Page 16

With her own blood roaring in her ears, she couldn’t feel the bite of the cold, or the blows of her enemy. She felt only the call to fight, and keep fighting. She carved through one howler after another, relishing each demise with a cold smile.

Until the ice groaned.

Burying her dagger in her opponent’s gut, Thea turned to the lake, where three creatures had emerged, shadows rippling from their slimy, squid-like bodies.

‘What the fuck are they?’ she gasped. The monsters were revolting, their bulbous heads looming over flailing arms, giant beady eyes seeming to stare at everything all at once.

‘Juvenile reef dwellers,’ Kipp managed, shoving a howler away, allowing Cal to thrust his blade through its side. ‘Like kraken from the storybooks. Cursed ones, by the looks of it. Don’t know what they’re doing here, though. They’re supposed to be from the sea. Mind the suckers – they’re poisonous.’ He panted as he momentarily rested his hands on his knees, not taking his eyes off the monsters that had now reached the snowy shore. ‘I’m guessing they’re the offspring of the big one that had that girl in its grasp.’

As if in answer, two more massive tentacles shattered the ice, sweeping across the shore, snatching up one of the slower villagers and tossing them aside with a sickening thud. The rest of the common folk began to scream in earnest then, and a good portion of the men who’d been fighting alongside the trio fled.

Thea was already twirling her sword, eyeing up the smaller monsters. ‘Any particular way to kill them?’

Kipp seemed to gather his strength. ‘Cut off all its arms, shove your blade in its brain and light it on fire for good measure?’

‘Suppose that’d do it,’ Thea retorted. ‘And the big one?’

‘How about we deal with one terrifying monster at a time,’ Cal said, his eyes widening as the giant tentacles thrashed the banks of the lake again, toppling over the pyre of burning bodies.

Thea charged.

The reef dwellers were each about the size of a horse. Having foughtrheguld reapersand shadow wraiths, Thea conceded that she’d dealt with worse. But as she battled the first of the water monsters, she realised itseight armswere the problem. She severed one, and another was already lashing out at her, threatening to swipe her legs out from under her, or worse, wrap itself around her middle and lift her up into the air.

These creatures didn’t belong on the banks of a frozen lake. They had been sent here, cursed with darkness just like the howlers and set upon a place in which they had no business being. There was no other explanation.

Thea kept swinging, ignoring the exhaustion that had latched onto her bones. A powerful tentacle hit her in the side, sending her sprawling across the snow, knocking the air from her lungs. On all fours, she gasped for air, winded, only to be struck by another tentacle. A sharp pain blazed through her head as she hit something hard beneath the snow.

Dots swimming in her vision, she staggered to her feet, almost falling over herself. She should have listened to the others. They weren’t at full strength. Thea’s skin burned through her shirt as another tentacle made contact, but she ducked beneath it, messily dodging its attack in order to get close to its body.

With a cry of disgust, she lunged at what looked to be its head, driving her dagger into its skull, right between its many sets of eyes.

The creature made a last surge to grab her, but as she yanked her dagger from its head, it sagged into the snow, its tentacles twitching.

A blood-curdling shriek echoed across the lake – and the entire frozen surface shattered. More tentacles shot out at them, sending a tidal wave of freezing water raining down on the banks.

And the thing that emerged…

A scream caught in Thea’s throat.

The cursed reef dweller surged towards them, Cal and Kipp still locked in a battle with one of its young, Thea covered in the blood of another.

The monster drew closer, close enough for Thea to see the texture of its skin, and the poison leaking from its suckers —

It wasn’t attacking. It wasfalling.

The monster plunged through the air, raining down glacial lake water and poison. Thea bolted out of the way as its body fell, as though time had slowed, before it collapsed in an enormous heap in the snow, black blood and shadows oozing from its corpse.

Ice crunched. A figure landed deftly on the shore, his powerful frame dripping wet, a giant, bloody black mass grasped in his fist.

Thea’s knees buckled, but she remained upright as the heart of a cursed reef dweller landed with a splatter at her feet.

She looked from the still-pulsing organ to the silver eyes that met hers, her breath catching.

She hadn’t seen him in a year.

But that steely gaze was as fierce as ever; more so – it was utterly ablaze as it latched onto her.

Thea didn’t move. Not yet. She didn’t know if she could trust her sight.