Page 81 of The Frost Witch (The Covenants of Velora #1)

Maura.

She waved her hand, and the others appeared just as suddenly, like a curtain had been pulled back.

Garrick and I were not alone in the gorge.

Far from it. Behind us, the narrow passage that led back to the temple was crowded with a line of acolytes in emerald robes.

Varian stood at their center, her jewel-toned purple stark against the grays of the stone cliffs that sloped upward on either side of the gorge.

The Memory Gate was gone, no hint of sparkling black mist left behind.

Just me and Garrick, trapped on one side by the priestess and the other by witches.

Maura was not alone. But the others—those I recognized and those I did not—were all secondary.

“Where is my dragon?” I demanded, forcing my legs to straighten under me.

“Isanara!” I screamed into the shared space of our minds. “Isanara, where are you?”

Maura waved a dismissive hand, her halo of tight, dark curls bobbing around her. “She is perfectly safe. Though I admit, figuring out how to dim the bond between a witch and her familiar was quite difficult. It would not have been possible at all without our combined power and magic.”

Power and magic.

It was not just Elodie and Auri who stood with Maura, flanking their head witch on either side. There were several more figures, clad in rich, shimmering garments that looked completely out of place in the barren gorge. It was not their clothing that snagged my attention, but their ears.

Fae.

Ice crystallized in my veins. I could not kill them all, but I could do considerable damage, especially with Garrick at my side. He hated the fae, and rightfully so after what they had done to his mother.

But it wasn’t Garrick that moved at the periphery of my vision. A swirl of emerald caught my eye.

I threw out my hand, releasing my power in a torrent until it formed a wall that reached my waist. But Varian had already yanked Tomin back. I did not know her motivations, but at least she agreed with me on that—neither of us wanted Tomin anywhere near this encounter.

“We are stewards of the Seven Gods and the Seven Gates. We do not interfere with what happens beyond the temple walls,” Varian said.

“Liar,” I breathed, even as relief slid down my spine. Tomin was safe. The priestess would keep him safe. But after all she had done, to stand down now… “You lying hypocrite. You intervened before, more than once. Why, if it was just to let it come to this? Unless you are in league with…”

Varian had remarked on Isanara when she first saw her, but she had not been surprised. Had she been in communication with Maura all along? Had this all been some twisted plot to get hold of a dragon?

It seemed too far-fetched. How could any of them have known that a mythical creature whose species had deserted Velora centuries ago would magically reappear and choose an outcast witch as her familiar? The pieces just did not fit.

Maura clucked her tongue, the sound dripping with the condescending disapproval that had haunted my nightmares. “I do not consort with humans,” she said.

But she was standing among a troupe of fae.

Three males and two females, plus Alize. Alize, who was not restrained. Alize, the fae female bitch who stood with her arms crossed, a scowl on her face, and deception in her cursed fae heart.

A tall male moved to stand beside Maura. Like the others, he was clothed in layers of rich silk and velvet embroidered with golden thread. But the pretty clothes could not disguise his hardened warrior’s body or the distinctive breadth of his shoulders.

An elegant fae female stood at his side. Though I did not recognize her, the diadem atop her head was seared into my memory.

My stomach turned violently. I grabbed for Garrick’s hand. I was going to be sick.

“It is unnatural to separate a witch from her familiar. Return her to me, now,” I ground out, pressing my other hand to my chest, trying to do something to relieve the growing ache. Every minute I was separated from Isanara, the pain grew.

The fae male ignored my demand, addressing Maura. “This is the witch you promised me?”

Maura’s lips twitched, her nearly white skin shimmering in the gray light, before she inclined her head a fraction of an inch. “Indeed, Your Majesty.”

Maura had not just entangled herself with the fae—but the fae king. The same greedy, self-serving monster who’d allowed his people to run rampant across the continent, to grasp at power until they angered the gods and brought down their wrath on all of Velora.

I had to get Isanara back. I had to get away from whatever this was unfolding around me. I squeezed Garrick’s hand, desperate to communicate with him.

“You even managed to find my runaway daughter in the process,” the king said. But he was no longer looking at Maura. He’d shifted his attention, his look of displeasure, to the golden female leaning against the stone wall.

“I knew,” I breathed. “You lied to us about the faerie ring. You… he trusted you.”

It was all happening too fast. I’d let Alize get too close. I should have trusted my instincts about her. I should not have let Garrick make excuses for her.

But Alize was shaking her head, and she looked… she looked sorry for me.

None of it made sense. But the weight in my chest was getting so heavy I could hardly breathe.

I splayed the hand that did not hold Garrick wide, letting power flow from me, releasing the pressure building inside of me, trying to maintain some sort of control as the world around me spun faster and faster.

Maura laughed, the deep sound echoing off of the walls that pressed in on us from either side.

“You stupid, foolish girl. You’ve always been so caught up in your own feelings that you can hardly see what is happening around you.

Here you are, so busy clinging to that dead heart that you have chosen the wrong fae to blame. ”

But I’d only met one fae—just Alize.

The fae king had helped Maura mute my bond with Isanara, and he had more than my hate for that. But I still did not know why he’d aligned himself with Maura, and I’d never seen the male before now. The only other fae I’d encountered…

…was half-human.

When the infant in Alize’s memory had transformed, his eyes had struck me. I’d been too caught up to realize why they seemed so familiar. Stupid or foolish or both, because I had been looking into those eyes every day for the last two months.

When the Memory Gate had thrust us into reliving my encounter with the two men outside of the tavern in Canmar, I’d been confused. The entire memory had seemed off—because it was not my memory at all. It was Garrick’s.

I jerked away from him, but there was nowhere for me to go.

Varian and her acolytes blocked the way back to the temple, watching as she’d instructed. Two other acolytes restrained Tomin. The wall of ice I’d erected still stood.

In front of me, witches and fae intermingled in an unnatural mixture that turned my stomach. We were enemies, not allies.

At my side stood the man for whom I’d been willing to sacrifice everything—my coven, and thereby my own life.

Maura and Elodie began to chant. “ Heed the call of earth and bone, shift his form, return him home. ”

Alone, Maura could not have done it. Shapeshifting was an earth-bound power, like the many faces that Elodie could wear. But when she lent her fire, they were able to do the impossible.

Garrick’s body twisted, contorting as he fought the power of the spell.

My stomach lurched, my twisted feelings rebelling at the sight of him in pain.

Every muscle in his body stiffened, and then all of the fight whooshed out of him.

He transformed in an instant. One moment, the man so familiar I could outline his face with my eyes closed.

The next, a ruggedly beautiful black raven.

There had been a crow on the roof of the general store the night I was attacked in Canmar. In the woods over the past few weeks, whenever Garrick and I were separated.

Not a crow. A raven. I’d never paid much attention to the difference, though it was plain now that I saw his shifted form. It must have been how he beat me back to our camp that night I’d snuck up to listen to him and Alize argue. He had not walked—he’d flown.

Not just the halfling bastard of a human mother, raped by the fae, but a shifter. A half-fae whose eyes matched those of the brother that Alize had tried to murder in his cradle.

I forced myself to look at the fae king. I did not bother to beg the Dark God for a different outcome. I already knew what I would find.

Cold turquoise eyes stared back at me.

No. No, no, no, no.

This could not be happening. Not to me… not after I’d been so careful for so long, after I’d spent lifetimes alone and?—

“Koryn,” Garrick choked, landing on his knees. His shirt was gone—how that worked for a shifter, I did not fucking care. But I did care about the tattoos that I could see, the ones he’d hidden from me just as effectively as I’d hidden the one on the inside of my thigh.

A series of rings looped around his left bicep. I did not know their meaning or significance. But there was no mistaking the dark wings etched across his back. They were beautiful, those raven wings. In a different time, I might have pressed my lips to each one of those elegantly wrought feathers.

But in this reality, betrayal was burning up my throat. Frost swirled in my mouth.

“I am so sorry,” Garrick choked out, his chest heaving as he tried to drag in breaths, still recovering from the force of Maura and Elodie’s spell.

That’s why he’d apologized over and over again. Not because choosing to save his life had cost me my coven and my future—but because he’d betrayed me.

“It was real,” he said between breaths.

Maura was not the only one laughing now. The king chuckled, a cruel, cold sound that put my own ice to shame.

“You said you had no magic. You lied to me.” I’d known there were secrets between us. But I’d thought that we understood each other, that even if there were secrets, there were not lies.

I’d thought a lot of misguided things.

Now I knew better.

I was alone, just as I always had been.

“I said none manifested while I was in Balar Shan,” Garrick said, dragging himself to his feet. “My abilities appeared long before that.”

He didn’t look at Maura or at his father. His father, the King of the Fae. That’s what those eyes told me. Garrick was not just any half-fae bastard. He was a half-fae prince.

He reached for my hand, but I jerked it back. He huffed out a breath, but he did not retreat. “It was real, Koryn. I promise that it was. How would I have gotten through the Devotion Gate if it was not? And after… when we…”

But I shook my head. I wanted to believe him. I didn’t want to be alone. I wanted him to be the man I thought he was, the man I thought I knew.

“I don’t know what deals you made with the gods,” I whispered.

Garrick opened his mouth to argue, but Maura cut him off.

“Give yourself credit, young man,” Maura interjected. “You did exactly as we asked.”

I closed my eyes.

“You risked your life, and she saved you, just like I knew she would. She’s always been afflicted by the remnants of her human heart.”

Thank the Dark God my human heart was no longer responsible for keeping me alive. In that moment, it would have broken in two.

“You used the Lifebind to get close to her, to get her through the gates. Exactly as we asked. And now…”

The fae king finished Maura’s sentence. “And now you shall have your reward, as we agreed.”

Everything had been stripped away from me.

I’d only made it through the gates because Garrick had seen to it, not even because of the Lifebind, but because of some deal he’d made with Maura and the fae king.

The man I’d been willing to sacrifice for saw me as nothing more than a tool.

A means to some unknown end that he’d never trusted me enough to tell me.

Maura and the fae king had plotted from the beginning. The king must have been responsible for the faerie ring we’d stumbled upon in the forest. Garrick and Alize had known, even then. They’d shattered not only my trust, but my illusion of agency.

They’d even taken my familiar.

I fell to my knees. This time, there was no one there to catch me.

Garrick tried, but Aurienna was faster. Vines sprang up from nowhere, encircling our arms and holding us in place.

Garrick thrashed against them, but then Elodie was murmuring a spell, and the fae king waved his hand, and suddenly I could not move anything beneath my neck.

I could not even look at Garrick, though I could hear his snarls of frustration.

It was for the better. I never wanted to see him again.

Maura withdrew three cinched bags from within her cloak. She passed off one each to Elodie and Aurienna, who both began to move, sprinkling ash from the bags as they walked.

“Where is my familiar?” I demanded.

Nothing else mattered anymore. At least, nothing that I could see or feel. My chest ached terribly, but there were too many causes to blame just one.

Maura waved away my concern. “You will be reunited with her eventually.” She stepped around the lines of ash that the other two witches carefully laid out. “You have been so helpful, Koryn. Do hold still for this last bit.”

“Why, Maura.” A demand, not a question.

She took my arm, grasping it in the same place she had on a dark, frigid night three hundred and seventy-seven years before.

“Why do you think I have lingered in Velora all of these years? I will not be just the head witch of this coven, but of all the covens. A queen of witches.”

“Vassal to a fae overlord,” I seethed. Keeping my mouth shut had never been a particular strength of mine.

“You are so shortsighted, Koryn. You are ruled by your emotions rather than your mind. It is why you never mastered your active power.” She dug her pointed fingernail into the tender skin of my forearm, ripping open the wound that had healed only days before.

She squeezed until several drops of blood spilled across the ground. The lines of ash burst into flame. I did not miss the irony—a frost witch, imprisoned in a pentacle of blood.

“Koryn, I need you to listen to me.”

Garrick’s voice hit me with the sharpness of a knife. I felt it in my gut.

I did not turn my head. I refused to look his way. But that did not stop him.

“They are going to take you away from the gates. No matter what happens, you must remember the oath?—”

“Enough!” Maura ordered. “That should be enough blood to pacify the gods for now.”

“The Dark God will punish you for this treachery,” I breathed.

Maura licked her lips. “Not even the Dark God can save you now, Koryn.”

Then she snapped her fingers, and the world went dark.