Page 78 of The Frost Witch (The Covenants of Velora #1)

I landed on my feet with Isanara at my side.

She shoved her head into my hand, her horns scraping against my palm.

Victory flooded my chest. I’d survived the Memory Gate—done what only one other before me had ever achieved.

There was truly a chance that I would make it through the Seven Gates, lift the curse, regain my coven, and save Kyrelle like I’d been unable to save her mother. I reached for Garrick?—

And there he was.

At my side.

But that could not be right. He should still be inside the Memory Gate, inside his own memory. Unless the Lifebind had somehow altered things and bound us so that we could not leave without the other?—

Familiarity came in brutal, merciless waves.

First was the smell. The cave was always thick with herbs, burned to strengthen spells or stewed to add to potions.

Then came the contrast of temperatures. Cold along the walls where our beds were placed, but burning hot at the center where Maura’s ever-burning fire blazed.

But worst of all had always been the noise.

Trapped together in that cave, there was always too much noise echoing between the sloped walls.

The other witches in my coven always seemed so unbothered, but I had never learned to manage the gifts the Dark God had granted me.

The cacophony of sensory input overloaded me, just as it had for centuries.

Garrick’s hand curled around mine.

I took a deep breath, nearly choking on the thick scent, but I managed to count to five and then exhale. I did it again.

But there was no further respite. This was the Memory Gate. And this was my worst memory.

“These are the coven lands,” Isanara said from my side. She’d twined between my legs, a movement of protection.

She did not need me to confirm it. I could not speak, even within my mind.

I watched, helpless, as the commotion unfolded at the entrance to the cave.

A beautiful blonde witch appeared, clothed in close-fitting trousers and a vest. McKean, the final member of the Midnight Coven.

She dragged a limping young woman behind her.

It was nearly midnight, but none of the other witches slept.

Aurienna and Elodie sat with Maura around a cauldron, chanting a protection spell.

They had to be renewed more and more often as the power in Velora weakened.

There was hardly a point. With the fae gone, the witches had no natural enemies.

But Maura insisted we be prepared, that our borders be strong and fortified at all times.

Maura spoke obsessively of the day the curse would be broken.

That was the true duty of the coven—to be ready for when it was, to assume power.

All the other covens had fled Velora, but not Maura.

She bided her time, waiting for the moment when the curse would lift and the Midnight Coven would be the first to grab that newfound power.

We were immortals. We could afford to wait.

Maybe McKean had foreseen it. She was the coven sister I feared the most, Maura’s right hand.

Even with Garrick’s hand around mine, ice surged in my veins. There were some things beyond even his comforting reach.

McKean threw her prisoner down on the ground, her blonde hair swirling around her like a sun-kissed halo.

I knew what was coming, and still it made me sick to watch—to see the young woman’s body, thin from her long journey north, bruised from the beating McKean had given her upon discovering her in the coven lands.

“Intruder,” McKean hissed.

“Please, please, I am not an intruder. I came… I must speak with… I need… I need Koryn.”

My coven turned as one to where the past version of me stood frozen by my bed.

Ice cracked inside of me as I watched the horror on my past self’s face, the pleading in Kyrelle’s eyes, the realization of how truly terrible whatever happened next was going to be. Isanara moved toward the other me.

“No,” I said to my familiar. “Not yet.”

I knew what happened next on the night that Kyrelle stumbled into the coven lands, hungry and desperate. This was my memory.

“Sister,” Maura said, moving to the center of the cave. There was no doubt she spoke to me—the past version of me, the one that existed in the memory.

My coven sisters fell into place around her, moving to the five points of the pentagram carved into the stone floor. We’d acted out this ritual dozens of times over the centuries, any time there was an intruder on the coven lands.

“You cannot know this human, can you, Koryn? That would violate our sacred covenants,” Maura said, her eyes never leaving mine.

I watched the blood drain from my face, watched my hands curl into fists as I tried to quell the power that rose up uncontrollably inside of me. I saw firsthand just how terrible I was at masking my emotions.

“Koryn,” Kyrelle rose up to her knees. McKean had bound her hands with a length of rope. “Please, Koryn. My father is ill. We need a spell?—”

“A spell?” Maura’s voice rose an octave.

“And she will give another,” McKean said.

Her voice was deceptively smooth, even as she unraveled the secret I’d held close to my decaying heart for nearly four centuries.

“And another and another. So long as her sister’s descendants walk the continent of Velora, she will continue to betray our covenants. I have seen it.”

There was no greater condemnation she could give. McKean’s power was foresight, ironically gifted to her by the Dark God when she’d defied her parents’ warnings and died because of a lack of it.

Maura’s dark curls bounced as she stepped into her place on the pentagram. She did not wait for me to take mine. Maybe she knew that I wouldn’t, or couldn’t. “Then we will do what is required to save our sister. We will remove the temptation.”

McKean pulled a dagger from her belt.

“Koryn,” Garrick said softly. He was still at my side. I’d been so caught up in the memory that I’d forgotten. But my power hadn’t. It swirled beneath the surface, ready but waiting, soothed by his warm hand around mine.

But I could not let him intervene on my behalf this time.

The only hitch was that there was nothing about this memory that I wanted to change.

My past self stepped forward, moving like I was going to take my place on the pentacle, like I was going to let them murder Kyrelle.

I threw out my hand. Power crested inside of me, inside of us, in my chest, in the present.

But in the time it took me to move forward, to step in front of the memory of myself, Kyrelle’s form changed.

It was no longer my sister’s descendant bound at the center of the pentagram, but Garrick. He was no longer waiting at the edge of the memory with his bow in his hand. He was on his knees before McKean and her dagger.

No. No, please, no. Not now.

Xyta’s second sacrifice.

This was more than a memory. That was the real Garrick, the one who’d kissed me and worshipped me. The man who’d stood at my side, protected me even beyond the demands of the Lifebind. The warrior who’d awakened parts of me I’d long thought dead.

If I did not stop McKean, she would kill Garrick.

If I intervened, I would betray my coven again. There would be no hope of redemption.

Xyta’s laughter filled the cave. It reverberated off the walls.

It was more than a sound. I could taste their derision, scent their triumph.

Frost swirled in my veins, over my skin.

I fought to keep it contained. But Garrick was gone—bound, trapped, at the mercy of every bad decision I’d made over the past four hundred years.

There were no breathing rituals that could keep this power contained. I was going to fracture.

“Please.” My voice broke. Even this part of the memory was doomed to repeat itself. I fell to my knees and begged. “Dark God, please, help me.”

There was no flash of light as the memory was wiped away, only sudden, complete darkness. No cave, no witches, no Isanara, and no Garrick.

Only the dark, frigid hell I had visited once before. He materialized before my eyes, unspeakably beautiful, eternally terrible. There was only one way to greet the God of Death.

I kneeled before the Dark God’s throne.

“Welcome home, wife.”