He starts my way, and I pray that I can do this, though I don’t even know what this is.
Before I can do anything, however, the prince bursts into a red cloud and reappears before my eyes. He falls on me like a mountain lion on a doe, straddling me.
Red, riotous shadows seethe from him. They stretch and crawl and creep toward Colden and Nephele, bloody, nebulous rivers flowing across cracked earth.
In an instant, those same shadows writhe around my sister and her king, trying to tear them from my grip again, but I hold fast. I strain and pull, gritting my teeth, clinging to their hands.
The tether around my heart tightens—Alexus, working to bring us back home.
This time, I will not let go.
“Such a disappointment.” The prince raises the God Knife once more. “I tried to spare you. You could’ve been of such great use to me. Now I must leave you in the Shadow World while I head for the Summerlands to raise the gods and bring this empire to its knees.”
Gods. Not just Thamaos.
The prince leans close and brushes his decaying lips against my cheek. “At least your soul will restore me. I bet it tastes like smoke and starlight.”
I close my eyes. I refuse to witness the murderous look that must shine in his dead eyes as he rears back. I only feel Alexus—his tether and our runes pulling me even as the icy God Knife buries to the hilt between my breasts, just like Vexx did to Alexus.
Gasping, I snap my eyes open. The pain is unfathomable, a bright, burning thing tearing through me, melting the bones around my heart.
I’m dying. I must be.
But it isn’t the knife. The knife isn’t even there. I’m surrounded by darkness, thick as ink. The only light comes from the burning lines and grooves of the rune on my chest. The sigil burrows into me, spreading heat through my veins, its power claiming me.
I’m in this in-between place, the void between two worlds. Alexus marked me, and now I feel his summons, his voice a whisper in the back of my mind. Colden and Nephele aren’t with me, but I can still feel them, at the edge of my grasp.
“Just let me go!” Colden screams. “Save Nephele! This is the only way!”
Though he sounds a million miles away, they’re so close, their hands in mine. I refuse to let go. I’m strong enough. I can do this!
But I’m not given the chance.
The fingers clutched in my left hand, fingers I know belong to the King of the Northlands, pry loose from my grip.
The second he’s gone, the moment I feel him sucked away, I cry out for him in my mind. There is no victory without sacrifice, but this isn’t how the story was supposed to end. I wasn’t supposed to fail. The prince wasn’t supposed to win. The Frost King wasn’t supposed to be willing to give all—for us.
For me. For my sister. For his people.
On a sob, I grab the other hand still clenched in my grasp—Nephele. With all that I am, I heave and heave until I’m no longer alone in the dark.
I cling to my sister, both of us crying and shivering in this abyss. Closing my eyes, I focus on Alexus’s prayers, on his tender voice and the promise of his rune, and let him guide me back to the light.
40
Alexus
My magick hasn’t flowed freely in three hundred years. Tonight, only a thin thread of power trickles in my blood, but it’s enough.
And it feels extraordinary.
Humming in my veins.
Coming alive in my bones.
When it finally wakes completely, even the mountains will know.
Raina lies in my arms. The prince almost took her from me, but a clever sorcerer marks what’s his. Raina Bloodgood now bears my rune.
My power.
My seal.
My name.
Alexi of Ghent.
Shared with her.
Her eyes flutter open for a brief moment as snow falls around us. She’s too weak to sign, but I know her face, every expression. I can read her thoughts in that furrowed brow, see them floating in her deep blue eyes.
“No,” I whisper. “I didn’t save you. I only helped you save yourself.”
I touch the rune on her chest and press my lips to it. The truth is that this woman is saving me. She saved me on the green, in the wood, in the ravine, and she’s saving me right now, just by breathing.
Her eyes close, but her heart still pounds beneath my touch. In another life, I would’ve tried to know her. I would’ve admired her and read her poems written by my own hand. I would’ve walked with her through fields of stardrops, danced with her in the stream.
But this is not another life.
And I’m beginning to wonder if it has to be.
IV
Winterhold
41
Raina
The first time I rouse, I see nothing but a snowy sky, and it hurts to breathe. I’m alone, but then a body folds around mine, warm and comforting, and for a heartbeat, I think it’s my mother. But a little death thrums inside my chest, nestled away in a deep corner of my heart. It’s him. The sureness of that fact brings overwhelming relief that sweeps me back to darkness. He is exactly where he belongs.
With me.
His deep voice meets my ears. “Come, little beauty,” and I’m dimly aware of being carried away, Frostwater Wood fading from sight.
The second time I open my eyes, a long, black cloak sweeps over me like a blanket. The world is still white, and I think I’m in the vale in winter, the pale light of morning breaking through the clouds. I’m atop a horse, strong arms cradling me while holding fast to the reins. I hear the chink chink clink of a bridle, the soft thud of hooves, and I notice an unmistakable sway, rocking me back to sleep.
Before I succumb, I look at the bearded face of the man who holds me, and he meets my stare. My head rests on his shoulder, his mouth so close that the warmth of his breath brushes against my lips.
“It’s all right. I’m here. Rest.”
My heart pounds, something inside me fearing that this can’t be real while another part of me prays to the moon that it is. He shouldn’t be here, but he is, and if it’s a dream, I want to cling to it a while longer.
My eyes close—I’ve no command over them anymore—and I drift, curling against the Witch Collector’s heat.
Alexus.
His name playing over and over in my head tugs me awake the third time. I open my eyes, and it takes a moment to realize where I am.
And that I’m still breathing.
I lie in an elegant bed with four intricately carved posts, a black brocade canopy with matching bed curtains. The room is so warm. It’s the size of the cottage, with a fire blazing in a stone hearth. I’m no longer wearing my bloody bodice or leathers or borrowed boots. I’m dressed in a chiffon shift the color of a blush. My hair is still damp and smells of jasmine and lilac.
I remember everything. The ravine. Winter Road. The Shadow World. Seeing Winterhold—in person—for the first time. Being stripped, bathed, and mended by strangers while in a daze. Explaining to Alexus, Helena, and Rhonin as much as I could about what happened. Holding Nephele by the fire as she cried for the loss of her village, her mother, her king.
Reaching for Alexus when it was over.
Asking him to stay.