Page 29 of The Frost Witch (The Covenants of Velora #1)

BEFORE

“You cannot be here,” Aurienna whispered, the words cushioned by the foliage all around us. It was unnecessary. The thick brick walls of the guildhall kept noises out as well as in. I could not hear what was happening, but I could see it through the windows.

“I am breaking no laws,” I said without looking at her.

Despite the cold of midwinter outside, the guildhall shone with golden light.

I’d never seen it decorated like that, with every chandelier alight, and all the sconces on the walls, too.

Candles were becoming more and more dear.

The expense to light the massive space so fully must have been exorbitant.

“You answer to no laws,” Aurienna reminded me. She sighed, looking from side to side to make sure we were unobserved. But the wall of ivy she’d built up around us did its job well. We could not see out and no passersby would have any idea that two witches were concealed within the briar.

I ignored her. I had not broken the habit of thinking of myself as human, answerable to the laws that governed the human lands of Velora south of the mountains. And I’d been chastised about it enough.

“But you are breaking the covenants of sisterhood,” she lectured, leaning into the brick wall beside the window, careful that she could not be seen by anyone within.

I had no such worry. They had hardly noticed me in life. They would not begin now, when I had become a nightmare.

The covenants of sisterhood. How many times had I heard those words in the past year?

At least once per day, often more. Five hundred, conservatively.

Five hundred reminders to abide by the covenants and rules of the sisters who’d resurrected me from death, who’d saved me from a meaningless afterlife and granted me great power.

Maybe if I’d ever experienced true sisterhood, the words would have had more meaning to me. But even before my mortal life was cut short, I understood that I was alone.

It was my death date. One year since my resurrection. And tonight, on the winter solstice, instead of mourning the sister she’d lost, Rylynn danced with her betrothed.

After Janessa’s horrific death, she’d retreated into her bedroom for years.

She’d ignored me, like my father had done since my mother’s death two decades before.

Maybe I would have been able to forgive her and move on, eventually.

I was an immortal now, after all. But instead of mourning me as she had our sister, my death brought her out of her seclusion.

And instead of visiting my grave, she was in the center of the guildhall, arm in arm with a handsome man who matched her own eternal beauty.

I did not recognize him, though that did not mean much.

The family estate was not far from the sea.

Though trade had slowed since the curse, with Velora’s exports less predictable, there were always new faces along the coast. Especially with the fae gone.

More human settlers had arrived from other continents, eager to farm the land and take over the cities the fae had abandoned.

That wouldn’t last. One of my coven sisters had the active power of foresight. Killed by her own folly when she ignored her parents’ warnings and snuck from her bed to meet a man, she now possessed the power to see into the future. She’d seen what the next hundred years would bring to Velora.

Standing there, watching Rylynn laugh in her betrothed’s arms, the first thing I felt was pleased. Not that she was happy—but that her happiness would be short-lived. She would be old, but she’d live long enough to see Velora spiral downward into ruin.

“By clinging to your mortal life, you prevent yourself from fully accessing the gifts given to you by the Dark God,” Aurienna said.

She’d pressed her back flush against the brick wall now, her eyes scanning the darkness.

Supposedly, she could hear and see what no one else could.

One of those gifts she spoke of. But while I’d noticed some improvement in my hearing and sight—and I could certainly smell the refuse bins we’d had to climb past to reach the window—I did not see or hear whatever it was that caught her attention.

She lifted a finger to her lips.

I rolled my eyes and turned back to the window. What did I care if I was caught? I was nothing but a forgotten woman looking in on a world that did not belong to her. And, as I’d pointed out before, I broke no laws by watching.

The music stopped. How did I know that? Maybe my senses were sharpening more than I’d realized.

Because they stopped dancing.

The swirling pairs slowed, then moved to the edges of the hall to make room for the couple of honor.

Rylynn glowed in a gold and green striped gown.

The bodice cut low to show off her breasts, then cinched again at her tiny waist. Even a year on, she remained the perfect specimen of womanhood.

Her breasts were generous but not lascivious, her waist trim instead of thick.

Her delicate, pointed chin was the opposite of my round face.

The only feature we shared was our lustrous dark brown hair.

But while mine was loose in thick waves around my shoulders, Rylynn’s was twisted into an elegant chignon at the nape of her neck.

Jeweled clips decorated the coiffure. At least she had not allowed my father to crown her with another fae heirloom.

Or maybe I was wrong about that, too.

I’d expected to find my family in silent vigil beside my grave. Instead, my father stepped up to the young couple. He cupped Rylynn’s face. Shook the gentleman’s hand.

My stomach twisted in anger. I still expected to find my heartbeat thundering in my chest. But instead, a rush of cold power suffused my body. It poured into my veins and clouded all of my senses.

Aurienna sensed the shift. She straightened, her focus divided between me, the image through the window, and the wall of ivy that separated us from the rest of the world.

“They do not need you,” she said, pitching her voice low. No one could hear us, but there was a gravity to it. It was anything but accidental. “They do not need you,” she repeated. “But we do. Your sisters do.”

“My sisters are gone. One is dead. One…” has forgotten me altogether .

Aurienna shook her head fervently, tendrils of blonde hair flying forward across her face. “Your sisters wait for you to join us. To claim your full power.”

I could feel that power inside of me, waiting to burst free. The ice was thick in my veins, sharp. I wanted to let it out, to feel the world around me tremble for all that had been taken.

“I want it.”

Aurienna exhaled, her face settling into certainty. Not quite pride, but satisfaction. She’d been the one sent after me when I tried to slip away from the coven, foolishly running back in search of my mortal life. And she would be the one to bring me back—not just back, but forward.

A tendril of ivy snapped free, its curved end flattening to point to the scene still unfolding through the window.

My sister and her betrothed held court like a prince and princess while well-wishers approached them, embracing and smiling, laughing.

More laughing than I’d ever been privileged to in the twenty-three years of my life and one of my death.

Aurienna’s gaze followed the tendril of ivy. “Sever the bond.”

I understood what she meant. Sever the bonds that held me to my family. Cut out the festering wounds of my humanity.

Light caught on one of the jewels in Rylynn’s hair, reflecting through the window and catching me in the face. For one second, I was frozen. Unable to move, to think, to be. And then the ice broke free.

It shattered the window, sliced through the wall of ivy my coven sister had created as if it had not been there at all. But it did not stop there. Icy power exploded out of me in shards. The frost had claimed my life. Now I claimed my power.

The candles in the guildhall extinguished at once, their flames suffocated by a frozen wind. People jumped out of the way of the glass from the window that shattered inward, avoiding the worst of it.

But not my sister’s betrothed. He jumped in front of her, protected her.

The way no one had ever protected me. My power responded to the rage I felt for the girl I’d been, who died alone in the woods.

My frost slid not just into his skin, but into his veins and then his very bones.

I crushed them, twisted them, held them immutably in place.

He crashed to the ground, his knees unable to catch him, the bones in a state of permanent frozen fracture.

Aurienna’s hand closed around my wrist. “We must go.”

The torrent of ice stopped as suddenly as it had begun. I had only seconds to blink, to take in the damage I’d wrought. But even though the power no longer flowed from me, the frost and ice remained.

Aurienna pulled harder. She muttered a spell beneath her breath, and suddenly my feet began to move without my permission. But she could not stop my head from turning, from looking back over my shoulder, or hearing Rylynn’s scream as terror unfolded behind us.

I did not know how to pull it back. I would not master that skill for decades. So, his spine remained permanently frozen in place. His legs remained unmoving. I stole the happiness my sister had found. But instead of keeping it for myself, I drowned us both in misery.