by Everly Frost
He continues talking but turns away so I can’t read what he’s saying. The gargoyles around him break into laughter. It doesn’t take much to imagine what he said after he ran his eyes over me. The mockery in their expressions is obvious.
I hiss, “Jasper! Be ready!”
I rip off my glove and take hold of my dagger with my bare hands. Electricity shrieks through me. I need to move before it reaches Jasper. On top of that, I have seconds before I lose the advantage of surprise.
I don’t hesitate. Quiet as a shadow panther, I launch myself across the gap with my weapon raised. My blade rips apart the invisible barrier between us, streaks of electricity raging outward. As the bubble breaks, sound rushes in.
Cassian is the only one who didn’t join the joke, keeping watch on me instead. His lips part in astonishment. “My King!”
Howl twists, but the shouted warning comes too late.
My weapon slides neatly into the King’s heart.
Lightning fires across his chest, sizzling up his neck and across his wings, shooting burning light through his limbs. The impact forces him backward, but I’m ready for that. I kick my legs into his stomach and use his body as leverage to propel myself back to the cliff’s edge, somersaulting onto it, rolling and returning to my feet. The momentum slides me right back into the Phoenix.
Howl’s wings snap forward and then back. He wobbles, regains his balance, stares at the weapon protruding from his chest. For a brief second, his eyes widen in shock. As the last remnants of the Storm’s mist swirls around his torso, he inhales. The same way Llion does. He holds the breath inside his lungs, drawing in my scent. Then his eyes narrow.
The moment stretches out. He doesn’t collapse… doesn’t even seem to remember that I stabbed him…
Curses. The heartstone is protecting him.
He breaks the moment with a laugh, a gusty sound, but there’s no humor in his eyes as he announces to his army: “She thinks she can kill me!”
He slips the blade from his chest, clutching it in his fist, his chest still rumbling with laughter. It looks like he’s going to crush the weapon. I wouldn’t be surprised if he could with those giant fists. With a quick flick of his wrist, he pitches the knife at Jasper who darts to the side, deftly avoiding it and sliding right up to me at the same time, holding his weapon in front of me like a shield.
The Storm gasps and backs away, gliding from the Phoenix, all the way back to the rock face. She won’t join the fight. She already made her feelings clear about fighting gargoyles and I can’t force her to do it. As much as I’m going to need her help…
“Pretty little elf.” Howl ignores Jasper as he flies closer to me while the heartstone casts a sickly green light up and across his face. “You will not succeed where others have failed.”
My weapons satchel is right beside me on the Phoenix’s back. I resist the urge to look at it while I calculate how long it will take me to get hold of it.
A grin lights up Howl’s eyes, making them sparkle like gemstones. “You wish to fight me again?” He casts his arms wide and his wings wider. The veins in them stretch out like emerald rivers. “I have no objection, but you should know that every moment you fail to surrender, your Phoenix suffers terrible agony.”
My eyes snap to the twitching leg beside me. Howl is doing something to the Phoenix. Hurting it. Pinning it down. Phoenix…?
Its voice grates inside my head. Don’t… give up…
My hands form into fists. I could make a grab for my weapons but Howl will crush me before I reach them. I fought Baelen when he took on the appearance of a gargoyle and his greatest advantage was his weight. I can’t let Howl pin me down. But I need a plan—and fast.
Nothing can kill Howl, not while he has the heartstone. The only way to defeat him is to take the stone from him. The Storm told me I don’t need steel to harness my storm power. It’s time to find out if that’s true.
“Soldier,” I say to Jasper. “Move away from me right now. I don’t want to hurt you.”
Jasper pauses for the briefest moment before he decides to play along. He lowers his sword, sheathing it in one fluid movement. He bows deeply to me. “Far be it from me to stand between you and your prey, Mistress.”
Jasper shuffles backward and assumes a post ten paces away, placed neatly at the center of the ledge where he can defend himself against an attack from any direction. He folds his arms over his chest, appearing relaxed, but I know he’s ready for anything.
I curl my lip at Howl. It’s time to play a part. I gesture to the discarded dagger that Howl threw back at us. “That was just for fun.”
Howl frowns, the first sign that he doesn’t know how to read the situation. “You have a particular scent,” he says. “You are not an ordinary elf.”
“Ice and clouds,” I say, remembering the way Llion described me. “I’m told I smell like rain.” I close my eyes for the smallest moment, listening for Baelen’s heartbeat. I need it. I need his strength combined with mine, but I can’t chance drawing him out. Instead, I focus on the memory of his body close to mine, the power that ignited between us. I need that.
A slow smile breaks across Howl’s face. “You smell like deep magic. The sweetest kind.” His eyes turn hungry. The heartstone against his chest glows a deeper green, seeming to respond to his emotions. “But there’s something else too… something missing…”
I saunter right up to him, tilting my head back to maintain eye contact. A glow begins at the corner of my eyes and I know I’m lighting up. A soft crackle reaches my ears. It’s lightning. Without steel.
I can’t hide my smile as lightning dances across my back and chest, curling around my waist and neck, building inside my palms. The crackles of electricity grow louder, stronger, much faster than I expected, almost to the point of breaking out of my control.
Howl stands his ground but narrows his eyes at me, growling, “That’s an interesting trick. I will figure you out, little doll.”
A deep calm takes over my mind. I’ve never harnessed lightning like this before. It’s always been targeted through my weapon, never flowing freely through my entire body. It always felt like it was external to me, as if I was borrowing it. For the first time, it belongs to me. It’s mine. If I were alone on this cliff with the gargoyles, I would let the power loose and watch every one of these monsters fall from the sky. But I can’t hurt Jasper or Baelen.
I smile at Howl. “You can start with this.”
11. Cassian
Fog obscures the cliff as we fly in. Our wingbeats would normally clear the mist but Howl has already used his heartstone power to create a protective barrier around the deep springs—an invisible cage around the intruders that will prevent them from detecting our approach. His favorite trick. Luring his prey into a false sense of safety. It used to disturb me, but my heart has long since turned cold, the memories of the past banished from my mind.
Hope is nothing but an illusion.
Howl flicks his hand in my direction. Over time, I have learned to recognize all his moods, all his commands.
I call for the army of gargoyles to halt midair, directing them to swarm up and over the cliff. They fly carefully in the fog, avoiding the energy on this side of the invisible cage.
“It is as you reported,” Howl says to me, his gaze distant and unfocused as he uses his power to see beyond the mist. “There are two elves and a phoenix. I have immobilized the phoenix and will take it as my prize. Let’s see if the female is as beautiful as you describe. She may be worth keeping as a plaything in my harem. Ah!” A cruel smile lights up his black eyes with anticipation of the kill ahead. “They have realized that something is amiss.”
The fog clears, revealing the female elf and her male companion standing beside the prone phoenix. I hide my wince as the phoenix scrabbles against the ground, trying to escape the pain Howl is inflicting on it. I learned long ago that he’s capable of incredible cruelty, learned to harden my heart against my rage and my inability to
stop any of it.
The elves startle and brace, taking up defensive positions at the cliff’s edge. The female stands only five feet tall despite the way she carries herself with control and command. Her hair is pale auburn like the sun as it sinks below the horizon. For a second, I’m reminded of Elaina, the way loose strands of her sunset hair would curl against her soft cheeks.
I shake myself. I haven’t thought of Elaina in a long time.
The male elf is like a giant next to the female, but even he is nothing compared to the warrior I saw strapped to the phoenix’s back today. That elf would challenge most gargoyles—most likely beat them. It makes me wonder what could have been strong enough to kill him.
The male elf says something to the female but we can’t hear it. It’s clear he respects the female—cares for her even. I press my lips into a line. Howl likes nothing more than to tear his victims apart in front of their loved ones.
Howl flies forward and I stay close beside him as the gargoyles part ahead of us. The veins in his wings glow brightly in the dim light, heartstone power pulsing through his chest and wings.
When he draws to a halt, close enough to the elves that I could leap forward and fight them, I incline my head toward the female, keeping my movements sharp. “That is the female who prevented our capture of the Priestess-in-training.”
Howl glides within touching distance of her, his gaze running the length of her body. Consent is not in his vocabulary. The minute the barrier comes down, her body will be his toy.
He exhales, an appreciative smile growing on his face. “Well, fuck me.”
The look on her face tells me she read his lips. She lifts her chin, shoulders squared, defiant, dagger gripped ready in her hand, her expression fierce in the face of the threat we pose. Just like this morning, she is ready to fight.
He turns to his soldiers with a grin. “I think I’ll fuck her right here on the rocks. She’ll need something hard against her back to take the pounding I’ll give her.”
The gargoyles around us break into laughter. Many of them are Grievous. Many of them follow Howl by choice, taking glory in every act of cruelty. Others don’t. But they laugh anyway, because there isn’t any other choice.
I don’t take my eyes off the female, frowning when the male steps away from her. If he was about to defend her, he wouldn’t step back like that.
The female moves fast. She rips off her glove, takes hold of the dagger in her bare hand and—
I jolt back with shock.
Electricity explodes from her hand and envelops her entire body in coils of light.
My breath stops as lightning bolts soar around her, lighting up her hair and face, making her more ferociously beautiful than anything I’ve ever seen.
She launches herself off the cliff’s edge, her weapon raised. Her blade rips through the cage, her energy shrieking outward, destroying Howl’s magic.
I can’t tear my eyes away. Can’t find my voice.
I have to find my voice. “My King!”
It wasn’t what I’d meant to say. I swallow what I’d meant to say. Kill him. Dangerous words I will never speak aloud.
Howl twists back from the laughing gargoyles, shock registering on his face as she leaps toward him. His eyes fly wide and his lips part in a shout.
Her dagger thuds into his chest, a perfect, clean hit.
Electricity crackles from her dagger up his neck and through his wings, searing light burning my vision. He jolts under the impact, energy howling through him as he roars in the sudden quiet.
Concern shoots through me, but not for him. The female has nothing to hold on to except the dagger. She doesn’t have wings. I prepare to fly forward and catch her, ignoring the fact that she could electrocute me, but in one swift move she kicks her feet into Howl’s stomach and somersaults back onto the cliff’s edge, sliding back into the phoenix.
Her face is flushed, fierce, a force washing out from her that I have never encountered before. A force that tore apart Howl’s power, ripped through it like it was nothing more substantial than air. It gave her the power to stab him. So much force flows from her that hope… No, not hope. Never hope.
Howl’s wings snap back and forth as he wobbles before regaining his balance, his features frozen.
He inhales.
I smell it, too.
My stomach sinks, a dark cavern opening inside me that swallows my dangerous thoughts of hope.
Howl pulls the knife from his chest, pitching it at the male elf, who deftly avoids it. The male elf calmly steps out of the dagger’s path to position himself close to the female, his sword raised, ready to protect her.
Howl flies closer to them, dangerous laughter vibrating in his chest. “Pretty little elf. You will not succeed where others have failed.”
She doesn’t flinch, gesturing to the dagger embedded in the rock face with a curl of her lip. “That was just for fun.”
Howl narrows his eyes at her. “You have a particular scent. You are not an ordinary elf.”
“Ice and clouds,” she says. “I’m told I smell like rain.”
Howl gives her a hungry smile, nodding his head. “You smell like deep magic. The sweetest kind.”
As electricity glows around her body, growing stronger, the cavern inside me closes, darkness and cold descending once more.
She’s filled with deep magic, strong enough to fill my senses. The energy she controls is potent, as strong as Howl’s, the kind he craves. He might have killed her quickly before, but now he will keep her, torment her, suck the life out of her moment by moment until she’ll wish she were dead.
Now, she doesn’t have a chance.
12. Marbella Mercy
My fist snaps out. I bounce up at the same time, catching Howl right on the nose. It’s not hard to miss his giant face. Streaks of electricity snake out from the spot where I hit him, coursing through his cheekbones and forehead. He roars and I know I hurt him.
He responds just as I expected—with brute force. His thick arms snap around the space where I was, attempting to wrap around me. Except that I’m already gone, bouncing backward, light on my feet, leaving him to grab at air.
I land several feet away and cock my eyebrow at him, baiting him. “Let’s play, Howl.”
“That’s King Howl.” He plows after me, fists swinging. I feint left and right, avoiding the swings, and duck under his arms, landing another electrified blow to his lower ribs. His bones light up behind his skin. This time lightning shoots upward toward his chest, traveling though his ribs as if his skeleton is a conduit. I land another blow square in his stomach before dancing away.
All I need to know is how close I have to get to the heartstone to shatter it. I don’t think I’ll be able to land a direct blow. He holds one arm in front of it at all times. He makes it look like he has his fists up for the fight, but his left arm is positioned close to the stone to protect it.
I focus on his exposed ribs and his legs, trying to upset his balance, as we exchange quick blows. He catches me on the shoulder when I don’t expect it and pain explodes through my joint. Good thing I was moving—any harder and he would have dislocated my shoulder with a single punch. So far he hasn’t used his wing daggers, which tells me he doesn’t want to kill me. Yet.
I leap, bouncing up from the balls of my feet. My fist glances off his jaw and he roars at me. This time electricity travels down his neck, stopping short at his collarbone.
I can’t get close enough to the stone. My lightning doesn’t travel far enough through his body to touch it.
Not unless I let him get close to me.
It’s a dangerous move. It could end in disaster. But my options are getting slimmer. There’s no way to warn Jasper. He’ll react to defend me. So far, the other gargoyles have stayed out of the fight, but that could change in an instant.
I duck under Howl’s next swing, keeping my arms close to my chest. Using my shorter height to my advantage, I step right into his chest, palms turned outward
. His heartstone is at eye height. So close.
My hands snap out.
Right before I reach the stone, he squeezes closed the circle of his arms and my hands slam up against his pectoral muscles. The air whooshes out of my lungs. My left hand presses between his chest and shoulder, but my right hand is a mere inch away from the stone: right where I want it. As his arms slide closed, forming a cage around my back and waist, I let the lightning loose.
It shrieks through his chest, lighting up his bones and sinew, his enormous beating heart, even the outline of his lungs. Brilliant cobalt light rushes all the way through his torso, beaming out his back and burning through his wings.
There’s a flurry of sound behind Howl, shouts, falling screams, and then the gargoyles scatter outward. My assault has stretched far across the distance and burned anything in the way of it. I can’t see how many I killed and right now my focus is only on the heartstone.
My lightning reaches it, slamming into it, flowing through it…
It doesn’t break.
Howl shakes his head at me. “Little doll, you have much to learn. You can’t destroy a heartstone.”
Cassian appears overhead, shouting orders, and suddenly a stream of gargoyles pours toward me. Jasper leaps up to meet them, scattering the mass before it can reach me.
But now he’s made himself their target.
“Kill the male!” Cassian shouts.
I focus on Howl. “If I can’t destroy it, then I’ll take it from you.”
He laughs. “You can try.”
There’s a thump against the air as his wings spread wide. With a single downward beat, he sweeps us into the air. I struggle against him, because this was definitely not part of the plan. Horror rushes through me at the possibility that he’s going to fly away with me and I won’t know what’s happening to Jasper or Baelen or the Phoenix.
I don’t know whether to be happy or terrified when he flies straight for the rock face behind me, knocking me against it and pinning me high up. His toe claws slide neatly into the rock, as do his wing daggers, leaving his hands free to push my shoulders against the smooth stone. He doesn’t seal his wings against the rock, which means I can see past them. Down below, four gargoyles already lie dead at Jasper’s feet, but he won’t be able to defend himself against all of them.
