I break into a run, tearing through the line of dead trees, ignoring the sharp pain when my feet are cut by twigs. I burst through the forest and sprint down the rocky beach, heading for the remains of a dock. The wood looks just sturdy enough to walk on.
My name is on my lips; I’m trying to form the sounds. It’s something several syllables long—but there’s another one, shorter. A single rough note that’s concise, direct.
It comes with the memory of the man who rode into battle with me. God, my chest aches at the thought of him. He whispered that shortened name like he loved the sound of it. Like he was telling me a secret. As if it meant I love you and I want you. As if it were a promise on his lips, a declaration. A vow.
My feet hit the dock. The whole structure groans beneath my weight. I take those last steps tentatively, so the wood doesn’t collapse. Then I lie down on my stomach, peer over the edge, and look into the still water.
Those aren’t my eyes.
It’s the first thing I notice. They should be different—hazel, I think. A mixture of brown and deep, deep green. Now they’re the light amber of raw honey. The color is rich and vibrant and unsettling.
Those aren’t my eyes. They can’t be.
I study my features for anything else that stands out. My face stares back at me, and it looks familiar. Beneath the fine layer of dirt and soot, ginger freckles are scattered across the bridge of my nose, along my cheekbones and the tops of my shoulders where the dress has left them bare. My curly, copper-colored hair dips closer to the water, a single ringlet barely touching the surface. I know my face, just as I’d know my name if I heard it.
The rest of me is ordinary, normal. Human features in a human face. My attention returns to my eyes. Not mine. Not human. A chill goes through me when I see a glimmer beneath the irises, like a shadow crossing water.
Compelled, I reach out to touch my reflection. The moment I make contact with the water, it tugs at the power inside me. God, it hurts. The pain eases only when I free it again from its prison in my chest.
Ice forms around my fingertips—but it doesn’t stop there. It spreads quickly across the surface of the water, fanning out in tendrils of frost. The sleek, smooth surface is as clear as a mirror. It’s so beautiful that I can’t help but admire it.
Until I realize the ice isn’t stopping. I try to draw it back, but it’s too late. I can’t. My powers won’t be caged now, they won’t be contained or slowed. The frost keeps spreading across the loch, reaching the rocks along the far shore.
Slow down. Slow down—
Thunder claps in the distance and I start. Overhead, the shaft of sunlight that lit up the silver waters of the loch disappears behind dark storm clouds that weren’t there a moment ago. A sudden icy wind slices through the delicate fabric of my dress.
“Stop it,” I tell my power in a choked whisper, struggling to pull it back into that too-small space in my chest. “Stop stop stop.”
My power snaps back so fast and painfully that I cry out. I scramble to my feet, pulse quickening. The loch and the beach are covered in a thick layer of ice.
What did I just do? The power is like my eyes—it doesn’t feel right. It’s not mine. How can it be? I can’t control it.
Accept. You must accept now.
A skeletal hand wrapping around mine in a hard, bruising grip. A withered body embracing me, and a sudden agonizing, searing pain.
I remember how I threw back my head and screamed and screamed and screamed.
Staggering at the memory, I hurry away from that damned dock before I can do something worse than freezing the water and bringing a storm.
Just what the bloody hell was that? What am I?
My thoughts whisper a word. A horrifying suggestion that makes me go still with dismay. Fae.
No, I’m not fae. I stare down at my feet, swollen and cut up from walking through the forest. Fae don’t bleed this easily. The realization is a small comfort. A memory comes fast: me curling my fingernails into my palms to recall what pain felt like.
Pain that said I’m still human. I’m still me. Bleeding is what mortals do.
I’m still mortal.
The sharp beat of horse hooves draws me out of my thoughts. The rhythm is a faint, steady staccato against the earth. It isn’t just the sound—I can feel it. In the rocks, the same way my power connected to the water. It’s coming from the living forest at the far end of the loch.
Three horses. Each with a rider and . . .
Power. It has a weight to it, the way air does on humid days. A heaviness accompanied by a wild, earthy scent that’s vaguely floral. It calls to something inside me that knows—with certainty—that those riders are my enemies. Their power grows closer, gliding across the land in tendrils as dark as shadows cast by trees.
They’re searching for someone.
I flick a glance down at my hands, still cold from the water. They must be looking for the source of power. For whoever burned the forest to the ground. For whoever froze the surface of the loch.
Me. They’re looking for me.
CHAPTER 2
I TAKE OFF running. My bare feet slap against the smooth beach rocks and up the bank until I reach the soft, charred dirt of the dead forest. Power barrels out of me in a burst through the branches, bending them in an arched path to let me pass. I sprint toward the towering trees farther up the beach, where the forest was left untouched by my destructive abilities.
The riders are getting closer. As if they sense I’m nearby, the rhythm of horse hooves grows faster, louder. It matches the beat of my heart, the roar of my breath.
The living forest is full of tall Scots pine, the perfect kind of place to hide—or attack. The trees have grown so densely that little is visible beyond the first line of the thicket. The canopy of lush, vibrant leaves greedily absorbs the sunlight before it can touch the ground, leaving the trunks shrouded in impenetrable shadows. The branches creak and groan, the air growing colder as I approach.
I run for the cover of darkness, an inexplicable thrill going through me. This is comforting—the familiarity of it, the way setting up an ambush is second nature. I’ve done this before. Many, many times.
As I near the line of trees, the sticks and rocks in the soil here are sharper against my bare feet. I speed up and leap the last few feet into the thicket as if I were diving into a cold stream. With no light to reach the ground, even the air is frigid and harsh against my skin.
I find a dark space between the pines, then wait for the fae to come.
The horses are right behind me at the entrance to the woods. One of the fae riders lets out his power in a soft, searching stroke as they dismount and head through the trees. A tendril of it brushes the hair along my neck, followed by a voice at the back of my mind saying, Found you.
I hope he hears my silent challenge: Then come and get me.
I move against a tree, pressing my back firmly to the trunk and slowing my breath. My power recedes into my veins and I tamp it down further, ignoring how much it hurts. It pulses in my chest, unsettled; the space where it’s being kept is too small, too confining. It longs to be freed.