Page 73 of Winter's Fate

There wasn’t a damned thing Callum could do about it.

And then, fire.

A wall of fire joined Laena’s ice. It should have been impossible, entirely impossible. But instead of melting it, instead of defeating it, the fire melded with her power until it formed a swirling band of ice and fire.

King Hawk strode out of the smoke like a golden hero, hands cupped together in front of his chest, his eyes flashing as he moved to stand beside Laena. They’d planned for him to reveal himself at the last moment, though Callum felt strongly that the king had taken that definition a step farther than he’d have preferred.

Power emanated from the king, and Laena seemed to feed off it, her power strengthening as Hawk fed it.

Together, they forced Katrina back a step.

Sweat poured from Laena’s brow, her face contorted in pain. Hawk might be fresh, but she had fought off an army mere hours ago. She was determined, but she was also pale. So pale—like Hawk’s paper-thin complexion at Inasvale—that he feared she would collapse once again.

And that when she did, there would be no saving her.

They needed to end this. Now.

With Katrina distracted by the storm of magic, Callum drew his sword. He plunged forward, pushing against the tide of dirt, the heat of the lightning-induced fire that still burned at Katrina’s back.

Katrina saw him coming at the last second, sidestepping just in time to avoid the lethal blow he’d intended.

He plunged his sword into her side.

With one last scream of despair, Katrina whipped the dirt into a cyclone, pulling it around herself like a shield and a cloak.

When the dirt settled, the queen was gone.

CHAPTER 31

Laena’s throat was sore.

Consciousness came and went, but that one fact stayed with her: her throat was sore. And her cheek, her wrist, and, for some reason, the base of her spine.

None of it compared to the pain below her ribs. Not just pain, not just the emptiness of depleting her reserves, which she’d felt before… but a sense of wrongness. Darkness.

It frightened her.

When she finally managed to open her eyes for more than a few heartbeats, she could see from the view that they had made it to Vunmore after all. She may never have visited the city herself, but she recognized the ancient stone towers that rose up around her window, the cone-like mountain that rose in the background like a permanent reminder that the mages had owned this city once. That they might well own it again.

Callum Farrow was asleep in a chair by her bedside, his cheek propped on his knuckles. Even in his sleep, he looked worried, that little crinkle marring the space between his eyebrows.

And she couldn’t help it; she reached forward and brushedher fingertip against it. As though she could smooth it away with a touch.

He opened his eyes. “You are meant to be resting.”

“Indeed, touching your face is a terrible exertion. I do not know how I’ll ever manage the strain.”

He sat up, and when she dropped her hand, he caught it between his. “Laena,” he said. He looked so serious she wondered if he was going to report someone’s death. Someone other than Declan, whose dying breaths still rattled in her ears like a curse.

“Hawk,” Callum said. “He has magic.”

Laena sat back in the bed, releasing his hand. That was it? As if she would not have noticed the king throwing fireballs at her sister. The king’s fire had melded with her ice, in fact. She didn’t think she would have been able to call forth any ice at all, any magic, had he not joined his power with hers. His reserves had answered hers, balanced it. Responded to her need.

“Yes,” she said. “I do recall King Hawk’s magic.”

He scrubbed his hand over his face, wincing. Mages, but he looked tired. She wondered how much he’d slept reaching the city. “I wasn’t sure how much you would remember.”

She pursed her lips, attempting to paint her expression with disapproval. It wasn’t easy, considering she wanted to beam at him, throw her arms around him. He was alive. She could have wept with joy.

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