Page 111 of Frost Like Night
The Autumnian, Summerian, and Yakimian armies ran alongside her, the impact from their steps vibrating up her legs. But nothing penetrated her fog of concentration, the bumps sprouting along her arms the only thing telling her that her army shouted a war cry. True war cries didn’t need to be heard—they were felt.
It had been too much to hope that Raelyn would surgeforward along with her soldiers—instead, she hung back at the rear. She’d make Ceridwen fight her way through until, by the time they met, she would be tired and bloodied while Raelyn remained poised and whole. And were this a normal fight, Raelyn would need such an advantage. But Ceridwen had seen the power Raelyn wielded now, how she had snapped Simon’s neck with a flick of her wrist.
It was Ceridwen who would need any advantage she could get.
Lekan’s shoulder jostled into Ceridwen’s moments before they collided with the Ventrallan army. A wordless signal, one they had shared dozens of times—a swipe of his hand on her arm before an attack, a bump of her fist to his back before a rescue.
I’m here. I’m with you.
Ceridwen was never more grateful to have him by her side.
They fell into a routine as they always did, as if this wasn’t a war, but rather one of their many missions to free Summerian slaves. Her left shoulder angled to his right, pivoted to create a deadly barrier with him slashing one side, her the other. When he ducked, she knew to duck too; when she deflected an enemy to take on another, the soldier stumbled into Lekan’s blades. Against a dozen or so slavers, such maneuvers brought them quick victory—but never had they been forced to use it in a battle, where each soldier they felled was replaced by two more.
Nor had they ever used it on soldiers possessed by a deadly magic—not nearly as strong as Raelyn’s grasp of it, but each enemy they met moved faster than they should, weapons puncturing the air in rapid blows that Ceridwen could barely see. Only her fighter’s instincts kept her alive—she had no time to plan any attack.
These soldiers are using Angra’s Decay.
But only Angra himself could spread the Decay. He was the source, as Meira had said. Until he showed up here, no one fighting against him needed to fear becoming like the soldiers they encountered, attacking as if they personally loathed each enemy they came upon.
One pause, a break in the wave of Ventrallan soldiers, and Ceridwen gasped icy air. They were in Winter now, snow matted and brown beneath the chaos, and the frigid air clung to Ceridwen’s skin, making her nauseous with the discomfort. But these were prices she would willingly pay—for when she took stock of the area, she spotted Raelyn only four soldiers away.
Ceridwen met Lekan’s eyes. He nodded and dove for the men, who advanced on him with howls of warning. He dropped the first two, ducked under the third, and impaled the fourth as Ceridwen dispatched the one he had avoided.
Raelyn watched this happen without moving. There was no weapon in her hands; she didn’t even wear armor, just a simple black riding outfit and a small black mask, as if she had wandered into this battle while out on a leisurely gallopthrough Winter’s ivory forest.
Lekan slid to his knees from the momentum of gutting the final soldier. He stabbed his blades into the frozen earth to free his hands so he could interlace his fingers into a solid cup against the snow.
Ceridwen backed up, then took off at a sprint. She landed one of her feet in the cradle Lekan made and he lifted, jolting her into the air. Her bloodied knives glinted as she reared, body arching to send her soaring toward Raelyn, high atop her horse.
For the smallest flash, Raelyn’s eyes widened behind her mask. She shot her arm out and an invisible force smacked into Ceridwen, spinning her body to the side, her knives dipping just shy of plunging into the Ventrallan queen’s chest. Ceridwen slammed into Raelyn, knocking both of them so they landed with a heavy thud on the trampled snow.
Ceridwen lost her grip on her knives, her fingers going numb in the snow’s chill. She scrambled to her feet, shuddering from head to toe, holding her breath against the aching shivers that hammered her from the inside out.
Raelyn shot upright as well, the half skirt of her riding outfit swirling around her tight black pants. Her mask did little to hide her furious glare.
“I had no idea you were so anxious to follow in your brother’s path,” Raelyn snapped.
Ceridwen said nothing, partly because she had to grindher jaw to keep from shaking to pieces, and partly because she hadn’t expected to end up like this, facing Raelyn. The power the Ventrallan queen wielded was too much for her to take in this kind of confrontation—stabbing her quickly had been Ceridwen’s only plan.
Now Raelyn would kill her.
Ceridwen darted her eyes around. The Ventrallan soldiers nearby gave them wide berth. Lekan had been drawn away, fighting alongside a group of Winterians who stood back to back, a knot of weapons that, even so, would soon be overwhelmed by the sheer number of Raelyn’s troops. The only thing that Ceridwen and Lekan had had on their side was speed—and now that their momentum had been broken, reality set in.
They didn’t have enough numbers to fight this battle. Especially when every attacking soldier could move so quickly. As Ceridwen watched, one of the Winterians in Lekan’s group took a sword to the chest, causing another to cry out before Lekan corralled both of them into the middle of their circle, protected as much as they could be on a battlefield.
“Is my husband here?” Raelyn’s voice scratched at Ceridwen.
“Yourhusband?” Ceridwen smiled. If she would die, flame and heat and burn it all, she’d die with a wicked grin on her face. “I’m fairly certain it wasn’t your name he called out on our wedding night a few days back.”
Raelyn snarled and punched the air, lurching Ceridwen back beneath a force that rammed into her chest, emptying her lungs of breath. She went down in the snow, wheezing as she rolled onto her side in time to see Raelyn stomp forward, punching the air again. Ceridwen’s head crashed back into the ground, her limbs straightened, every muscle pinned as Raelyn stopped over her, one leg on either side of Ceridwen’s chest.
“Dear girl, youreallydon’t want to start sharing stories like that.” Raelyn crouched down, her smile sickly sweet. “You’re the one who truly cares, not me. You care so much, about so many things. Like your brother—shall I tell you what it felt like to kill him?”
Ceridwen jerked against the magic that held her, but nothing relented, and Raelyn leaned closer, stroking her finger across Ceridwen’s cheek.
“It felt delicious,” Raelyn purred. “To have the power to end a life with your own hands—” Her grip tightened, nails sinking into Ceridwen’s face. “You can’t imagine.”
Raelyn pushed herself upright, standing directly over her again, and curled her hand into a fist. Raelyn’s magic left Ceridwen’s head free, so she turned to look at the battle around her, the last fleeting moments she would get to see the fate of her friends. Lekan and the Winterians had retreated beneath the swelling flood of Ventrallans. Which left her with Raelyn, alone, separated from any of her allies by lines of deadly soldiers.
