Chapter 30
“He came for us,” I breathe, my heart lifting in a way I never expected it would for Taliesin Wynn. But I’ve never been so glad to see frost in my life—or hear tortured screams fill the cold night.
“Yeah, and if he ain’t careful, he’s going to drag us to an icy grave along with everyone else out there,” Brioc mutters. “Or maybe he’ll just go straight for the harp. He wants it as much as we do.”
“He won’t.” The thought comes immediately, without any hesitation. And I realize somewhere between Taliesin chaining me on the rolling hills to now, I’ve come to trust him with my life. If it came down to me or the harp…I think…no, I know he’d choose to save me.
Ice spreads across the ground, inching closer. Beyond the tent, steel rings against steel. Angry shouts explode even closer.
And then pain erupts at the back of my neck. It rips through me with such force I cry out and lurch against the chains. The pain shoots into my skull, sharp and biting, like a thousand knives scraping at my mind.
“Angharad?” Brioc’s worried voice sounds distant, like he’s trapped behind a ward, or in another world entirely.
And I can’t answer him. All I can do is hiss between my teeth, eyes squeezed shut, desperate to hold on to enough breath not to tumble into darkness. My hands strain uselessly against the chains, but I can barely feel them.
The pain splits between my brows. It digs into my bones now, like it’s becoming part of me.
“Angharad, what’s wrong!” Brioc’s voice is louder now, but I can’t reach it. I can’t find him in this well of agony, where poisonous waters have risen and filled my mouth and lungs until there’s nothing left of me but it.
“Taliesin!” Brioc shouts. “In here! She needs you!”
At the sound of his name, something in me loosens. The pain is still there, rolling over me in vicious waves, but I can think. I can breathe. I suck in a lungful of air and force my eyes open. The world is nothing but a blurred mess before me—lanternlights bobbing and spinning like wraiths.
Another scream tears through the camp.
Then, suddenly—just as suddenly as it came upon me—the pain vanishes.
I sag against the chains, spent. “Fuck.”
Sweat dampens my forehead. Black dots burn at the edges of my vision. The back of my neck throbs around the talisman, the source of all that agony. What just happened? It’s never done that to me before. It’s like…like it was burning something into me.
“Ang, are you all right?” Brioc asks gently, his hand warm and steady on my shoulder.
“I don’t know,” I whisper, my voice raw. “My talisman. It—”
The tent flap soars open. Several Rhyfelwyr storm inside in battle leathers, moving so fast my vision blurs around them. Their heavy footsteps slam into the ground, each one making me flinch.
Whatever the talisman did, it has left me reeling.
“What’s going on?” Brioc demands. “We heard shouting.”
“No talking,” the one in the lead barks.
They move behind us and unfasten our chains from the tree, though they leave the manacles locked tight around our wrists. Someone roughly hauls me to my feet, and I sway, my mind and vision wavering like the ground itself is shuddering.
“You fucking bastards did something to her,” Brioc snarls. “Let her go. She can barely stand.”
“Shut your mouth, or we will cleave your head from your body.”
“Unchain me, hand me my sword, and then we’ll see how brave you Order puppets are,” Brioc snaps back.
My vision swims, but I still catch the flash of steel cutting through air. Horror claws its way up my throat. I wrench free from the guard holding me with more strength than I thought I possessed and lunge for Brioc’s attacker. I can’t let him die.
I collide into the Rhyfelwr’s middle, knocking him off balance as his blade whistles past Brioc’s throat, barely missing him.
We crash into the ground in a tangled heap. I slam onto my side. The force of the impact jars my bones, rattling my skull.
A splitting pain goes through my head, and all I can do is curl my fingers into the dirt and hold on.
“That fucking Swynwraig bitch,” the warrior mutters beside me.
“Stop being dramatic,” the leader snaps. “Get her up. Move.”
“Touch her, and I will shatter every one of you.”
The icy voice whips through the tent with power, enough that the ground seems to tremble beneath us. I close my eyes and draw in a ragged breath, relief and something dangerously close to hope tangling in my chest. He’s here.
The thought is like a sigh, fear unspooling all at once. Whatever we are to each other—whatever undoing fate has planned for us—I know without question he would never let anyone hurt me. No, they will be the ones to hurt instead.
“Get her. Now. And go out the back. I’ll handle him,” the leader orders, though his voice wavers, sounding less certain now.
A surge of bitter cold blasts through the tent. I shiver violently, teeth clenched, lungs burning from the intensity of it.
“You freeze us all, and she dies, too,” the leader warns.
“Let her go,” Taliesin commands. “I won’t say it again.”
A hand seizes my arm and drags me to my feet. Through blurred vision, all I see is silver. Heart pounding, I reach for him, but I’m dragged backwards, away from the pull of cold. Away from him.
The temperature suddenly plummets. All the breath in my lungs stalls and my pulse slows, like death itself has come. The guard suddenly releases me, and I fall to my knees. Palming the ground, I meet Taliesin’s gaze across the tent. His blackened eyes are burning into me.
“Stay low,” he says so softly I’m not entirely sure if I’ve heard him, or if my mind has fractured so much that I’m imagining things now.
Taliesin lifts his hand. Frost races up the nearest guard’s boots, climbing leather and flesh in the same breath. He stumbles, swearing, and tries to shake it off, but the ice has already taken hold. His boots freeze in place against the ground.
“No, please—” another slurs as frost seals his jaw mid-word.
Taliesin doesn’t look at any of them. His eyes are on me.
Ice consumes the first guard completely. His skin transforms into silver glass. He’s trapped a half a step behind me and caught mid-motion, one leg half-raised like he was trying to run. Then Taliesin closes his hand.
The crack begins at the knees. Ice splinters into branching lines, and then the guard breaks apart. Jagged shards hit the ground like falling glass.
With a moan, the second man tries to lunge. His lips are already blue, his neck consumed by frost. His sword drops from frozen fingers as his body collapses inward and outward all at once, splitting into crystalline fragments that rain like hail.
The leader makes it to the back of the tent. He crouches to duck beneath the canvas as the frost consumes him so quickly he’s flesh one moment and ice the next. Then he falls to the ground in shards until icy fragments are all that remain of him.
It’s over in moments. The only survivors are me and Brioc cowering in the far corner.
“Are you hurt?” Taliesin asks, his hands dropping heavily to his sides.
“I’m fine,” I say, though it comes out rougher than I intend.
It’s not entirely true, but I’m still breathing.
Taliesin crosses the floor in two quick strides. The ice beneath my hands begins to thaw, and the air becomes a little easier to breathe. Pain still lances through my skull, but at least it’s over for now.
Gently, he pulls me to my feet. My knees buckle immediately, and I start to slide away, but his arms clamp around my back.
“What’s wrong?” he murmurs. “What have they done to you?”
“It’s her talisman. Don’t know what they did, but it’s like it was burning her from the inside out. She can barely stand now,” Brioc calls out a little shakily. He strides across the tent, dragging his chains behind him.
“Those fucking bastards,” Taliesin growls.
“So…” Brioc clears his throat. “Should we expect resistance when we leave the tent?”
“I didn’t kill them all if that’s what you’re asking,” Taliesin says with narrowed eyes. “Gwenydd drew some away so I could get in here to find you both, but we need to move fast. One got away to alert the army.”
“Oh, wonderful,” Brioc says dryly.
“It’s the best we could do.” Taliesin suddenly sweeps his arm under my legs and hauls me against his chest. I don’t protest. I can’t. “Go to the harp tent. Gwenydd will be waiting for you. You’ll have to help her move it.”
A beat passes. “With an army at our backs?”
“They won’t follow. The screaming dead are in the forest tonight. That’s why the diversion didn’t work.”
A tense laugh. “Also wonderful. Only problem is….” He lifts his wrists, chains rattling.
After a brief glance at the tent’s opening, Taliesin grips Brioc’s restraints. Ice crawls across the links. In seconds, they shatter, leaving only the manacles behind. He does the same for mine. The chains collapse to the ground in a shivering heap.
With the weight gone, I sag fully against Taliesin’s chest and close my eyes. As much as I hate being helpless, I can’t fight this. I can barely see or stand. If there were ever a time to surrender my pride and let someone else save me, it’s now.
His body shifts against me as he strides outside, and a strange flicker of recognition goes through me. Like we’ve done this before in some other life…
“Can’t we do something about the manacles?” Brioc asks.
“Afraid not. The links are regular iron, but the manacles were forged from iron of the human lands. My magic is useless against them.”
“Ah, that’s why she can’t heal,” he says softly. “You need some help with her? It’s a long way to the new camp.”
“I’ll get her to safety. You worry about the harp,” Taliesin replies in a voice that brooks no argument.
“All right. Good luck.” A beat passes. “Never thought I’d say this to the exile, but I’ll pray to the gods we meet again soon.”
“Just get the fucking harp so this disaster of a plan wasn’t pointless.”
And with that, we’re sailing across waves again—or at least that’s what it feels like. I crack open my eyes, daring to witness the damage. But all is still and dark. And cold. Ice crunches beneath his steps.
My pulse thrums. Taliesin ripped through this camp with brutal precision.
I should be afraid, but I’m not. All I feel is relief, mingling with a guilt I can’t seem to shake.
These people never meant well for me. I see that now.
But the last thing I want is to have more death on my hands.
Ironic, really. Death is the only thing I’m good at.
Two figures emerge from the shadows of a nearby tent, torch held aloft.
Maelor, bearing a sword. And—
My heart stops as I take him in all at once. His gleaming blond hair. Those sunrise eyes. The expression that twists his familiar features into something I don’t recognize at first because I’ve never seen it directed at me. A mixture of shock, fury, and betrayal.
But…my heart stumbles with hope. It’s him.
“Osian?” I breathe.
Taliesin goes rigid around me, halting as a simmering cold whispers through the air.
“Release her,” Osian calls out, his face reddening with fury. “Give her to us. Now.”
I can’t look away from him. Nothing about this makes sense. How is he here? Outside of the Order’s castle? Away from the lab? The High Swynwragedd said they’d never let him leave…not until I returned with the revenant exile.
Lies. More lies. There’s so many now I feel like they’re choking me.
Taliesin raises his hand.
My heart lurches, and I reach up instinctively. I grab his arm and try to force it down. “No, please.”
His body tightens further, and his eyes flick briefly to mine before returning to the two figures ahead of us.
“Are you certain?” he murmurs.
“Please,” I whisper. “Don’t. Not Osian.”
Something dark flickers through his eyes, but after a beat his hand drops.
“Back inside the tent or I will freeze you where you stand,” he commands with no warmth in his voice at all.
Osian’s face twists up. “Anghar—”
“Do it,” I say quickly, before Taliesin can change his mind
Maelor hesitates only long enough to swallow, then grabs Osian’s arm and hauls him back toward the tent. Osian tries to tug away. But Maelor mutters into his ear, locking his hand tighter around his arm, and tugging him backward again. They vanish through the canvas.
Taliesin lifts his hand once more. Ice pours forward. It climbs the tent, racing over the canvas like a solid shield and trapping the Rhyfelwyr inside. Then, as distant shouts ring out in the distance, he turns without a word and strides into the trees.
Over his shoulder, I watch the frozen tent fade into darkness.
And even then, I still see Osian’s face.