Page 53 of The Frost Witch (The Covenants of Velora #1)

Alize drove her entire weight into the wall of ice, crashing through it without any regard for the shards that sliced into her skin like glass. Her fae healing would take care of those minor wounds. But my power surged in victory at the stream of blood that flowed down her cheek.

Janessa’s face flashed in my mind. But it wasn’t the freckles I’d adored or the beauty I’d admired outside the temple that fateful spring day. I saw the blood as it drenched her face, smelled the acrid burn of her hair and flesh as that fae-cursed diadem killed my sister.

I threw myself into the maneuvers that Garrick had taught me. Step, turn, stab. This time, I put my full weight behind every thrust.

I am going to kill her. Kill her. Kill her.

The words moved through my veins like the beating heart I no longer possessed.

But for every thrust, she parried. I knew my stabs were well-aimed, but she commanded the air and used it to guide my hand off course.

I dodged to the side, barely avoiding the tip of her blade. My faltering steps brought me to the edge of the cliff. Garrick growled behind me—or was that Isanara and it was in my mind entirely?

Sweat poured from my temples, my power too busy keeping me alive to bother with regulating my body temperature. But before I could get any closer, I collided with a wall of hard air that sent me stumbling backward.

Alize was playing with me.

The realization turned the rivulets of sweat to frost. Between my brows, I felt the burn of my coven mark as cold power seared through me. It coated my skin, spreading in glistening whorls over the backs of my hands. I felt it lick up my throat and curl across my cheeks.

I saw my father, a man drunk on wine and his own ambition. Even in my memory, he never looked back at me. Always past me, always fixated on something just beyond his reach. Fascinated with the fae.

Fae like the one before me, who looked down on humans as if they were nothing.

They had ruined an entire continent with their hubris and then left us all to rot.

For four hundred years, I’d been forced to live an immortal life, watching my sister’s line struggle for life in the barren wasteland of Velora.

All because of the fae.

Because of Alize. For all I knew, she was hundreds of years old and directly responsible, just like the rest of the faceless cowards hiding behind the walls of the fae fortress in the north.

She attacked again and I threw up an arm to protect myself. Her blade sliced through the layers of wool and linen and then skin and muscle. I screamed at the pain. Or maybe that was Isanara. Or Garrick. But I was too focused on myself, on the whorls of frost that covered my hand.

I would never best Alize in direct combat. Not like this. I had to get a hand on her.

I threw my dagger, but only to distract her. It worked marginally well. She turned her head to avoid the blade, but a smile was already on her face. I’d given up my weapon. But she was the one who had pointed out that I wielded another.

I grabbed her wrist, arching my back to avoid the swing of her glittering blade. I braced myself for another blow, for more blood. I could withstand it as long as it was not a direct hit. I just needed long enough?—

Alize screamed as the skin around my fingers began to blacken. Frostbite on its own was a slow killer, but I had the power of the Dark God to speed it along.

My mother came to me last. Was it truly her face I remembered, or the one conjured by Xyta? The Deity of Sacrifice had accepted my bargain, and they would make me pay. But not now. They had left me to determine this moment for myself.

The fae bitch twisted away from me, but I refused to let her go. I felt her pulse slowing beneath my fingers as the blood in her arm solidified and froze. Her fingertips were already turning blue. A bit longer, and they’d turn black. I would hold on until her entire body was a wasted husk?—

Her knee slammed into my stomach, stealing the breath from my lungs but not the vengeance. The vengeance so singular that I’d forgotten the rest of her. I doubled over, releasing her without even meaning to.

But Alize wasn’t done. Her fist connected with my chin, snapping my head back loud enough that it echoed against the stone cliffside.

Her final blow sent me to the ground, flat on my back.

I got my knees up, curling to protect myself.

The dagger was long gone, but I formed one of ice with only a thought, and I would stab it into her black fucking heart if she tried to touch me again.

Instead, I heard the unmistakable sound of her blade returning to its sheath. No footsteps. She sent her words to me on a wind, a whisper delivered straight to my ear. “Next time you push me, I will kill you.”

I opened my mouth to return to sentiment, but she took off at a run through the trees.

I rolled to my back and screamed up at the empty sky. I emptied all of the air from my chest, let the waves of rage peel out of me into the world. I wanted every single one of the Seven Gods to hear me.

I screamed until my throat burned and then I screamed some more, until the sound was pitiful even to my own ears.

A few minutes later, a scaled head nudged my hand up. I forgot to avoid Isanara’s sharp spikes. But she did not cut me, and for once, she didn’t insert a pithy comment.

Several minutes after that, Garrick’s face appeared above mine.

For a few seconds, I just blinked up at him.

I was angry at him for not training me well enough to beat her, even though I knew that it wasn’t his fault.

He could not make my body move faster. I was pissed that he’d asked me not to kill her.

He was my fucking Lifebind. Where was the loyalty that supposedly bound his soul to mine?

But mostly I was fucking tired.

Garrick the fucking Red, however, was smirking.

“What are you smiling about?” I rasped. “You were going to let her kill me.”

Garrick did not respond to that accusation. Whatever else was between us, we both knew it was not true.

“We will make a fighter of you yet,” he said, offering me a hand. “And now I know how.”