The weight of being the only thing standing between the Winter Court and absolute ruin.
I turned from the ruin. Frost bloomed behind me with each step, thick and silver and sharp as glass.
My wolves fell into step beside me, hackles raised like they, too, were eager to hunt down the beasts that had done this.
A flash of pain stopped me in my tracks. It was sharp and severe, like a spike of ice being driven straight through bone.
My ring—the blood-forged shackle tying me to my bride—was glowing bright white. The metal had turned to ice, but it seared like fire.
Like a warning.
Chapter 17
Everly
Bodies littered the pristine snow like broken dolls.
Except dolls didn’t bleed like this.
And there was so much blood. Pooling beneath severed limbs and torn fabric that painted the world crimson.
Whatever had done this hadn’t just killed.
It had enjoyed it.
But how? How had someone—somethingdone so much damage so quickly?
I scanned the surroundings, gaze tripping over the still-steaming remains of courtiers who had been alive only moments ago. My chest was tight, my breaths coming too fast.
Outside the carnage, there was nothing. No footprints in the snow, no one standing over their bodies. No sign of anything that was wrong.
“What happened?” the question escaped me in a useless huff of air.
Lumen let out another growl as the air around us shifted. It was wrong now. Too still. As if the world were holding its breath, waiting for the next scream.
Nevara stood a few paces ahead with Soren. Her expression was drawn as he detailed the scene. One hand gripped her staff, her fingers tight around the polished silver.
And then I heard it.
The muffled sound of bone scraping through gravel, the far off rustle of leaves, then the clipped snapping of roots.
It was coming from the obsidian tree that loomed above the bodies. But that… that didn’t make any sense. One of the courtiers on the ground moved, his head stretching up, his face a mask of horror before he let out a scream.
“It’s the tree,” I breathed in disbelief. “There is something wrong with?—”
Everything happened at once.
A flicker of movement drew my eye. Something shimmered along the trunk, like breath fogging glass.
No. Not breath.
A face.
It was jagged and wrong, half-hidden in the bark, like the tree itself had decided to peel open and become a nightmare. The illusion of stillness shattered as the middle tore open, forming…a mouth.
A long black tongue snapped out like a whip, the sound rending the air like a clap of thunder as it silenced the male on the ground. The shock and horror that had settled over the gardens broke instantly as the world devolved into chaos.
Claws shot up from the ground like roots, splintering through ice and soil as the beast crawled forward.