All I can hear is my pounding heart, and I can’t breathe. It takes a minute for my wind to return, a deep gasp filling my lungs with cold air as I cough out bits of earth and wood. Most of the wagon lies around me in pieces, the steel frame warped and bent to one side. Above, the night sky sprawls for forever, snow falling in big, white flakes. But below, that cold mist slinks close, spilling over the road, wisps of white floating through the wreckage.
Hauling myself up, I get to my knees and crawl, slivers of pine stabbing my palms. The horses lie unmoving, and Colden rests near a tree, crumpled in a mess of chains. One of the other wagons, the one ahead of us, is just as destroyed. It’s close enough that I can make out bodies scattered everywhere, but some are blessedly moving, getting up.
The wagon behind us rests on its side, leaned against a tree. It’s still intact, though the Eastlanders manning the horses are trapped beneath the weight of their wounded animals.
Nephele. Which one was she in?
Voices catch my attention. No—screams. And grunts. Steel clashing against steel. Echoing from the camp. With each passing moment, the sounds grow louder.
The sounds of battle.
Colden isn’t far. I clamber toward him, the snow cold on my hands, the mist tangling around my wrists. I don’t know who the Eastlanders could be fighting. It must be whoever the prince spoke about—the visitor—though that sound certainly isn’t coming from a fight with one person.
Which means it can’t be Hel. More Witch Walkers? That doesn’t feel right either. Even the Frost King felt a moment of fear when he stared out that window.
Regardless, I need a hatchet and loads of newfound brawn. If I can get his chains free, Colden Moeshka might be able to end all of this.
Though he’s heavy as an anchor, I pull him over to his back. He lets out a long groan followed by a drawn-out, “Fuuuuuck.”
Gods. My dagger is lodged in his shoulder.
He blinks his eyes open and takes me in, then glances at the hilt jutting from his body. “Get that damn thing out of me.”
I yank it free, and he barely winces.
“Now, use it to pick the lock on these godsdamn manacles.” He struggles to a sitting position, the mist around us rising, and glances behind me. “For the love of devils, hurry.”
Oh yes, pick the lock. With a bloody dagger. In a hanging fog. Because that’s something I do every day. I can’t begin to think straight. Every part of me aches. My mind is as tossed as my body was, and my hands tremble, a leaf in a storm. I’m not even sure if I’m in one piece.
But there’s no hatchet, of course, and so I try to pick the lock, sticking the thin dagger into the mechanism as far as it will go. With shaking hands, I twist the metal back and forth, but I have no clue what I’m doing. Or what I’m supposed to be doing.
“Magick,” Colden bites out. “You’re colorful as a damned firework. Surely you have skill. And don’t look at me like that. I can all but hear your mind cursing me. Just get these things off me if you want to live.”
Maybe he does have to die. We will never survive one another otherwise.
And he clearly doesn’t know as much about me as I thought. Marks or no marks, panic is not a good motivator. My mind is so blank that I can’t even recall the word for scrying, much less a string of Elikesh that might undo a lock.
“Forget it!” He jerks his hands away. “Just run. Find Nephele and run! Go!” His dark eyes lift toward the sky, fixed on something behind me. Those dark irises are shadowed with white, as though he stares into winter itself. He recoils. “This cannot be bloody happening.”
Something cold and icy slithers around me, colder than the mist. I go stock-still. Then I follow Colden’s line of sight over my shoulder.
The rolling fog rises, high as the trees, and coalesces into the form of a creature that is as tall as Mannus the warhorse.
In the middle of Winter Road stands a naked, nebulous being with white hair down to his waist, pointed ears, and unmistakable lupine features—from slanted amber eyes to fangs tucked behind a curled upper lip. His hands are enormous, and though they have fingers, each digit is dark and claw-tipped, his palms more paw than flesh. He bares the lean, sinewy torso of a man, but he stands on the thickly muscled hind legs of a beast, covered in silky, pristine fur.
I swallow. Hard.
Part man. Part wolf.
Neri.
No wonder the prince ordered the camp into preparations.
Wolves creep from the foggy shadows of the surrounding wood, showing their teeth, growls vibrating in the backs of their throats. There are hundreds—eyes sharp, fangs bared, maws wet with froth. One skulks up beside me until its muzzle is a foot from my face. It lifts its snout, blowing hot breath over me, daring me to move.
I clutch the tiny, bloody dagger Rhonin gave me in a death grip, but every inch of my body might as well be rooted to the ground, implacable fear trapping me in the moment.
Colden glares at the god like he could slaughter him. “You son of a bitch. What did you do to Alexus?”
The mist that formed Neri crystallizes, rendering him corporeal yet still white as snow, his skin glimmering like it’s made of stars. He tilts his head, and his amber eyes flare. When he speaks, his voice is so deep and resonating that the forest shudders.
“What did I do to him?” The God of the North takes long, stalking steps toward us and looms over Colden. He lowers his head, his neck longer than it has any right to be, and catches Colden’s face in his clawed grip. “I granted him mercy,” he snarls. “Which is far less than he granted me and nothing like what I will grant you.” He fists the crossed chains at Colden’s chest and heaves him into the air until the Frost King’s feet are no longer on the ground. “After three centuries, your time to die at my hand has finally come, Colden Moeshka. And there are no other gods here to stop me this time.”
Colden snarls back at the god. “There are worse fates than death. Be creative, at least. You mongrel.”
Neri growls, a low rumbling noise, and slams the king to the ground.
Colden’s body bounces, the wind leaving his lungs in a gust of frosted breath. Neri waves a hand, and Colden’s chains fall away as though unlocked by ghosts. Colden grabs Neri’s wrist, sending pale blue lines branching and webbing across the god’s pawed hand, ice forming and spreading in chilled vines along the god’s forearm.
But Neri laughs, and before the ice can reach his elbow, he flexes his fingers, and the frozen rivulets shatter and fall away.
“I gave you that power, you pathetic human. And I can take it away. This is my land,” he says through clenched fangs. “I don’t seat kings. The only crown in the Northlands belongs to me.”
“And yet you’ll stand here while the people of ‘your land’ suffer a miserable eastern prince who means to raise your enemies from the dead.”
Neri’s face tightens.
“That’s what he wants,” Colden goes on. “To thrive off their power. Then what will you do? Do you really think he will leave your grave intact for you to return to? If he can’t take from you, he will make certain you are no more than this—” he gives Neri a belittling once-over “—mist-made thing, for eternity. You can forget being a true god ever again.”