Page 31 of Horn of Winter

“Not at the moment.” I moved forward slowly, wary of slipping on the sheeted pavement. My fingers began to ache, though it was more from the sheer intensity of the cold this close to the building than the force of my grip on the hilts.

I stopped several feet away from where the door should have been. The small alcove was completely filled in and there was no sound coming from the building’s interior. The wood song had died, just as Kaitlyn was dying. I guess it was unsurprising that, given what I was, the former made me angrier than the latter.

I raised the knife in my right hand and lightly pressed its tip against the ice. For several seconds, nothing happened. Then lightning flashed overhead, and the blade responded, its dark inner lightning rolling down the fuller and sparking brightly when it hit the ice. Fine cracks slithered away from the knife’s tip and water pooled around the point before dribbling down to the pavement where it froze again.

I wasn’t calling to the storm, so why did its intensity echo through the knives?

I didn’t know—a somewhat common refrain when it came to the triune and what it was actually capable of—but I had nothing to lose by following through with my earlier threat. Kaitlyn certainly did have something to lose, but if we didn’t break the lock of this ice, she’d soon be as dead as the wood song anyway.

I glanced around and met Sgott’s gaze. “I’m going to try stabbing the knives into the ice and see what happens. If I shout, run.”

“As long as you do the same.”

I smiled, though it was filled with tension. “Trust me, being buried under a mountain of ice is not on my to-do list today.”

“I would hope it’s not on your to-do listanyday.”

I snorted, but my amusement slithered away as I returned my attention to the wall in front of me. Giving myself little time to think or worry, I raised both knives and thrust them, with as much force as I could muster, deep into the cold blue depths. The blades slid in smoothly, only stopping when the hilts hit the surface. Once again, nothing immediately happened, then thunder rumbled so damn loudly, I’d have sworn the pavement quaked under my feet. Lightning flashed, rolling across the groaning skies in fierce, bright waves.

Light pulsed around the hilts, as if in response to the light show happening overhead. Though their fiery touch didn’t hurt or burn my fingers, I nevertheless released the knives and stepped back.

Tiny cracks began to appear in the ice, spreading out from the two hilts in uneven lines, spiderweb-fine at first and then increasing in size and shape. The old building shuddered, and a sharp snapping sound echoed, reminding me somewhat of the noise a tree limb made when torn from the trunk.

I took another step back. The fierce glow coming from the knives was now so bright it washed across the ice, turning the blue purple. The shuddering increased, the snapping soundgrew louder, deepening the cracks that swept over the ice. On the roof, a tile exploded, sending sharp shards into the air.

Then, with a groan not unlike that of a dying beast, the whole building began to crumble.

Chapter

Five

I turned and ran.Thick slabs of ice shattered on the pavement behind me, sending dagger-like shards spearing through the air, pockmarking the police car and thudding into my back. Pain rippled down my spine, but my coat appeared to be protecting me from the worst of the barrage.

As I slid around the end of the car, a huge chunk of ice-wrapped brick hit its roof, collapsing it inward. The rumbling behind me grew louder, the sound of falling ice sharper. The entire building was going to come down before I could reach safety....

Movement caught my eye, coming in from the left. Sgott, barreling toward me. I didn’t slow down and neither did he; he simply swooped in, swept me up into his arms without breaking stride, and then ran on down the street, heading for the police car blocking the other end of the road from where we’d parked.

I looked over his shoulder, and shock hit. A strangely glowing vortex swept around what remained of the building, disintegrating some sections of ice while jettisoning others. The police car continued to take multiple hits and was now all but flattened. Though the buildings on either side of Kaitlyn’s—or indeed those opposite—basically remained unscathed, theportion of the street directly in front of the collapsing building was littered with rapidly melting chunks of ice, revealing a broken mass of bricks, timber, and metal, though which part of the building the latter had come from was hard to say, given how badly it had been twisted. By the time we’d reached the safety of the patrol car, the only thing that remained of the buildingorthe ice was the debris covering the patrol car and the street.

What the vortexhadn’ttaken out was the flooring at ground level, which meant either the person behind the attack hadn’t been aware of the existence of the basement, or the destruction of everything above it was all that he or she had intended. But it also meant there was at least a chance—a very slim chance, granted—we could rescue Kaitlyn before she died from exposure.

Sgott put me down, then held me still as he brushed the few remaining shards from the back of my coat. “Any of those things break your skin?”

“I think one sliced the back of my knee, but it doesn’t feel bad.”

“Hitch up your coat so I can check.” I did so and, after a moment, he grunted. “There’s a wee cut, but as you said, it’s not deep. You were lucky.”

“Again.” I dropped my coat then held out my hands, silently calling to my knives. Energy pulsed deep within me and, a heartbeat later, they came spinning through the air and thudded into my hands. Neither of them was damaged in any way, despite being trapped within the havoc they’d unleashed.

“That,” Sgott said, handing me back my purse and knife sheaths, “is a very neat trick, and not one I ever saw your mom use.”

“My connection to the knives is very different to Mom’s.”

“Obviously.” His gaze returned to Kaitlyn’s. “Is the building safe to approach?”

I sheathed my knives, then glanced over again. “I’m still not sensing anything, but that doesn’t really mean much given some sort of magic was very obviously used.”

“You’ll be needing to come with us, then, just in case.”

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