Page 45 of Fated to the Frost King

Then came the vines.

Blackened and gnarled, they shot up from the snow with a hiss. They wrapped around her, high and fast, forming a twisted cage of living bramble.

“Nevara!” I shouted lamely, gripping my useless dagger even tighter.

Soren let out a furious roar and surged forward, his arms igniting in a blaze of golden-orange light. He hurled a stream of flame at the vines, the fire scorching the twisted limbs until they were burning black and curling inward.

For a moment, it looked like it would work.

Then the vines shifted again.

They shimmered mid-burn, their charred texture rippling like a haze of heat before solidifying. They were no longer wood.But frost, instead. Ice. Hardened snow laced with pulsing veins of blackened mana.

Soren swore and hurled another burst of flame, this one hotter, sharper, furious. It struck dead-on, but the ice only cracked, then knit itself back together around Nevara, stronger than before.

Her staff spun in precise, practiced arcs, tracing the air like a blade. Eyes still closed, she moved with pure instinct, reacting to the slightest shift in wind, the flicker of sound. Threads of mana snapped from her like a living web, but even she couldn’t hold it off forever.

The creature flickered again.

Where there had been a bramble cage, now there was something else. A shadow taking shape behind her. Limbs reforming. Jaw widening.

No.

More guards were coming, but they wouldn’t make it here in time. Hadn’t made a difference even when they did.

I shook my head, panic surging up my throat as I worked the small, warm bat from my sleeve. Her eyes were wide, her body shivering as she covered her face with a wing.

“Go,” I whispered, tucking her into the crook of the fruit tree next to me. “Hide.”

I didn’t look back, I didn’t think. I couldn’t. My mother’s desperate voice echoed in my head.

This is the only defense you have. Hide it always.

And I had, always, from everyone but Wynnie.

But right now all I could see was one of the few people in this palace who had treated me with something close to kindness, her guarded expression when she told me she didn’t know if we would be friends, the smirk on her lips when she defended me to the court.

Her waifish form trapped in the jaws of a monster.

I hurled the dagger.

It had been years since I’d actually needed to use the skill, but instinct took over. My aim was true, straight toward the center of the writhing frostbeast.

The dagger sailed through the air, spinning end over end, its blackened steel catching the dying light. The Mirrorbane shifted again, flickering between snow and stone, trying to vanish.

Too slow.

My blade struck just below its ribs with a sickening thunk, sinking deep into something not quite flesh. A burst of violet sparks erupted from the wound, a flare of otherworldly light that emanated from the blackened steel.

The Mirrorbane screeched, twisting toward me.

My heartbeat stuttered in my chest.

Everything else fell away as the monster barreled forward, knocking Soren to the ground like he was nothing. Lumen tried to scramble closer, a snarl ripping from his throat as he limped toward the monster.

He wasn’t going to make it in time. And I was out of weapons.

I ran.

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