Curling her hands into fists, she narrowed her eyes. “I’m not telling you anything! I won’t let you harm my sister!”
A knife of pain stabbed her gut as the ground beneath her feet began to shake. Her body convulsed, teeth slamming together. Her arms snapped wide on either side of her as a strange, eerie chill swept through her body. Everything was cold. So cold. So brutally, horribly cold.
Ice shot out from her outstretched palms. Great, gleaming spikes of it that exploded out of her body like a mirror shattering from a terrible blow. Shards soared into her cousin’s shocked face and buried themselves deep in his gut.
Blood sprayed the room. Flecks landed on her face and on her neck.
From behind her, she heard the thud of heavy bodies thundering to the floor.
Eislyn stumbled back, jaw slack. She stared down at the body, at the blood. Her cousin was dead.
She had killed him.
“Oh, Dagda,” she whispered. “Oh god, oh god, oh god.”
She whirled on her feet, panic a hollow ache in her heart. The guards were dead, too. They gazed up at her with vacant eyes. Their bodies were littered with ice shards.
She had killed them all. Five fae.
Five ice fae.
At any moment, more guards would come, and they would find her here like this, surrounded by bodies and blood. They would execute her at once. She was their princess, but they’d happily held her captive, so they clearly didn’t care about her title or her father.
She had to get out of here. Whirling on her feet, she grabbed her uncle’s sword and wrapped the sheath belt around her waist, hands trembling. Then, she grabbed some coin from the dead guards and took one of their daggers for good measure. At long last, she glanced at Vreis.
Her heart ached so horribly that she swore it would never beat normally again. Once more, she had to run, but she did not have Vreis to run beside her this time.
She didn’t know how she would survive without him.
Kneeling by his side, she took his necklace, a glowing amber jewel that hung from a leather cord. It was a symbol to remember him always. And then Eislyn Darragh ran.
50
Reyna
The wood fae began to scatter as soon as the first blast of ice hit. At least a quarter of them froze instantaneously, forming an icy barrier between Reyna and the rest of the army. She sucked in deep breaths, fighting through the pain in her shoulder and her head, but smiled all the same.
The wood fae would struggle to reach her like this, if they even wanted to after seeing a large contingent of their fellow warriors turned to frost. She dropped back her head once again, glaring up at the Ruin.
“Nice try, but you failed. You’ll have to do better than that.”
The storm cloud rippled in anger.
Reyna curled her hand and threw a blast of ice upward. It hit the clouds but bounced off, shattering into the wind. Reyna frowned, fingers of dread creeping down her spine. She tried again, but it only had the same result. The ice did nothing to harm the Ruin.
She shook her head, not understanding. Seelie had given her this magic. He’d said the power would be enough to destroy the Ruin.
Or had he?
Her heart began to pound. Seelie had never spoken a word to her in the birthplace of the gods. That voice had belonged to Unseelie and no one else. Had this all been nothing more than a trick? A lie? Her mind flashed back to Tarrah’s last words. You’ve been tricked. At the time, Reyna had thought Tarrah had been referring to their fight, to the twisting of Tarrah’s mind.
But had it been more than that? Reyna’s body trembled, terror and anger uniting to create a spear right through her soul. Had she given up Lorcan for nothing?
No, she thought, fisting her hands. She refused to believe it. She had been given this power for a reason, and it wasn’t to let the Ruin win.
A speck of ash drifted down from above and sizzled against her skin. It melted, absorbed by her body. Reyna stared down at it, and then glanced back up at the sky. The ash had brought a spark of life to her throbbing arm. It was soothing and almost as if she’d...consumed part of the Ruin, as if she’d pulled it into herself.
Her eyes widened as she thought back to the fight at Feurach Fortress. It had been the same there, too, she realized. As the storm had raged around her, she’d grown in strength and power. She’d fought with abilities she’d never had before, all because the ash and the snow formed a perfect storm over her head.
Suddenly, she knew what she must do, but a snake of fear sank its fangs into her heart. If she did this, if she pulled this power into herself, what would it do to her?
Kill her, she realized. If she didn’t have Seelie’s powers, it would kill her. The journey to Inishfall had never been about giving her the elemental gifts to shatter the Ruin into a thousand pieces. It had been about making her strong enough to withstand pulling the darkness into herself.
It would make her dangerous. Far more dangerous than any other being in the world. If she ever lost control of it...if she ever used it for her own gain...
That was why Seelie had demanded what he had. Selflessness.
She’d had to prove what kind of fae she truly was.
For a moment, she stood trembling beneath the weight of it all. Only someone good and pure and true could be trusted with a power as destructive as this. But was she good? Was she pure? She did not think so. Reckless, wild, impulsive, and stubborn, that was what she was. Bloodthirsty, at times. Quick to anger when it came to those she thought wronged her.
Several arrows swirled through the air as she stood there, standing on the edge of a future she did not think she could withstand. She was Reyna Darragh, a princess who had walked away from her duty. A princess who had plotted murder against another royal family. She was not good and pure.
But she was all the world had.
If she did not consume the Ruin, it would continue to rain down devastation on the world. Countless lives would be lost. Seelie had chosen her, for better or for worse. This was her duty, her curse. She’d thrown everything away for it. She could not walk away right when it mattered the most.
A few more arrows soared toward her. She dodged them easily, knocking them aside. The wood fae had gathered a small contingent of their archers behind the wall of frozen warriors, just close enough that she was within their sights.
With a growl, she shot some more ice in their direction. They shouted, ducking down behind the wall to dodge her blast. Frost crackled through the air, shattering out in a dozen directions. Several fae got hit, and their eyes went wide with shock as the ice consumed them whole.
She opened her arms wide as the storm whipped a frenzy of ash through the square. More fae got hit by the flecks. Their screams were drowned out by the whistle of the wind. Thunder shook through the entire city, rattling the ground.
Gritting her teeth, Reyna focused on the clouds, pulling with all her might. Her breathing grew ragged; sweat beaded on her brow. The wind suddenly whipped toward her and slammed into her shoulder. Pain ricocheted through her body like an arrow. A scream ripped from her raw throat, but she stood her ground.
She tugged at the wind, welcoming it inside of her.
A cloud of ash hit her square in the face. It stung her eyes, blinding her momentarily. The black flecks clung to her skin, and then they melted against her. The Ruin filled her flesh and her veins, and suddenly, a new strength rushed through her.