Page 41 of The Frost Witch (The Covenants of Velora #1)

“Koryn.” Garrick’s voice cut through the fog of fear, the thick beat of my own blood in my ears, the weight of the ice forming in my chest.

“I am fine.” I am fine. I am fine .

But I wasn’t. Frost spread across the stone, then thickened into a layer of ice. The temperature dropped.

I could not do it. I would be doomed, just like Nimra. I could not sacrifice Kyrelle, not after all of these centuries, all of these mistakes.

Power flowed through me, the ice spreading. Garrick cursed but remained at my side, even though I knew the ice must be touching him now, too.

Xyta sat up in their chair suddenly. Their eyes speared across the arena, searching out the source of that power, finding me.

“Shit,” Garrick cursed again.

But instead of doing the smart thing, which would have been to put as much distance between us as possible, he moved closer. He did not even flinch from the ice as it cracked beneath and around and over him.

His dark clothing was coated in a thin layer of frost. But when he pressed himself against me, so that his thigh ran parallel to mine, he was all heat.

He lifted my hand, slipping his fingers between mine and urging my fist to unclench. I was so surprised, so uncomprehending, that I did not even protest.

He pressed his palm flat against mine, the warmth of that huge expanse melting the burst of frost that coated my skin.

His fingers intertwined with my own, then curled around to press into the back of my hand.

He enveloped me in his warmth. And slowly, ever so slowly, like a limb waking up after the blood flow is suddenly restored, my power receded.

The ice around us melted, yielding to the unnatural heat of Xyta’s arena.

Xyta, whose eyes were still upon me even as my power ebbed.

Garrick’s hand tightened over mine and it felt like more than just the protection of our Lifebind. It felt like safety.

Xyta’s posture eased. On another face, their smile might have been called soft.

But on Xyta is sent a shiver down my spine.

They were going to call my name next, I knew it.

This time, it was my hand tightening around Garrick’s, my mouth whispering a prayer to the Dark God, begging for a stay of execution that would last only minutes.

But just as suddenly as Xyta had found me, their gaze shifted away.

“Nash,” they said.

The last vestiges of frosty power melted in my veins.

My power was still there, humming through my body, but it did not try to rise up and overtake me.

The warmth that flowed steadily into me from Garrick’s hand allowed me to hold my power in a place of neutrality, a place I’d never quite found before.

The shock of that must have been what delayed the realization.

But as Nash took his seat and Xyta began speaking, Garrick’s hand squeezed mine, and that was when the reality of my current situation began to take shape.

Garrick the Red was holding my hand.

My power was under my control.

And in a matter of minutes, Xyta was going to ask for the one thing I could not sacrifice. Cold shot through me, but the warmth of Garrick’s hand around mine met it, warmed it, shaped it into something less dangerous.

I stared at our joined hands in shock. How was that possible? How?—

Garrick’s eyes met mine. We were so close, the patches of clover green inside of the blue were visible. How many people had Garrick the Red, legendary, ruthless bounty hunter, ever allowed close enough to see that detail?

“What are you afraid of, Koryn?”

I did not ask how he knew I was afraid. I’d shown him with my inability to control my power. But I could not quite bring myself to answer his question, at least not directly.

“Why would Garrick the Red attempt the Seven Gates?” It was the question that had haunted my dreams, the one that kept me from trusting him fully. Or at least, as far as I had the capacity to trust anyone.

“Why would a witch?” he countered.

It was a sloppy retort, but I’d wanted him to ask, because I’d wanted to answer.

I wanted some sort of solution to the impossible situation that my repeatedly terrible choices had gotten me into.

I could not walk away from the gates, or Kyrelle would die and eventually, so would I.

Nor could I sacrifice Kyrelle or my coven to Xyta.

“Because I was cast out from my coven,” I said. Garrick still held my hand. As I spoke, he swiped his thumb along the curve between my index finger and thumb. “It might seem like nothing to you, who has spent your entire life alone. But a witch is nothing without her coven.”

I let that information hang in the air between us. But there was not much of it, not as close as we suddenly were. Garrick just watched me, waiting.

“If I remove Velora’s curse, they will welcome me back,” I said softly. Why did it feel like admitting it would make me less in his eyes? Why did I care?

Garrick showed no reaction to my words. He turned over our hands, lifting them from the stone to rest on his knee. “You fear that Xyta will ask you to sacrifice your chance to return?”

“That. Or… there is someone I care about. Someone whose life is my responsibility. If I do not lift the curse, she will die.” I could not bring myself to use Kyrelle’s name.

Not because I feared him knowing it, but…

it felt like exposing myself. Making myself too raw, too vulnerable to a man who I was already allowing to hold my hand.

Whose life was bound to mine by Seraxa herself.

“The woman from the first temple,” Garrick guessed. “You argued, and then you entered in her place.”

I blinked up at him. “I thought you had already gone inside.”

He smirked that infernal, irritating smirk. “You were not being quiet.”

“I know what Xyta will ask for. My coven or my… person.” Just like her name, I could not tell him exactly what she meant to me. It would mean admitting what I’d done. He likely already knew, after the Justice Gate. But still… “Why would Garrick the Red attempt the Seven Gates?”

Garrick turned away, looking down to where Nash and Xyta were engaged in a heated exchange. The deity leaned forward in their chair, eyes glinting with excitement. The back of Nash’s neck flushed red. I was not even able to enjoy the sight.

I wanted to know Garrick’s motivation. I’d given him mine.

It only seemed fair. We were connected by the Lifebind, for the Dark God’s sake.

Whatever his views on witches, hadn’t I proved myself…

I was not quite sure what I had proved about myself.

That was a thought I could not linger on, so I pressed him instead.

“You have wealth. You are healthy and strong. Does it have to do with you fae lover?” Bile tainted the last two words, but I still said them.

Garrick’s hand loosened on mine, as if the words made him forget to hold on. His blue-green eyes were wide when they swung to me. “Alize? She is not my lover.”

“You sounded quite familiar.” Dark God save me, I hated how choked those words sounded. I had enough hate in my heart for the fae. I would not allow myself to be jealous of one. But the way that Garrick held my hand even after my power had quieted…

“I…” Garrick cleared his throat. “We are familiar. But she is not the reason I entered the temple.”

“Then what is?”

He did not try to avoid my gaze. He let me catch his and attempt to turn that intensity he wielded back around on him.

But the only emotion I saw in those luminous orbs was resolve.

He would not tell me why he had entered the temple.

Which was as good of a reminder as any. There was a Lifebind between us, but that was not the same thing as trust.

I disentangled my fingers from his and shoved my hands deep inside my cloak. The one he’d given me. Fuck.

Garrick let me go. He watched the space grow between us as I shifted my weight away.

He’d offered no solution for facing Xyta, and I realized I did not truly expect him to.

He’d listened to my concerns, and that was something.

I’d never had anyone to tell them to. A benefit of the Lifebind, I supposed.

He was forced to listen to my complaints.

“I met Alize in Balar Shan many years ago.”

My head snapped up. I’d looked away, but Garrick had not. His gaze was as intense as ever as he stared straight into my eyes, as if he could see past them into the twisted soul beneath.

Balar Shan—the walled city beyond the mountains, in the far northeast of Velora. The enchanted, shining city of the fae, where they had retreated after the gods had cursed the entire continent for the fae’s overreaching attempts to gather more magic than had already been bestowed upon them.

Garrick held my gaze, not even blinking as he spoke. “My mother sent me there so that I could meet my father.”

The unnatural speed. The sheer size of him, compared to even Nash, one of the strongest humans I’d seen in decades. My eyes strayed to his ears, half-covered by the thick, pale hair he always wore half-pulled back. But they were rounded. Not fae… not wholly.

“You are half-fae,” I breathed, even though we were alone. I’d asked for one secret and received another, a different one.

“I am half-human,” Garrick corrected.

My mind spun as I tried to make sense of what he had told me.

I’d never met a half-fae, though I knew they existed.

They were rare, even before the curse had driven the fae into their reclusive city.

The fae considered humans to be below them.

Cross pairings and marriages were unheard of, the mixed children resulting mostly from?—

Oh.

I am half-human , he’d corrected me.

He hated what he was. And I… I understood that on a deeper level than I’d ever admitted, even to myself. Garrick was a prisoner to a fate that he had not chosen, just as I was.

“Koryn.”

Xyta’s summons echoed through the arena, whatever magic they used to contain the sound of their conversations temporarily dampened. I jolted upright, icy shards immediately starting to form in my veins.

Nash was gone. He must have disappeared through the passageway the same as Alize.

Garrick had managed to distract me from the dread, had used his hand in mine to help ease the tidal wave of power that rolled out of my control. But there was no escaping the deity below with that feline smile curving their mouth.

“Koryn.” Not Xyta this time, but Garrick. I turned back to face him, expecting worry. If I bungled this, his life could be in danger, too. But his face was inscrutable once again.

“Xyta is a bored immortal. All they want is some entertainment.”

What in the Dark God’s frigid hell that was supposed to mean, I did not know. But I committed every word to memory as I climbed down to my doom.