Page 15

The world burns and freezes alike around us as we run.

Dragon-fire licks up ancient walls while frost spreads in delicate patterns across stone, the competing magics turning the air to steam. Through the shattered ceiling above, I catch glimpses of a storm unlike anything I've ever seen—snow and ice driving sideways with impossible force, as if the very sky is at war with itself.

I am only partially aware, as if my body is not fully under my own control. My head reels, pounding with pain and energy, fear and fury. Arvoren half-drags, half-carries me through the chaos, his grip on my arm tight enough to bruise. The clash of steel on steel rings off stone, punctuated by inhuman snarls and the wet sound of talons tearing flesh.

My legs can barely hold me. Whatever poison Ulric fed me still courses through my veins, making the world tilt and spin with each step. The child's presence pulses within me, lending what strength they can, but it's not enough. It's never enough.

"Stay with me," Arvoren growls as I stumble again. His voice is rough with smoke and fury, but there's fear there too. "We're almost out."

Almost out. The words echo strangely in my head. When was the last time I saw the sky? How long has it been since I breathed air that wasn't tainted with ancient magic and my brother-in-law's lies?

We round a corner and suddenly there it is—a ragged hole torn in the fortress wall, opening onto a world of swirling white. Snow and bitter wind howl through the gap, casting ice crystals that catch the torchlight like stars.

"Go!" Darian shouts from behind us, his sword a blur as he holds back three of Ulric's men. Blood runs down his arm from a nasty gash, freezing before it can drip from his fingers. "Get her out! We'll hold them!"

Arvoren hesitates for a fraction of a second, torn between duty to his men and the need to get me to safety. In that moment, I catch a glimpse of the king beneath the fury—the leader who inspires such loyalty that his warriors will die to buy us time.

Then he's moving again, practically lifting me as we sprint for the opening. Behind us, I hear Darian roar in pain, followed by the terrible sound of a blade finding flesh. I try to look back, but Arvoren's grip prevents it.

"Don't," he snarls. "Nothing we can do for them now."

The words are cold, practical. The voice of a king who's lost men before. But I feel him trembling with suppressed rage, with the need to turn and fight. To burn everything that threatens what's his.

We burst out into the storm, and the bitter wind steals my breath. The fortress rises behind us like a twisted shadow, its impossible geometry even more apparent from the outside. The walls seem to writhe when viewed directly, and strange lights flicker in windows that shouldn't exist. It is wounded. It is dying. I pray I will never set eyes upon it again.

A steep ridge of ice-covered rock stretches before us, dropping away into darkness on either side. The path—if it can be called that—is barely wide enough for two people to walk abreast, and the footing is treacherous with frost.

"There's a break in the cliffs ahead," Arvoren says, guiding me onto the narrow trail. "If we can reach it—"

An arrow hisses past my ear, close enough that I feel its passage. More follow, forcing us to press ourselves against the cliff face as Ulric's archers find their range.

"Keep moving!" Arvoren pushes me ahead of him, using his body to shield me from the barrage. I feel him flinch as an arrow finds its mark, but he doesn't slow. "Don't stop, no matter what!"

"I can help!" I try to reach for my magic, to call the storm to our aid, but the power slips away like smoke through my fingers. "If I could just—"

"Calliope, I can’t trust you right now!" The words crack like a whip, and they hurt. “Just go!”

The accusation in that statement has hit me harder than any arrow. "You don't understand, Arvoren—he was drugging me, keeping me weak—"

"And I'm supposed to—" Arvoren breaks off sharply, shoving me down as another volley of arrows whistles overhead. His body curves over mine, sheltering me from the onslaught. Through our pressed-together forms, I feel him trembling—with rage or fear or both, I can't tell. His breath comes in hot bursts against my neck, smelling of smoke and dragon-fire.

Despite myself, his scent is like coming home.

I want to scream at him, to make him understand what Ulric did to me. But the words tangle in my throat, choked by exhaustion and the lingering effects of whatever poison still dulls my senses. How can I explain the fog that's clouded my mind for weeks, the way my own magic slipped through my fingers like water? How do I tell him about the fear, the brutality, the endless confusion, the terror of being trapped in my own weakened body?

How do I explain all of that, and then still manage not to collapse right back into Arvoren’s clutches once I’ve said it all?

More arrows clatter against stone. One grazes Arvoren's shoulder, drawing a hiss of pain. Blood drips onto the snow between us, freezing instantly into crimson beads. The sight of it stirs something protective and worried in me, despite everything.

"We need to move." His voice is rough, tight with something I can't quite read. Not quite anger anymore, but nowhere near trust. "The cliff path narrows ahead. If we can reach the tree line—"

Movement in the swirling snow catches my eye. At first, I think it's more of Ulric's archers.

But no—these shapes are wrong, ethereal, drifting through the storm like fragments of moonlight given form. Their features shift and flow like water over ice, hauntingly beautiful but utterly inhuman. Ancient magic radiates from them in waves that make my teeth ache.

The spirit guardians. The true protectors of this cursed place.

And they won’t let us go without a fight.

The sounds of the battle far behind us seem to dull, consumed by the swirling blizzard. No more arrows fly through the cold air. Arvoren has seen them too, I know. His grip on my arm tightens painfully as they close in, dozens of them now, their forms rippling between solid and translucent. The air crystallizes around us, patterns of frost spreading across stone in delicate, deadly spirals. Behind us, I know Ulric's men approach at this very moment, or will soon, their boots hard on fresh-fallen snow, following our scent into the storm. We're surrounded. The noose is closing; I can feel it.

"Stay behind me," Arvoren growls, but I can hear the edge of real fear beneath his bravado. These aren't enemies he can fight with fang and talon, not with his brutal force.

The nearest spirit reaches for me with fingers like icicles. Their touch burns with impossible cold, sending pain shooting up my arm.

They speak in voices like winter wind through dead branches, in a language that tugs at something deep in my blood—words I should know, should remember, as if they were whispered to me in a dream I've forgotten.

I think for a moment, absurdly, lucidly, that I may die. I feel death so very close upon me, a fearsome sensation, and then something settles into place within my gut, perhaps something that has been waiting to take rest there. Power surges through me, different from before—wilder, more ancient. My magic mingles with the baby's, amplifying everything, burning through whatever remains of Ulric's poison.

The sensation is terrifying and exhilarating at once, like standing on the edge of a precipice in a long fall.

Cracks appear in the ice beneath our feet, spreading outward like a web of silver lightning. The spirits pause, their glowing eyes fixed on me with sudden intensity. Not hostility now, but recognition. They can sense it too—the old power stirring in my blood, in my child's blood. Magic older than Kaldoria itself.

Like calls to like.

"Calliope?" Arvoren's voice seems to come from very far away. There's something new in his tone—uncertainty, yes, but also wonder. "What are you—"

The ice across the bottom of the ravine shatters.

Raw power explodes from me in a wave of killing frost, turning the very air to crystal. The spirits cry out in voices like breaking glass as my magic catches them, pulls them down into the frozen depths to our left. They try to resist, their own power flaring bright as starlight, but they can't fight what they themselves are made of—winter claiming its own.

One by one they dissolve, their ethereal forms absorbed into the depths they once guarded. Their voices fade to whispers, then silence, leaving only the howl of the storm and the crackle of spreading frost. Behind us, I sense Ulric's advancing men fall back in terror as the ancient magic ripples outward, freezing the air in their lungs.

The effort leaves me hollow, trembling. Black spots dance at the edges of my vision as whatever strength the magic granted fades. My knees buckle, and I would have fallen if not for Arvoren's arms around me.

He catches me against his chest, and for a moment—just a moment—I let myself remember how it felt to be held by him without fear or doubt between us. His heart hammers against my cheek, dragon-fire warmth seeping through his clothes. When I look up at his face, his expression steals my breath: shock and awe and something deeper, something that makes my own heart stutter.

"How did you…" He trails off as shouts echo from the fortress. More of Ulric's men are coming. Whatever fragile moment we've shared shatters like the ice beneath our feet. "Never mind. We need to move. Can you walk?”

I manage a nod, though my legs feel like water. "For a little while."

"It'll have to be enough."

He half-carries me across the remaining ice, which groans ominously beneath our feet. The storm rages fiercer than ever, driven by my fading magic and desperate fear. Through the curtain of white, I catch glimpses of endless forest stretching out below—a sea of dark pines frosted with snow and ice. Somewhere out there lies safety, if we can reach it.

Behind us, I hear cursing and the clash of steel as our pursuers pick their way more carefully across the treacherous surface. An arrow whizzes past, then another, but the storm makes accuracy impossible. Arvoren's grip never wavers as he guides me down a treacherous path I hadn't even seen, his body angled to shield me from the worst of the wind and any stray arrows.

We reach the tree line just as dawn begins to stain the eastern sky. The ancient forest closes around us like a shroud, swallowing all sound save the endless howl of wind through branches. Soon we're deep enough in the wilderness that pursuit becomes dangerous even for Ulric's skilled trackers.

We've escaped. For now.

But as exhaustion claims me and darkness creeps at the edges of my vision, I can't shake the feeling that we're running from more than just Ulric's forces. The spirit guardians recognized something in me—something old, something powerful. Something that even Arvoren, with all his dragon's wisdom, doesn't fully understand.

Perhaps they will give chase. Perhaps this nation itself, this very land, shall be my enemy after all.

And there's something else too, harder to name. In the way the king holds me now, the way his thumb brushes absently against my arm as he steadies me, I sense the battle raging within him—between the possessive monarch who sees betrayal at every turn and the man who still, despite everything, yearns to trust me. To love me.

I don't know which side will win. Don't know if we can ever bridge the chasm of doubt and fear between us.

But as consciousness slips away and the storm rages on, I feel the child move again within me—a flutter of warmth and magic and possibility. And for the first time since I fled Millrath all those months ago, I let myself hope.

The ancient forest swallows us whole, and somewhere in the endless white, powers older than kingdoms or crowns stir from centuries of slumber.