Page 52 of The Frost Witch (The Covenants of Velora #1)

“Put your full weight behind your lunge. You are not going to injure me,” Garrick said after he put me on my ass for the fourth time.

“Are you suggesting that I am holding back out of concern for you?” I spat as I clambered back to my feet. Literally spat—his last punch had caught my chin and flooded my mouth with the coppery taste of my own blood.

We had parted ways with Varian and Tomin after breakfast, the priestess and acolyte starting a downward path through the mountains while Garrick suggested an upward alternative. Because why the fuck not.

Though I had to admit that the cliffside plateau he’d chosen for our afternoon sparring session had a breathtaking view.

I imagined I could see all the way to Kyrelle’s tiny fishing village on the shores of the Southern Fate.

Of course, I’d rather have imagined it from my feet than flat on my back from yet another punishing blow.

“You are embarrassing us both,” Isanara put in from where she dangled her tail over the ledge. I’d taken one look over the sheer cliffside and made sure that my back was always to the stone face several yards away. My winged familiar took no such precautions.

“If I could kill you, I would,” I hissed between my teeth, trying to moderate my breathing the way Tomin had shown me and purposefully ignoring Isanara. “I am not improving.”

Garrick did not offer me a hand up. Bastard.

He also did not argue—because he couldn’t.

Despite nearly daily sessions, I was only marginally better at defending myself.

I could force my body through the maneuvers he showed me, but even as they became a matter of muscle memory, they were not smooth or fast. At least, not fast enough to defeat Garrick.

“You’ve built up your endurance,” he said, already circling for his next attack.

That much was true. I wanted to kill him, but the breath scissoring in and out of my chest did not burn anymore, and we’d been at it for nearly an hour. He’d forced me to condition my begrudging body with every upward step.

Instead of admitting it, I lifted my dagger for what felt like the hundredth time.

“Go for the bow. It’s his weakness. He’ll defend it like a limb.”

Three things happened simultaneously.

Isanara flapped through the air—she could, in fact, fly—landing in front of me in a flash of iridescent wings that reflected the diluted gray sunlight and transformed it into a shimmering combination of purple, emerald, and sapphire.

She was even more beautiful in flight. But I had less than a second to appreciate it, because at the same moment, I spotted the owner of that haughty voice.

Alize’s golden skin should have marked her out instantly.

Her fae speed and the wind she commanded were the only reasonable explanations for how she’d managed to get so close.

She leaned against a tree where the stone cliff edge jutted away.

A good shove, and she’d go right over the edge. Just like she fucking deserved.

Power flowed uncontrolled from my hands, frost coating the slate beneath our feet, reaching for the fae. The frost thickened, solidifying to ice. Spikes rose up, encircling Alize from every angle and penning her in against the tree. She did not flinch at the display of power.

Isanara threw back her head and roared, a terrifying, feral sound much bigger than a dragon her size should have been able to make. “She is stained.”

“What does that mean?” I took a step to come stand beside my familiar. She countered with one of her own, keeping herself firmly in front of me.

Isanara turned her head and snapped her jaws at me over her shoulder. “Got it. Stay behind you. Message received.”

“She has committed the ultimate crime.”

The Justice Gate. It had nearly driven me to flee the gates to be reminded of my crime. But what of Alize and Garrick? I had been so focused on my own misdeed, I had not dwelled long on theirs. One of them was an attempted murderer, the other a successful one.

The latter had moved slowly but steadily to angle himself between the three of us. One under his protection, one from his past, and one teenager with fangs. Even I felt a bit bad for him. But all other emotions lost out to my anger.

Garrick the Red was a bounty hunter. I’d known from the outset that he had blood on his hands. But Alize was worse. She was fae. Her kind was responsible for every terrible thing that had happened to my family.

I hated her. For my sisters, for my mother, for myself.

And even for Garrick. He hated the fae blood in his veins.

Why wouldn’t he? I understood what he did not say—that his mother had been raped by a fae male, that he was the outcome of that brutality.

He had as much reason to hate the fae as I did.

But it was not hate shining out of his eyes. Nor was it the snarling mask he’d tried before. I knew him too well now. I recognized the crinkle around his eyes, the slight divot between his pale brows, and the thrumming pulse in his throat. He was worried.

Fuck. That.

I was through being protected. “Get out of here before I unleash the rest of my power.”

A slow smile climbed Alize’s mouth, a joyless thing that rounded her cheeks but kindled no warmth in her features. She traced the path of my ice across the cliffside and up to my hands before skimming right over me, past Isanara, shockingly, and on to Garrick.

The frost in my veins solidified into icy shards.

“She is a witch. The Dark God gifted her with power. She should use it,” Alize said to Garrick.

“I am right here. Speak to me directly,” I seethed.

“Should I burn her?” Isanara growled.

“Can you breathe fire?”

Isanara remained silent. I’d suspected as much from my observations, but it was a little concerning to have them confirmed. She was more vulnerable than I’d realized. “My fangs will do just fine.”

She snapped those fangs in Alize’s direction, advancing several steps. My power moved in tandem, the spikes of ice that encircled Alize lengthening by several inches.

Alize made a show of removing one of her pale leather gloves and reaching out to touch the pointed tip of a spike with her finger. A tiny pinprick of blood formed. She lifted her hand to her lips and sucked the blood away from her fingertip.

The rich, noxious scent of her fae blood attacked my senses, anyway. The wind that swirled around us could not be coincidental. My power surged again in response, and I did not reach for any of the techniques that Tomin had taught me to leash it. I unfurled my palms and let the power?—

“Don’t.” Garrick’s hand curled around mine.

My power immediately responded to his touch, even as my mind struggled to catch up. He wanted me to spare her. He’d spent more than a month training me to protect myself, but when I was finally confronted with the opportunity to kill the fae bitch, he protected her.

Not me.

I jerked my hand away.

Alize watched the interplay with cruel amusement etched into her features. “You are blessed to have Garrick the Red bound to protect you, or you’d have zero chance of surviving the Seven Gates.”

How did she know about the Lifebind? We hadn’t specifically tried to keep it secret, but I hadn’t walked around waving the brand on my wrist for the other supplicants to see, either.

“Your scents are intertwined,” Isanara informed me. “She can probably smell it on you.”

Unlike me, she’d been born with her immortal gifts. She probably used her wind magic to carry odors to her so she could scent her opponents. Like the animal she was.

“The Dark God stands at my side. What gods do you have left to defend you?”

“I don’t need the gods to defend me, witch.”

It was the same epithet that Garrick used, but there was none of the nuance that he lent to the syllables. Alize hated me as much as I hated her.

Good. It would make it even easier to kill her.

The remnants of my human heart had nothing to say about this particular impulse.

They were the reason for it. I’d held back from killing Nash and that was a mistake.

But this would not be. Alize was a threat just by breathing. I could take care of that.

“Stand back. She’s mine,” I said to Isanara.

“We are one,” my familiar answered, her voice different than I’d yet heard it. More distant, mature. But she stepped to the side with a flick of her spiked tail that said what she did not need to.

I moved clear of my familiar and my Lifebind. It was time for me to stand on my own, and they would both respect it.

“Think carefully about this, Koryn,” Garrick said. He did not tell me to stop, even though my death meant his and the downfall of whatever had propelled him through the Seven Gates.

“I won’t kill your witch.” Alize smiled, showing her pointed incisors. “I can teach her a lesson without doing permanent damage.”

Fuck her and fuck that.

I shot a look at Garrick, daring him to intervene. But he’d placed his back against the sheer cliff face that rose on one side.

I rolled my shoulders and snapped my fingers to the side. The sharp spikes of ice crumbled to frosty dust.

Alize understood the challenge. For the first time, I saw a genuine smile on her face.

I’d thought Garrick was fast. But Alize was the wind itself.

She sprang forward, halving the distance between us in a single bound.

By the time her feet landed on the stone ledge, she already had her blade in hand.

It sparkled even in the muted light, the blade a swirling alloy of diamond bright metals.

The blade was like her—lithe and punishing. She bore down, not giving me a moment of grace. I did not want her fucking grace, anyway. I wanted her dead.

I threw up a wall of ice between us, thickening it with power that gave and gave without a hint of resistance. But I was too distracted to question that.