the shadows within the gate. I don’t want to fight her if we can help it. Selfishly, because I need information about her mother. Less selfishly, because she showed restraint when she could have killed me.
Stellen follows my line of sight. We’re too close to the shapeshifters to speak privately now, but I’m certain he won’t target Fable if he doesn’t need to.
“Frost King,” Brunkil calls, moving to block Lilis from view. “Are you ready to lose your head?”
Stellen’s posture remains relaxed. “I’m here for my soldier. Give her to me, and I’ll let you leave this place alive.”
Brunkil grins. “You wish us to leave. Can’t have us fortifying ourselves behind these walls and making a home here, can you? I’m afraid we’ve gotten quite comfortable here in the last two days.”
My instincts prickle. I take a hard look at the bodies hanging against the wall, my dread rising when their state of decomposition supports Brunkil’s claim.
If they’ve been dead for days, instead of hours, then the nameless man’s attempt to warn Lilis in the city was already too late—and focused on the wrong enemy.
I look for that man now, trying to recognize him in the crowd of shapeshifters, not finding him.
Brunkil grins at Stellen before he shouts to his pack. “We’re not leaving, are we?”
The shapeshifters all bare their teeth. Except Fable, who remains in the shadows.
“Well, then,” Stellen says, inclining his head.
Brunkil sucks his teeth. “Indeed.”
A moment of silence descends, the breeze carrying the soft caw of a white crow sailing on the wind from the east.
Stellen flinches, an unexpected response, since he’s remained calm until now.
His gaze pulls to the bird as it lands on the compound wall, his focus distracted from the threat in front of us.
“Fear will not control me,” he whispers. “Chaos will not control me. Loss will not control me. No more.”
I’m shaken by his murmur.
I was so consumed by my own heartache, and Stellen’s serene countenance seemed so unshakable, that I only now contemplate what will happen if he loses Lilis today.
Stellen may be heartless, and Lilis may be cruel, but she’s stood at his side for years. She’s the only Frost Fae who would speak with him. The only Frost Fae, it seems, willing to come within a few feet of him. When she came to kill him all those years ago, he let her live.
She’s a survivor. So is he.
I’m determined to stay alive, but I won’t allow a new loss to flood his hollow spaces.
Across the distance, Brunkil gnashes his teeth.
The peace breaks and the first row of shapeshifters leaps at us, half of them remaining in their fae forms while the other half shift into their wolf forms.
I was prepared to play it safe, stay back, let Nara and Stellen take the brunt of the fight, but my instincts scream at me to act.
As Nara plows toward the wolves on my right, and Stellen leaps toward the shapeshifters on my left, I race toward the gap in the middle.
Two shapeshifters still in fae form see me coming and twist away from Stellen to launch themselves at me, both shifting mid-air, their abandoned fur coats floating behind them.
With a sharp, deliberate shout, I leap to meet them, punching both fists forward, left then right in quick succession.
My reflexes are lightning fast, my aim nearly perfect.
My left fist collides with the first wolf’s shoulder and my right fist hits the other wolf’s neck.
Two hard hits, but it’s my shout that does the most damage.
Silver threads shoot down my arms, separating from the rest of my Lethian armor, tearing through my training suit to form needles as sharp as blades.
Blood sprays as the threads tear through the heart of the wolf on my left and decapitate the wolf on my right.
I land on the newly bloodied ground, aware that the threads along my right arm are keeping to the back of that arm, swirling across my knuckles instead of around my palm to avoid contact with the blood bind, but their more careful path didn’t make them any slower.
I’ve broken through the first row and now the second is upon me.
Ten shapeshifters rage at me, some as wolves, some in fae form, and my focus becomes pinpoint.
As they leap forward, I stay aware of Stellen, who quickly dispatches the shapeshifters he was facing, using only his sword and conserving his frost power.
Nara shakes herself free of the three wolves she was facing and charges ahead, forcing more wolves into my path.
I’m not afraid to face them.
A rush of energy spikes through my body, every heartbeat making me faster, more alert, my senses heightened, as all of my training kicks in.
While my body moves fast, the onslaught around me suddenly feels…slow.
I launch myself toward the shapeshifters quicker than they can leap at me, spinning from one to the next, my silver armor responding to my needs as rapidly as my thoughts can fly.
My fists move in a blur, my silver armor tearing through flesh and bones as I whirl from one attacker to the next, turning the ground around me into a mess of blood and death.
As I spin to my left, I catch sight of Stellen where he fights, still only using his swords and not his frost power.
His focus flashes to me at that same moment.
A rare smile forms on his lips as his eyes meet mine. A full smile. Quietly serene.
His whisper reaches me through air now glittering with silver blades. “Warrior and queen.”
I don’t know what he means and I don’t have time to contemplate it.
The final row of shapeshifters surges forward and an opening appears between them, a gap leaving a direct path to Lilis.
I don’t need to shout.
Stellen launches himself up into the air, right overhead and into the clear space I created, racing through the opening, directly toward Brunkil and Lilis.
Brunkil grins where he stands in front of Lilis, his claws descending and teeth sharpening, appearing ready to rip Stellen’s head from his shoulders.
A second before they collide, ice finally explodes around Stellen’s body, raging down his arms and blasting into Brunkil’s chest.
The alpha wolf leaps backward just before the blow lands, narrowly missing the worst of it but tumbling across the snow, giving Stellen the seconds he needs to reach Lilis and haul her up into his arms.
Deep relief fills me.
Stellen has Lilis, and now we can get out of here. I begin to run toward Nara to escape, just as Stellen asked me to.
But across the way, Stellen has frozen, half-risen to his feet, his arms around Lilis where she leans against his chest.
I can’t see what’s wrong.
From this angle, I can only make out the widening of Stellen’s eyes and the drop of his unearthly gaze to Lilis’s upturned face.
Her arm moves. Wrenching away from his side.
Blood sprays the air behind them and splatters the snow.
A blade glints in her outstretched left hand, its wooden handle dark in her pale fist.
She steps back, revealing a second dagger rammed into Stellen’s chest.
Lilis’s knuckles turn white around that dagger before she shoves Stellen away from herself, leaving the weapon where it rests in his heart. A perfect, lethal strike.
No.
Stellen collapses to his knees, blood trickling from his mouth and with my heightened senses, I can hear the ragged breath he tries to take and the slowing beats of his heart.
A cry rises to my throat.
Fear. Loss.
And then…
Fucking chaos.
A furious storm grows in my heart as the wolves howl triumphantly, and Lilis roars, “I invoke the Winter Strife.”