The Winter King

CHAPTER 21

Of Heroes and Harrowing

“The garm has doubled back again.” Wynter rose from the large, paw prints stamped into the snow along the cliff top and turned a grim eye on Valik and the other riders of the Great Hunt. “It’s following the cliffs, heading back down the mountain.”

The Wintermen’s expressions could have been carved from ice. They all knew what Wyn meant. If the garm was heading back down the mountain, it was heading back towards the valley—and the villages. Towards families. Women and children.

Wynter swung into Hodri’s saddle. “Let’s ride.”

He kicked his heels, and Hodri leapt forward. Chunks of ice and packed snow flew up in the wake of Hodri’s great hooves as the swift, sure-footed mountain horse raced across the treacherous cliff tops. Valik and the other riders followed close behind.

Wyn kept an eye on the garm tracks. The distance between paw prints meant the monster was moving swiftly. The beast knew they were on its trail.

Khamsin’s heart sank to the pit of her stomach, and sheer terror turned her blood to ice as she stared at the hideous creature coming towards her.

The description of the garm didn’t even begin to do justice to the monster’s huge, hulking evil. Though big as a horse, the creature’s dense white fur blended so perfectly with the snow-covered ground it would have been virtually impossible to detect—except for the eyes.

Bloodred and glowing with a malevolent inner light, those eyes looked like beacons to the gates of Hel.

She’d expected the garm to look like an impossibly large, very scary wolf. The paws, the rangy, furred body and shaggy tail did, but that’s where the resemblance ended. The same long, thick fur that covered its body also covered its neck and bulbous, earless head in a dense ruff, while a shorter nap grew around the creature’s eyes, mouth, and nostril slits. Long, thin, spiky hairs like a cat’s whiskers sprouted in abundance from both sides of its short, flattened muzzle and more sparsely on the sides and back of its head. But unlike a cat’s whiskers, the garm’s long, stiff hairs shivered and undulated with a life of their own. When a small bird took flight from a nearby tree, several of the hairs whipped around to follow its path.

The garm had no ears, but it was clear those hairs sensed the vibrations of movement and sound. And with them, the creature literally had eyes in the back of its head.

It also, she realized as the mouth slit opened and the lips pulled back, had longer, sharper teeth and more of them than any creature she’d ever known. Row upon row of curved, razor-sharp fangs unfolded from the monster’s upper and lower jaws as its mouth gaped wider. A single bite would slice through flesh and even bone like a knife through warm butter. And with the way the tips of the fangs curved inward, when the garm sank its teeth into something, that something wasn’t ever getting away.

Kham slowly backed away.

No man can face a garm alone and live. Lady Melle’s dire words echoed in her mind. The only chance is to hunt in numbers. Large numbers. That’s why we call it the Great Hunt. And even then, men will die.

And here death was, staring Kham in the face. Drawn by the scent of the blood dripping from the wound Reika had carved down Kham’s back.

Blue-white slime dripped from the garm’s fangs. One of the droplets landed on the leaf of a holly bush, and the spiky evergreen leaf froze with a crack, white frost spreading instantly across its dark, glossy surface.

The garm planted its front paws, swelled its chest and, with an earsplitting shriek, spewed out a billowing cloud of blue-white vapor.

The shriek ripped through Kham’s skull. She screamed in pain and dropped to her knees, her muscles seizing. Before she could take another breath, the vapor cloud reached her. Frost crackled across her skin as the mist enveloped her and trapped her body in bands of unyielding ice. Ears ringing, she was dimly aware of the beat of her heart, feeling more than hearing the slow, thudding percussion reverberating in the frozen drum of her chest.

Move, Khamsin! MOVE! Her mind shrieked the command, but her body remained locked in place by the freezing, paralytic effects of the garm’s hunting scream and vaporous breath.

Fur rippled along the beast’s haunches as the muscles in its hind legs bunched up, gathering power, and six lethal inches of curved, razor-sharp claws dug into the ice as the garm prepared to pounce.

If the garm touched her, she was dead.

She cast a frantic gaze skyward. Overhead, clouds boiled and wind whipped through the trees in fitful bursts, mirroring the chaotic whirl of terror and desperation rushing through her adrenaline-charged veins. The sun was there, behind those dark clouds. She reached for it, calling on the power and heat harnessed in its bright rays to counter the garm’s cold magic.

Please! Please! Help me!

The sun answered with a burst of warmth in her chest that flowed through her veins to the rest of her body. Her fingers flexed.

The garm sprang.

Kham folded her legs and dropped to the ground just as the monster plowed through the spot where she’d been standing. The bitter wind that whipped past in the garm’s wake stung the exposed areas of her skin. Kham hissed at the pain and clambered to her feet. Her muscles were still half-frozen and sluggish to respond, but at least she could move.

Snarling, teeth gnashing with furious clicks, the garm spun around for a second attack. Long, curving six-inch claws extended from the garm’s massive paws and dug deep for traction.

Kham looked around frantically. Behind her lay the cliffs and the frozen lake. She couldn’t run that way. Out in the open, she was dead. The creature was too fast, too powerful. She needed cover. Something to hide behind. Something to slow the garm down.

Flaming red eyes pinned her with lethal intent. The beast threw back its head, jaws agape. Kham covered her ears against the garm’s paralyzing shriek and ran for the trees.

The cold of its ice breath chilled her spine through the thick fur of her coat. She didn’t dare slow enough to look back. She could feel the garm behind her. A freezing void closing in on her, draining the warmth from everything around it.

Just ahead, a pile of snow-covered boulders lay tumbled in her path. Six feet behind it, the branches of a large spruce stretched out.

Her legs pumped as she raced for the tumble of rocks. For months, she’d chased after Krysti, trying to emulate the effortless way he scrambled up and down sheer cliff faces and treacherous mountain terrain.

Of course, bounding up cliffs and over obstacles with Krysti had been just a lark. A fun way to pass the time.

Now, her life depended on it.

She scanned the boulders as she ran towards them, calculating the distances, the inclines, noting all footholds and determining the path most suited to her own reach and abilities.

There was no time for fear or doubt and no room for error. She could only decide her path, commit to it, and pray she completed a successful run on the first try.

Khamsin put on a burst of speed and leaped towards the first rock. Her foot came down, angled perfectly against the incline. Her right sole made contact. She bent her knee to absorb her momentum and immediately pushed off, springing up and left towards the next rock in the pile. Leaping from foot to foot, rock to rock, she bounded up the pile of boulders and launched herself into the air. Her arms stretched out, gloved hands spread wide.

She caught the spruce branch with her fingertips and kicked up and out to swing her torso over the top of the branch. She pumped her legs again, planted her feet on either side of her hands, and leapt up to grab a higher branch overhead. She scrambled up the branches of the spruce, then paused to see what the garm would do next.

Below her, the garm leapt for the tree trunk, flexing long, curving claws. Kham’s eyes went wide. “Halla help me! The cursed thing can climb, too?”

Sure enough, the garm was scaling straight up the spruce’s broad trunk, its six-inch claws digging into wood as easily as they sliced through ice and frozen ground. The beast had almost reached Khamsin before she collected herself enough to jump for the next highest branch.

“A giant ice wolf, they called it,” Kham muttered as she scrambled up the tree. “Ice wolf, my ass. Show me one wolf—just one!—that can climb a tree!”

The branches grew thinner but more plentiful the higher she went. Hopefully, the thicket would slow down the garm—or, if she was lucky, stop it altogether. Khamsin cast a glance over her shoulder and promptly swore the air blue.

“You have got to be joking.”

Not only did the garm run swift as a wolf, breathe freezing mist like a frost dragon, and climb trees as effortlessly as a squirrel . . . but when the spruce branches threatened to keep the garm from its prey, the beast just chewed through them like they were breadsticks.

She scrambled higher, climbing faster, praying as she went.

The crevasse lay in Hodri’s path, a long, deep chasm gouged out of the underlying mountain. The crevasse was easily twenty-five feet wide—too far for a horse and rider to jump without considerable risk—but the garm’s tracks raced directly to its edge.

The gap might be a risky jump for horse and rider, but apparently not for the garm. As he reined Hodri in at the chasm’s edge, Wyn could see the disturbed snow on the opposite side where the garm had landed after leaping the distance. The tracks continued on from there, still heading directly for the valley, where a thunderstorm was brewing.

He started to turn Hodri left, intending to ride along the chasm’s edge until he found a safer place to cross, but a breeze blowing up from the valley brought him up short.

His head reared back, nostrils flaring at the distinctive scent of magic on the wind. Weather magic.

Storm magic.

Khamsin.

Fear struck hard. Wynter’s hands clenched around Hodri’s reins, knuckles turning white.

She was down there, in the valley. Wyrn only knew what madness had driven his reckless, imprudent wife to ignore his warnings and ride out into the forest during a Great Hunt, but she had. He knew the taste of her magic better than he knew his own.

Kham was down there. And the garm was heading straight for her.

For all he knew, it might already be upon her.

He wheeled his mount around and rode back a short distance. There wasn’t time to find a safer place to jump. The slightest delay could mean the difference between reaching Khamsin before the garm did, or finding her remains scattered across a blood-soaked field.

The latter possibility was unthinkable.

“Come on, boy,” he urged. “We can do this. We must. She needs us.” He touched his heels to Hodri’s side, and the stallion launched instantly into a fast gallop. Great hooves flashed, kicking up clods of packed snow as they raced towards the edge of the cliff.

Wyn heard the approach of Valik and the others as they crested the rise behind him, but he didn’t pull up, and Hodri didn’t slow.

The gaping chasm loomed before them.

“That’s the way, boy,” Wynter murmured. He bent low over Hodri’s neck and gave the stallion his head.

“Wyn!” Valik gave a shout. “Stop! It’s too far!”

Wynter’s only response was to urge Hodri to run faster. The drop-off loomed large before them, the twenty-five-foot gap looking more like fifty, but Hodri never faltered. At the very edge of the abyss, when one more step would have sent them plunging to their deaths, the stallion planted his rear hooves, gave an explosive release of power from his massive hindquarters, and leapt off the edge of the cliff.

“Wyn!” Valik cried.

Wyn hardly heard him. Horse and rider soared through the air like one of the mythic Valkyr, the fierce warrior-spirits who rode the winds on ghostly steeds, gathering souls for Eiran, the goddess of death. They came back to earth with a jolt, landing hard on the far side of the crevasse, a scant six inches from the edge.

Roars of victory erupted from the Wintermen gathered on the far side of the chasm.

“You frost brain!” Valik shouted. “You nearly got yourself kill—”

A loud, booming crack split the air. Valik’s scold broke off, and the Wintermen fell abruptly silent.

“Wyn!” Valik cried. His voice had gone from angry to alarmed. “Get out of there!”

“Hodri!” Wynter leaned hard over the saddle, digging his heels into Hodri’s side and giving the stallion plenty of rein. “Run, boy! Run!”

The ground beneath Hodri’s hooves began to shift as the underlying shelf of ice crumbled and fell away.

The stallion scrambled for purchase, barely managing to find solid ground before an enormous lip of ice tumbled down the mountainside.

On the opposite side of the crevasse, Valik and the others brought their mounts up short. What had been a risky twenty-five-foot jump was now an impassable forty-foot-wide chasm.

“We’ll have to ride ’round, Wyn. Stay there. We’ll cross at the first passable spot.”

“I can’t. Khamsin’s in trouble. Catch up as soon as you can.”

“Wyn! Wyn, damn you! Stop!”

But Wyn and Hodri were already galloping away, down towards the valley, towards Khamsin, following the large, platter-sized tracks of the garm.

Kham clung to a thin branch near the top of the spruce and screamed down at the still-climbing garm. She didn’t dare go higher. The branch she was standing on was already bowed beneath her weight—and had started to make alarming snapping sounds.

The storm her unruly weathergift had summoned wasn’t helping any. Powerful gusts of wind sent the treetops swaying in all directions, and Khamsin, clinging to the uppermost branches of the spruce, was whipping back and forth through the sky like a ball on a spring. Branches from her own and surrounding trees slapped at her as the spruce swayed, raising welts and scratches on her exposed skin and threatening to knock her from her perch. To make matters worse, freezing rain was rapidly coating the tree branches in layers of slippery ice.

With each passing moment, her perch became more precarious.

A sudden, hard gust of wind bent the top of her spruce tree sideways and smacked her into the branches of a nearby fir. The blow knocked her back. Her feet slipped out from under her, and her mittened hands lost their grip on the slippery, ice-coated spruce branch. She began to slide down the branch, which bent beneath her weight the farther down its length she slipped.

Luckily, she managed to wedge one foot against a knot on the branch below and use that foothold to stop her slide. She clung to her new position and took several deep breaths to calm her racing heart.

As the daze of adrenaline faded, another gust of wind sent the fir and spruce smacking against each other again, their branches tangling together for several seconds, then pulling back apart.

The scowl faded from her face.

An idea blossomed.

A desperate, stupid, reckless idea, granted, but at this point, she was out of options. If she wanted to live, she was going to have to jump. As in let go of the spruce branch she was clinging to for dear life and leap through the air, eighty feet above a boulder-strewn ground, into the branches of one of the nearby trees.

And pray to all the gods that (a) those branches would be strong and supple enough to bear her weight, and (b) that she would actually be able to grab and hold on to them instead of plunging to her death.

Khamsin heaved out a breath. “Well, Kham, you may die either way, but as Roland always said, ‘It’s better to die swinging your sword than cowering behind it.’ ”

She glanced down at the rapidly approaching garm, then up at the dark, roiling sky. She fed the storm a little more power, only this time she tried to use that power to direct the storm’s gusting winds. Not an easy task. Wind had a mind of its own.

Whether because of her effort or in spite of it, the wind shifted direction again. The fir tree that had knocked her out of the spruce now smacked into her once more.

At the same time, a loud growl sounded below her. Icy cold shivered down her back, and the spruce needles on either side of her suddenly crackled and went white with frost. The branch beneath her feet shuddered.

Her time was up. The garm had reached her. If she didn’t jump now, she wouldn’t get a second chance.

The trees were already springing apart, the distance between them widening rapidly. She released the spruce and pushed off with her feet, diving towards the fir.

The garm screamed.

Waves of paralyzing sound enveloped her. Her feet and calves lost sensation as the scream’s accompanying vapor made contact. The freezing effect crept rapidly up her body, overtaking her thighs, her waist, her chest. It took all the effort Kham could muster to fight off the brain-scrambling effects of the garm’s scream and will the fingers of one hand to close around a thin fir branch. She held on tight as the fir sprang back and yanked her beyond the reach of the garm’s freezing cloud.

A furious howl burst from the monster’s throat.

Khamsin clung to the fir with all her might, but as the tree straightened, her branch cracked. She fell, crashing through the nest of the thin branches near the top of the fir. Her arms flailed, and she clutched at any and every thing within her reach. A branch caught her behind the backs of her still-frozen knees and flipped her upside down. Another smacked into her shoulder and spun her right side up. Tumbling helplessly, she crashed down through the thicket of branches towards the ground.

A last branch caught her thighs and spun her around. Then there was nothing but air and a thick, white blanket of snow rushing up to meet her. She landed hard on her back. All the air left her lungs on a painful whoosh, and she lay there, dazed and aching and gasping for breath as a hail of ice chips, bark, and fir needles showered down upon her.

Get up, Kham. Get up! Move or you’re dead.

Kham rolled to her knees, pushed herself to her feet, then nearly fainted when a stabbing pain radiated up her right leg. Her skirts were ripped near her thigh, the edges of the fabric dark with blood.

She pulled the ripped edges of her skirts apart with trembling hands, afraid of what she would see. A deep, six-inch furrow scored the flesh of her thigh. Blood dripped down her leg.

A loud rustle and the sound of snapping twigs in the trees overhead made her glance up.

She swore again, this time choosing one of Krysti’s more colorful and inventive curses. The garm had leapt from the spruce to a nearby fir and was quickly making its descent.

Khamsin scanned her surroundings with desperate eyes. She had no weapons. Between her sprained ankle and the wound on her leg, she couldn’t run, and standing her ground was out of the question. Even if she stoked the storm overhead, she’d lose control of it before it became powerful enough to be of any use to her. Her only chance was to reach the caves behind the frozen waterfall, scuttle deep into the narrow tunnels, and pray the garm couldn’t chew through rock the way it did tree branches.

She took off at a fast hobble towards the frozen lake. With each ungainly step, pain shot through the entire right side of her body. Shadows and stars swirled at the edge of her vision.

As she reached the edge of the skating pond, a heavy thud sounded behind her. She glanced over her shoulder. The garm had reached the ground and was racing after her, its enormous legs eating up the distance between them. A trail of brilliant scarlet drops stained the snow behind her.

She gritted her teeth and hobbled faster, slipping and sliding across the ice. The frozen waterfall lay before her. Behind the glittering crystalline icicles, she could see the black stone of the cliffs and the darker shadow of the cave opening.

The thick ice covering the lake groaned and cracked as the garm leapt onto its silvery surface and ran towards her.

Desperate, Kham dove for the cave opening, sliding across the last few feet of frozen pond. She grabbed at chunks of ice and stone with her left hand and kicked at the pond’s frozen surface with her right foot in an effort to drag herself to safety. Rivulets of icy water dripped down on her from the waterfall, soaking her hair and the skin of her neck as she passed beneath it. She pulled and kicked, dragging and propelling her body farther back into the long cave where Wynter and his brother had played as children.

The garm had reached the cave’s mouth. Khamsin rolled on her back, plugged her ears, and kept pushing with her good leg to shove herself deeper into the cave as the garm shrieked, spewed its freezing vapor, and ripped at ice and rock in an effort to get to her.

Her boots went white with frost, and she lost all feeling in her toes. She screamed and kicked at the garm’s nasal slits, its eyes, its jaw, trying desperately to land as many blows as she could while avoiding the rows of deadly, gnashing teeth.

“Get away from me, you Hel-cursed monster!” she screamed. “Get away!” She slammed the heel of her boot into the beast’s nasal slits and pushed off. Her good hand closed around a sharp edge of stone. Warm blood filled her palm as the stone sliced her skin, but she tightened her grip and yanked herself a few more inches deeper into the caves.

Suddenly, the garm went still. The sensory hairs on the back of its head flattened, pointing in the direction of the cave opening. It tried to turn, but the cave mouth was too small for the garm to maneuver, so with one last snarl and a halfhearted attempt to bite her feet, the beast began backing out of the cave.

Kham heard a roar—deep and furious—then the garm jerked and screamed like she’d never heard anything scream before. Its eyes rolled. Its head, chest, and forelegs shook and writhed. Then a frothy, blue liquid gushed from its mouth and nasal slits, and it collapsed, tongue lolling across rows of razor-sharp teeth.

A moment later, the garm’s body started sliding backward as someone or something dragged it out of the cave. Light flared briefly, then a new shadow blocked out the filtered sunlight shining through the cave’s mouth.

“Khamsin? Are you there? Are you hurt?”

Wynter. Khamsin collapsed, shaking, on the damp stone floor.

“I’m h-here,” she tried to say, but to her embarrassment, her voice cracked, her throat closed up. A sob broke past her lips. Horrified, she clapped a trembling hand over her mouth to stifle the sound, only to sob again in complete mortification at the feel of warm wetness trickling from the corners of her eyes.

She was crying. Crying! Like some weak, spineless coward.

In front of him.

The shame of it burned like a fiery spear to the heart.

His cool hands ran gently up her legs, pausing briefly as they encountered the bloody wound on her thigh. “I have to get you out of here. Tell me if I hurt you.”

He gripped her hips and pulled her towards him. Each bump and scrape across the uneven stone floor made her wounds throb with pain, but Khamsin would die before making another sound. As he pulled her towards the mouth of the cave, she hastily scrubbed away her tears and flung an arm over her face to hide her reddened eyes and blotchy skin. The thought of Wynter’s seeing her so weak and weepy was more than she could bear.

With such gentleness he nearly made her cry anew, Wynter checked her bones for breaks and inspected the wound on her thigh. She heard rustling followed by the distinct sound of ripping. Curious, she peeked out beneath her arm and saw him using his hunting dagger to slice long strips of leather from the bottom of his vest. He braided the strips into a multistrand leather rope, then sliced a long rectangle of fabric from his linen undershirt. He folded the linen into a pad and placed it over her wound.

“Forgive me, min ros. This may hurt, but that cut is deep. I’ve got to stop the bleeding.”

Wynter slipped the braided leather rope under her leg and tied the makeshift bandage securely in place. The pressure on the wound sent pain spearing up Kham’s leg, and her body jerked in instinctive recoil. Then the stab of agony passed, and her multitude of wounds began throbbing again.

“Are you hurt anywhere else?”

“M-my b-b-back.” As shock set in, her body began to shake.

He pulled her into a sitting position, cradling her against one side of his chest as he inspected the deep furrows scoring her back. “Did the garm do this?”

She tried to speak, to tell him what had happened, but the words wouldn’t come out. All she could do was shake her head and tremble from head to toe.

Quickly, he made a second bandage and tied it in place over her back. Then his arms closed around her, muscles bunching with effortless strength as he gathered her up and held her close. She felt the cool press of his lips against her hair, breathed his crisp, woodsy scent. His heart was beating so fast and so loud, she could hear it through the thick layers of cloth, fur, and leather he’d donned for the Great Hunt.

The tears she’d fought so hard to battle back welled up again. She gave a choked sob and turned her face into his chest, gripping the fur of his outer vest in one fist and clutching his shoulder in the other as she utterly broke down and began sobbing against him.

His arms tightened further. “Hössa, min stiarna. The garm is dead. It cannot hurt you anymore.” His voice sounded gentler than she’d ever heard it before. Steady, soothing, almost a croon. His kindness only made her cry harder.

“She s-said it was a trap . . . that they meant to kill you . . .”

“Who? Who told you someone was trying to kill me?” When she only sobbed and burrowed deeper against him, Wynter’s fingers brushed against her damp cheek. “Look at me, Khamsin.”

She shook her head. She didn’t want to look at him.

Anger was her defense, the familiar wall of volatility and destruction she’d always used to keep the world at bay, to keep pain and tears at bay. Even as a child, when Tildy had rocked and soothed her over some wound or emotional hurt inflicted by King Verdan, a core of rebellious anger deep inside Khamsin had continued to smolder, giving her strength, shielding the most vulnerable part of her.

But how could she muster a protective shell of rebellion when Wynter gave her nothing to rebel against?

“Khamsin, look at me,” he repeated, and his tone was one of such calm, relentless implacability, she couldn’t deny him.

Her tear-spiked lashes fluttered. His face came into focus. His eyes so pale and piercing in the masculine, golden-skinned beauty of his face, regarded her with unblinking steadiness. Long, white hair blew about his head and shoulders like ribbons of snow.

“Reika,” she admitted. Her gaze dropped and her fingers plucked at fur of his vest. “I shouldn’t have believed her. It was stupid of me. But—but I . . . She said . . .” Kham’s voice trailed off.

“She said someone meant to kill me on the Hunt?” he concluded for her.

She caught her lower lip between her teeth and nodded. “To keep Rorjak from returning.”

“And you came to warn me?”

She nodded again.

“Why?” His voice had gone husky.

She shivered. The question danced across her skin like the electric purple glow that came when she called the lightning.

Such a dangerous word, “why.” Because so often its answer led to places a person didn’t want to go. Vulnerable places.

“Wynter, I—” She risked another glance up at him. His features—normally so stern and severe—had softened into an expression that made her chest grow tight. Her gaze skittered away to a point over his shoulder.

The wind from her storm was still blowing. Drifts of snow shifted and moved, looking almost alive.

She frowned. Odd. One of the drifts seemed to be moving against the wind, rather than with it. Her mouth went dry as twin beads of glowing scarlet flashed against the stark white of the snow.

She grabbed Wynter’s shoulders. “Get down!”

With Khamsin still clutched in his arms, Wynter dropped and spun just as the garm sprang towards them. He pressed one of her ears tight to his chest and covered the other with his hand, curling his body protectively around her, as the garm’s paralyzing shriek rang out, followed by the blue-white cloud of freezing vapor.

The scream shivered through him like vibrations through glass, and frost prickled across his back. Another man would have been incapacitated, but Wynter had consumed the Ice Heart. Neither the garm’s scream nor its freezing breath could harm him.

As soon as the garm passed, he flung himself upright. The coating of ice on his back shattered as he stood.

“Khamsin, get back in the cave.” He set her down and shoved her behind him, keeping his body between hers and the garm’s.

“No, I—”

“Now!” He cut off her protest with a curt, barked command and yanked Gunterfys from its sheath. The garm had spun around and was coming back for a second pass. “I can’t fight the garm and defend you, too, without getting us both killed. Now get into the cave!” He cast one, quick glance over his shoulder. “Please, Summerlass.”

He didn’t dare watch to be certain she obeyed. The garm was already upon him. He spun and sliced as the garm leapt, claws outstretched. Burning cold raked his chest, and the beast howled.

The garm’s claws ripped through his leather armor like butter and dug deep, burning furrows across his chest. Wyn put a hand to his chest. It came away damp with blood.

Only his blood no longer ran red but violet, and it was cold to the touch. Colder than it had ever been before.

A furious snarl snapped him back to attention. Wyn saw with satisfaction that his was not the only wound struck. The garm was limping. Freezing deep blue droplets of the monster’s blood dripped down its left foreleg. It was snarling, its lips pulled back, the rows of dagger-sharp teeth gnashing together with audible clicks. Glowing red eyes fixed upon him with unmistakable malevolence as the creature paced around him on the icy lake, waiting for an opening to attack.

Strangely, the sight filled him with hope. He might have drunk the Ice Heart, might already be more than halfway to his doom, but he still remained mortal enough that the garm considered him prey.

He gripped Gunterfys more securely and crouched for the beast’s next attack.

“Wyn! To your left! Your left!” Khamsin shouted the alarm.

He had heard the scratch of claws on ice and was already spinning to meet the rush of a second garm.

Two garm? Two? Garm were solitary hunters. He’d never heard of a Winterman encountering two at once. Three, if you counted the one he’d already slain.

Wyn rolled to one side, swinging Gunterfys in a wide circle as he went in an effort to gut or at least wound both beasts as they passed overhead. The drops of freezing cold that landed on his skin told him he’d struck a blow.

The sound of crumbling rocks made him look up.

Wyrn save him! Yet another garm stood on the lip of the cliff. The fourth garm was snarling, fangs bared, claws digging into the ice as it prepared to spring.

He came up sliding on the ice, but there again the dark power of the Ice Heart flowing through his veins stood him in good stead by granting him more traction than he’d thought possible. He leaned forward, putting pressure on his toes, and his backward slide slowed, then stopped altogether.

A flash of dark near the mouth of the cave made him swear and scowl. “Damn it, Khamsin! Get back in the cave!”

She wasn’t completely out in the open, just crouched too close to the opening to be truly safe. Not that she, fool woman, seemed concerned about her own safety.

Regrettably, not his either.

He saw her eyes widen just before claws raked down his back. He fell forward onto the ice, and it was only by the grace of Wyrn that he managed to keep hold of Gunterfys as he fell.

The fourth garm sprang from the cliff and landed on the lake directly in his path. The other two leapt towards him from opposing sides.

Wyn twisted to one side, rolled, and popped to his feet as the three garm converged. Gunterfys flashed. He spun in a tight circle, not daring to leave his back open to attack. But even in constant motion, even with Gunterfys swinging, thrusting, parrying in constant attack and defense, the garm’s sharp claws and sharper teeth ripped through his leather armor and shredded his flesh. Violet blood streamed from his wounds, soaking his garments.

A slash across his thigh dropped Wyn to one knee. He thrust his sword back, over his head to defend against a death bite to the back of his neck, but that bared his chest for a raking blow from the garm in front of him.

Muscle shredded as the garm’s claws scraped against bone.

He bared his teeth and roared. With every ounce of energy he could muster, he brought Gunterfys arcing over his head and drove the sword hilt deep through the garm’s skull.

Its limbs splayed, body twitching spasmodically in death throes.

Teeth clamped hard on his left arm. With his arm locked in its jaws, the garm shook its massive head, yanking him off his feet. The other garm’s claws raked across his belly. Fire exploded in his abdomen. If he didn’t get free of the garm holding him by the arm, the pair of them would rip him in two. With his free hand, he punched the monster in its nasal slits and clawed at its eyes. The jaws released, and he went flying.

He heard Khamsin cry his name.

The ice came up fast, and he hit hard. He skidded across the ice, leaving streaks of rapidly freezing violet blood in his wake.

Momentum sent him skidding up the small embankment at the edge of the lake. Gripping his torn belly with one hand, he managed to push himself up on his other hand and his knees and start an awkward, three-legged crawl towards the surrounding forest.

Panting, claws clicking on the ice, the two remaining garm loped towards him.

His strength was dwindling rapidly. He was losing too much blood. His thigh, chest, and arm were slashed to the bone, his belly torn open. His sword was out of reach, still quivering in the skull of the one beast he’d managed to slay. He couldn’t even summon the strength to stand. Each attempt made agony rip through him while gouts of violet blood gushed from his wounds.

He was done, and he knew it.

It was all he could do to lift his head and face his death head-on.

As Wynter fought the garm, Khamsin cast about the cave, looking for something—anything—to use as a weapon. She found a few rocks, but most were too heavy to throw or too small to be of much use. She snatched up an armful of stones anyways and hurried to the mouth of the cave to throw them, but the rocks fell shy of their targets. She shouted and waved her arms, trying to distract the garm. She didn’t dare step foot out of the cave because she knew Wynter would sacrifice his own life to keep her safe.

No one had ever risked their life for hers.

No one.

And yet this man, this Winter King, this supposed enemy from the north, had taken on not one but four of the most dangerous monsters in the world to save her.

Khamsin had spent all her life in a fury. Always fighting, rebelling, raging against something. A harsh, hateful parent, her own tempestuous nature, her fears, and her failings.

She’d never known this. The feeling that clamped so hard around her heart it hurt. Whatever it was made her shake, not with fury, but with humility and fear. Fear for someone other than herself.

He—Wynter, her husband—was willing to die so she might live.

Her heart soared when Wynter drove Gunterfys into one of the garm’s head, only to sink when one of the remaining beasts sank its teeth into Wynter’s arm and tossed him about like a rag doll. Wynter fought back, his free hand curled in a fist that pummeled the beast until it gave one last shake of its gargantuan head, roared, and sent Wynter flying across the lake.

“Wynter!” She screamed his name and lunged forward, gripping the black stone edges of the cave’s mouth.

The remaining garm loped after him. She could see Wynter struggling to rise, unable to do more than push himself to his hands and knees, his head drooping between his shoulder blades. He was badly wounded. There was no chance he could make an escape, much less fight off the two approaching garm bare-handed.

Once the beasts reached him, he would die.

A strange buzzing filled her ears. Khamsin wasn’t conscious of moving. She just did. One moment, she was clinging to the mouth of the cave, the next she was staggering across the ice and shouting to get the garm’s attention.

Her ploy worked. The garm turned her way.

Freezing, blue-white slime dripped from gaping, razor-toothed maws that grinned at her with evil eagerness. The huge bodies began to lope towards her, picking up speed with each step.

Khamsin reached the snowy shore and began to run, leading the monsters away from Wynter.

She raised her arms as she ran, fingertips reaching for the sky, calling upon her gifts with every ounce of power in her, holding nothing back. The storm overhead exploded, clouds boiling out as thick and black as the ash cloud of an erupting volcano. Lightning cracked in a ferocious display. The air around her went violet and half a dozen bolts shot straight towards her.

The lightning speared her, lifting her off her feet in a blinding flash of searing, brilliant white. Her head fell back, her arms flung out. Tongues of flame raced through her veins. Torn flesh knit together. The air left her lungs, and her mind, her consciousness, went with it, riding the lightning into the sky, joining the storm. Becoming part of its wild, raw, power.

Always she’d been afraid of the storm. Always when the storm truly came alive, its strength had overwhelmed her and escaped her control.

But this time, Wynter’s life was in her hands. If she failed, he would die. And this power of hers—this dangerous, destructive, unpredictable power she had cursed and feared all her life—was her only weapon. Her only chance to save him.

She poured everything she had into the winds, into the roiling, crashing clouds. Not trying to control the storm, but trying to set it free. To build its wildness. The air around her went pure violet, glowing, throbbing, dancing across her skin. Energy gathered—both inside her and above, in the black, seething clouds. Her hair lifted in a nimbus of lightning-streaked darkness.

The garm screamed, but she could not hear their paralyzing howl above the shriek of the wind. The gaping mouths spewed matching clouds of blue-white vapor.

The sky lit up brighter than a summer day. The air around her flashed blinding white as three massive ropes of lightning snaked down from the sky in the blink of an eye and speared Khamsin.

Her chest expanded on a fiery breath. Pain ripped through her. But she stood firm, absorbing the energy, channeling it through her body, down her arms, out her fingers.

Her hands shot out, fingers splayed. Lightning shot from her fingertips and leapt across the distance to the garm. Thunder boomed with such force, the ground shook.

The garm, creatures of the remotest, iciest reaches of Wintercraig, didn’t even have time to scream. Fire shot deep into massive chests with devastating results. Their fluids flash-boiled into vapor, and their bodies expanded like inflated bladders. Furred skins split and viscous, blue fluid spewed from ruptured vessels.

She held the lightning, pumping the concentrated heat of the sun into the garm’s bodies until their fur charred and caught fire. She held it, until the beasts were engulfed in flames and the smell of burnt flesh permeated the air. Held it longer still, until the garm’s writhing bodies stopped moving entirely, and their blackened bones turned to ash that disintegrated and blew away on the gusting winds.

Only then did she release the lightning, discharging its remaining power into the earth and draining the volatile storm of energy until the black clouds turned gray and the hailstones mixed with freezing rain became snowflakes tumbling softly from the sky.

Then it was over. The storm dispersed.

Drained of strength, her legs turned to pudding beneath her, and she crumpled to the earth. For a moment, she lay there, dazed and struggling to catch her breath, but the determination that had driven her to call and master the storm now drove her towards Wynter.

She was too weak to stand, so she crawled on her hands and knees. Inch by inch, pushing herself by sheer force of will, she crossed the yards of frozen ground until she reached him.

He lay in a pool of violet-hued ice, still as stone and just as cold. His golden skin looked more like a translucent veil molded over a carved statue than flesh. His brilliant eyes were closed. His chest didn’t appear to be moving.

“Wynter?” She laid her fingers against his throat and panicked when she found no pulse. Her only reassurance that he still lived came when she pressed a desperate ear to his chest and was rewarded with the faint, barely audible sound of his heart slowly beating.

“Wynter, I . . .”

Her voice trailed off, and with it went her last ounce of depleted strength. She collapsed across his chest, and the world went dim.

Her last conscious thought was concern that her storm might threaten them still because she could hear the roll of thunder in the distance. And it was drawing nearer.