Page 17 of Of Fate So Dark

Who shatter the skies.

A chilly feeling ghosted over my cheek like a hand brushing my skin gently.

Alarm propelled my eyes open of their own accord, my heart in my throat.

No one else was here. The clearing was utterly still.

The whisper returned, so close it felt as if the woman’s lips were only inches from my ear.

Careful now, my little one.

Ozias gasped, his eyes flying open.

A ragged sob of relief escaped me. It worked. Oh, gods, it worked.

My eyes rose to dart over the clearing, but no one was there. Yet in some strange way I couldn’t define, I’d swear it felt like a presence in the clearing was fading, as if rather than the two of us here, there had been three.

And now one was gone.

Coughing, Ozias lurched away from the ground.

Refocusing quickly, I moved to help. His eyes snapped around and then landed on me as I grabbed his shoulders, supporting him.

He froze, staring at me, and I didn’t know what to do. Yes, he still looked like a strange beast, his face like a wolf but with sharp, savagely carved edges of bone protruding amid the fur. Pale, gnarled horns extended from his head, and his hands and feet bore enormous claws. But everything in his eyes was still wholly him, and I refused to be afraid.

Because he was alive. Oh, thank the gods, he was alive.

He drew a sharp breath and then suddenly, his form rippled and shifted before my eyes. His fur receded. His skin returned. The massive twisted antlers atop his head shrank back into his skull, and his elongated jaw and viciously pronounced brow molded back into the bearded face of the man I knew.

“Gwyneira?” He stared at me like he was the one who couldn’t believe I was still here.

“Hi.” I smiled. “I’m back. And you’re okay. You?—”

My vision spun. I gasped, catching myself with one hand on the ground as a fresh bout of shivering poured through me like my blood had turned to ice in my veins.

The voice had been right. I wasn’t careful enough. This cold was too much, and not even the blood Ozias had given me could warm me enough to withstand it.

“Princess?” He grabbed at me as I swayed.

But the light was fading, taking the world with it, and sorrow sank over me, bittersweet. I didn’t know what I’d done to save him, not really. Yet I couldn’t be truly sad about it, not when it meant he lived.

But now the cost was due.

Ozias’s shocked face was the last thing I saw before frozen darkness dragged me down.

6

BYRON

“Anything?” Dex called behind me.

“Not yet.” My voice was steady. Even. Meticulously calm and not remotely overwrought by fear. I was careful when I glanced down at the map in my hands, by no means crushing it regardless of how useless it currently was.

To be sure, the map hadn’t failed us. Its magical surface was changing constantly while we walked through this gods-forsaken forest, and with every passing moment, it showed me countless new pieces of supposedly relevant information. Where we were in the woods. What rivers and chasms lay ahead. What damage the Voidborn had wrought upon the terrain when they broke through into this world. That was helpful, of course, but what the damn thing didn’t show was a single detail related to the most important information of all.

Where in the name of all that was holy the princess had gone after the Voidborn attacked her.

“You sure we’re heading the right way, man?” Clay asked.

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