Page 75 of Ties of Frost

“Not on your Order insignia, girl.”

“Do you know how to fight?” I asked tentatively.

Rouven harrumphed. “Of course I do. And I’m tired of hiding. They want to end this, let’s end it.”

“We aren’t responsible for—” Kyrundar started, but the older ice elf waved dismissively.

“Kyrmaris!” Sajen roared. “Get out here!”

I lifted an eyebrow, but the moniker didn’t bother methe way it used to. We raced outside, Rouven on our heels.

Sajen, in his gryphon di’yar, paced along the pebbly beach in front of the cabin. Several paces away, another, larger gryphoni landed, and two figures slid off its back.

One was a human man wearing light-gray robes that made his fair skin look colorless beneath his sandy-blond hair. He carried a staff and looked over our group with haughty indifference.

But the other man captured my attention. Dressed in a close-fitting tunic and loose trousers, fingerless gloves, and tall boots, all in dark blue, and with two long daggers strapped to his hips, he appeared the quintessential picture of an assassin. He was tall and slender, with pale-gray skin, silver eyes, and silvery hair braided back from his face to reveal the long points of his ears.

Night elf.

“Come to try again after your last failure?” I gripped the hilt of my sword.

Truthfully, assassins had no honor, and Sajen and the other gryphoni had already shifted. I had no obligation to meet these men in battle in my di’ora. But it still felt wrong to do otherwise. I would do the honorable thing and face them in my true form before I unleashed my di’yar.

“Thank you for leading us to Rouven,” the human said with a lifeless smile. “I didn’t like having someone who knew my face and name but refused to join our glorious endeavor running loose in the world.”

“Go to the void, Dandrio Kane.” Rouven sniffed, as if even speaking to the man were below him.

“That’sArchonKane to you.”

“To me?” Rouven sputtered. “I’m no member of your infernal League, and you’re an affront to Iskyr. You’re not an archon any more than I’m a monk.”

“Enough of this.” Kane raised his hands, and globes of fire burst into existence above his palms. “Time for all of you to die.”

Metal scraped against hard leather as the night elf drew his long daggers and Kyrundar drew his twin swords. The shadows cast by the cliff above Rouven’s cottage grew, expanding and darkening as if reaching out to swallow us. I drew my own sword and slid my feet into a ready position.

With an earsplitting cry, the enemy shifter lunged. Sajen released an eagle screech and bounded forward. Standing on their back legs with their massive wings spread wide, the two gryphoni crashed into each other.

Kane threw a fireball at my head. I dodged, and the ball of flame crashed into the pebbled beach. Kyrundar was already moving forward to attack the night elf, who had wrapped himself in shadows that would make him harder to strike. Leaving my companions to their matches, I yelled a battle cry and rushed Kane.

A barrage of sharp icicles flew around me and hurtled toward Kane. I missed my next step as I glanced over my shoulder. But it wasn’t Kyrundar—it was Rouven, who had an expression on his face that made him look like a being of wrath incarnate.

Streams of fire melted the icicles before they reached Kane, but I darted around the flames and swung my sword.Kane cursed and leaped back. The tip of my sword scored a line in his gray robes but didn’t go deep enough to draw blood. I snarled and vowed that my next strike would not miss.

But as Rouven started up a barrage of ice from the right, Kane raised an impenetrable wall of flame around himself. I paced, watching for a weakness. Such use of magic would be exhausting; he wouldn’t be able to keep it up for long.

I looked toward the rest of the battle. Both Sajen and the other gryphoni had taken to the air, cartwheeling as they clawed and slashed at each other. I spied blood on both, but it was unclear who was actually wounded in the frantic chaos of feathers and fur. Threads of glowing blue ice magic tangled with vines of darkness in the shadows beneath the cliff next to the cabin, the only indication of where Kyrundar and the night elf fought.

I began to sweat from the heat of Kane’s cyclone of fire. Even Rouven’s astonishing barrage of ice and snow wasn’t making it through.

I had done the honorable thing and engaged a non-shifter foe in my di’ora. I owed them nothing more. I moved to a position where I had sufficient room.

The time for holding back was past.

“Rouven!” I shouted over the screeches of the gryphoni and the low roar of Kane’s magecraft fire. “Hold a moment!”

The old ice elf curled his upper lip, but he lowered his hands, and his relentless stream of ice magic ceased.

A moment later, Kane dropped his wall of fire. He sneered. “Ready to give up already, rengir?”

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