A rumbling like thunder drew my attention away from the queen before I could respond, and Zonsara pranced in place. One of the enormous earth-men was lumbering toward me, his face as craggy and featureless as a mountain.
“A golem,” the queen said grimly. “Two of the earth elementals summoned them early on. My ability is no good against them—they have no mind to control. You’ll have to try ice.” And then she was gone, racing back toward the battle and the king.
The golem picked up speed.
My mind raced, trying to decide what to do. I scanned the field. No one was close enough to be in the path of the cold fire should I release it, but still, I was hesitant. I thought of the battle with the Drevlian captain, and I tried to think of how best to attack this golem. But then I remembered what Queen Ciara had said: that it was better not to think when using my power. With my heart hammering painfully in my chest, I forced my eyes closed.
Icy fingers of wind caressed my cheek, waiting to be unleashed. I could feel the power in the air, a storm ready to destroy all in its path. It asked, and I loosened my hold. Like a geyser, the power poured out of me.
The cold wind was the first to be set free. It churned and strengthened in magnitude until Zonsara’s mane blew back in my face as she hunched against its power. It pushed ahead of me until even the golem’s progress was slowed.
Many of the men engaged in battle stopped to gaze around themselves as the wind knocked their blows off course and rendered even the giant boulders useless. Everything was swept away by the gusts, taking them far out to the forest beyond.
The winter storm within me asked for more, and I gave it. The temperature dropped violently, cold enough for even me to feel it. I sent it toward the golem, and it hit the creature with a blast of icy air and snow and ice. It took another step forward, but then it froze before my eyes. It crashed to the ground and shattered into pieces of frozen earth and rocks.
As though I’d shouted my arrival to everyone on the field, it drew their attention.
The winter storm continued to churn.
Over the heads of those locked in battle, I could see the prince’s blazing fire. He was racing toward me, and with a shot of horror, I realized he meant to do as we’d discussed before: to use his power to stop my own.
The earth elementals on the outskirts of the battlefield refocused their attention on me, sending everything in their power toward me. Boulders were picked up again and hurled in my direction, but the cold fire reduced them easily to rubble. Golems were sent lumbering toward me, only to be frozen and smashed to pieces.
The storm became like cold fire, blue flames spreading across the earth. It burned a path before me, freezing the ground and boulders and golems and anyone else in its path. A flash of the aftermath of the destruction of my village went through my mind, and I clenched my teeth.
The prince was shouting something as he ran, and his men came to attention, turning their heads toward him before finally running to the other side of the field—out of the path of my power.
Still, some of them weren’t fast enough. The cold fire passed over them, freezing them so powerfully they shattered. I whimpered.
And then the prince made it to the middle of the field, his flames burning powerfully, spreading outward in an arc all around him. They continued to grow, until he looked like an avenging angel with fiery wings outstretched. His men were behind the wall of fire, and I finally understood what he meant to do: he was shielding them from my wintery power with his flames.
The swirling blizzard finally reached him, and my heart was in my throat as I watched it crash against the fire. Thick steam rose in the air, the hiss so loud I could hear it from my vantage high on the hill.
I urged Zonsara on, and she shot forward, racing down the hill. We stopped just at the edge of battle, where the ground was littered with the broken, frozen bodies of the enemies. The steam dissipated just enough for me to see the prince. He was uninjured, the fire around him still blazing brightly.
I flung myself from Zonsara—I didn’t want to ride her over the carnage of the fallen enemies—and ran toward the prince.
He met me in the middle, dousing his fire like snuffing a lamp. And when I was close enough, he pulled me to him, pressing me against the heat of his body. His hands plunged into my hair—hot as brands, but they felt so good against the permanent frost of my own body—and he kissed me like we’d been parted for years instead of days.
“I cannot tell you how happy I am to see you—even in the midst of a battle,” he said with a shuddery sort of relief. He glanced up at the snowstorm churning above us. “And you brought winter with you.”
“I thought I’d try my hand at being a warrior,” I tried to say flippantly, but ended up choking on the last word. “I killed some of your men—I couldn’t stop the cold fire, and you saved the rest, but—”
The prince looked confused at first, and I was horrified to think maybe he didn’t know, maybe he hadn’t seen what I’d done, but then as his gaze scanned the battlefield, he returned his attention to me. “Katya, you didn’t kill any of my men. You saved them.”
“But, I thought . . .” I trailed off as I looked around me. How could I have even known which men were on whose side? And then I realized it hadn’t really been the prince’s men I’d seen at all, but instead, the men and women from my own village. It was like reliving a memory, only this time, I got to wake up and find out it was only a nightmare. Relief hit me so powerfully, I closed my eyes—despite the sounds of battle around us.
“They’re all alive—the ones who hadn’t already fallen,” he added with a heavy weight of regret clear in his tone. “But where is Kharan? Were you able to heal her?”
“Alive and well,” I said with relief. “She shadow melded shortly after we arrived.”
He nodded approvingly. “I never doubted you’d be able to help her.”
I returned my attention to the battle. We might have defeated the enemies here, outside the city, but the most powerful ones were inside. Behind brambles as thick as trees. I turned to look at them now, and they were more wicked up close than they’d been at a distance, the thorns as long as swords, with terribly pointed ends, and the vine itself as thick around as an oak.
“The queen said you need my help with the brambles. The princes are inside?”
He turned his attention to the brambles. “Perhaps ice will be more effective. Even the power of my flames did nothing but produce a terrible black smoke without hurting the plant.”
I thought of the way my wintery power could eat through half a village and shatter entire izby. “I can get you into the city.”
“Good. And then I want you to stay here.”
I recoiled. “Stay here? While the others risk themselves? While you risk yourself?”
He looked as unperturbed as usual, except he was saying something drastically different. “I don’t want to risk the life of the woman I love—even for the sake of my city.”
He was trying to distract me with declarations of love, and even though my heart pounded to hear such a thing, I couldn’t let it affect me—not yet. But I also knew the prince well enough to know I shouldn’t bother arguing.
I should just go ahead and do what I wanted to do—how could he even stop me?
“I’ll take care of the brambles,” I said, and I raced away before he could say anything else.
He called my name, but I tapped into the winter power within me again, fueling the storm until the wind howled around us, snatching away every word.
Chapter Twenty-Five
THE BRAMBLES ROSE ABOVE ME, SHARP and malevolent looking. They were like what man’s idea of nature should be: wicked and cruel as an evil heart. They had grown so thick and intertwined with each other that the gates of the city were no longer visible. The city looked like it had been made from brambles instead of stone.
I thought of the princes inside, both of whom were powerful elementals themselves, and a desperation for this to final
ly be over caught me by the throat.
I closed my eyes and felt for that welling of power again. The wind turned so cold it left a layer of frost over my skin, and I urged it to go colder still.
Burn, I thought.
Cold poured from the palms of my hands, a wind visible to the naked eye, blue tinged and silvery white. It bit into the brambles in front of me, turning them to ice. But as the first layer of thorns froze, the ones behind them grew thicker.
Suddenly, the unfrozen brambles lashed out, snatching at me like the vines had done to Sasha when we’d first battled the elementals in the woods. The wickedly sharp thorns would have pierced me through if it wasn’t for the ice of my skin, but still I screamed in surprise.
Suddenly, I was certain I would fail. I thought of all the times in my village when I had been seen as next to useless, where the cold coating my skin was a source of amusement. Was this another instance of my ineptitude? The others were counting on me to break through these brambles and free the city, but all I’d succeeded in doing was getting myself caught.
Elation cried out above me, helpless to lend his aid.
Despite the fear of being crushed, I closed my eyes and tapped into that seemingly endless well of power within me.
And then the prince was there in a blaze of fire and light. He swung his sword at the brambles that held me prisoner, and they shattered where they’d come into contact with the cold fire still pouring from my palms. I crashed to the ground, and he pulled me to my feet.
My very first thought was not relief or even gratitude, but that I could have saved myself. I needed to save myself.
“Are you hurt?” he demanded.
“No.”
“Then let’s work together to break through these.”
I nodded.
The cold fire poured from my palms as the prince shattered the brambles with his fiery sword until we finally made it to the gate. The winter storm still churned above me, and I found that if I channeled some of my power into the storm instead of the cold fire, I could at least stop freezing everything around me. But I knew that eventually I would have to find a way to cut the flow of power.
I’d worry about that later. After the princes were defeated.
I stood aside while the prince’s men—Ivan, Boris, and others I recognized but didn’t have the names for—came to open the gate. It wasn’t meant to be opened from this side, though, so I wondered if they would break through somehow. But then Boris raised his hands, and with a push from his powerful arms, the heavy door came crashing down.
The prince’s men entered first, but we were fast on their heels. Elation flew above us, and I wished for his gift of sight.
When we saw what waited for us inside the city, though, we came to a halt. There was no one around. No voices, no movement, no animals. No sign of life. And then we saw why: around each house, the door had been barred shut with the same brambles that had a death grip on the outer walls of the city. These were smaller, to be sure, but still formidable enough that the people were effectively trapped inside their homes.
The prince’s fire blazed brighter, and through the flickering flames, I could just make out the tension in his jaw.
“We will save them, Gosudar,” Ivan said, his own expression carved from stone, “but not yet. The princes have to be our priority. Defeat them, and we will win.”
It was sage advice, but for a moment, it seemed the prince might let his fire consume him. It blazed higher, spread wider, until his men were forced to step back. Finally, the prince nodded. “We’ll find them at the palace.”
We raced on ahead, through the eerily silent city, and as I took stock of the men following the prince, I realized Kharan was still missing. She must have remained shadow melded and was even now making her way to the palace. There was a desperation in the air, a need for Sasha to confront the princes and retake the city.
Before we could cross the river, a contingent of enemy soldiers came pouring over the bridge, but when Sasha moved to intercept them, Ivan held him back. “We can’t afford any more delays,” Ivan said. “Let the militia fight them.”
Reluctantly, Sasha nodded as a wave of men behind us came to meet the new threat.
We went forward with only his bogatyri. We crossed the river—over the bridge this time as it was no longer frozen—and then the palace loomed ahead. It was strangely devoid of the brambles that plagued the city, as if the princes wanted us to come face them unimpeded. It made my blood run cold, for I knew it was a sign that what they had in store for us was worse than thorns.
Once we reached the courtyard of the palace, the prince came to a stop, and Elation flew to the highest turret, watching from his lofty perch. At the top of the steps waited two men, dressed in beautiful winter coats: one golden and trimmed in fox fur, the other black and trimmed in what looked like bear fur. They resembled the animals whose fur they wore, one with tawny hair and sharp, clever features, the other with dark hair, wide features, and a hulking figure made worse by the bulky coat. Other men accompanied them, guardsmen it seemed, with swords in their hands as they watched us warily. And another familiar man who made my heart sink when I saw him.
Grigory.
“Hello, Prince Alexander,” said the prince with hair like a lion’s mane. “We wondered if you’d make it this far.”
I wanted to reach out to Sasha, to at least see how he was responding to coming face-to-face with not only his enemies but Grigory’s treachery, too, but the fire around him was like a shield. It obscured his face in flames.
The other prince stood with arms crossed over his chest, dark and shadowy as the other one was fair and golden. Warily I looked around for the elemental who could have created the brambles, but all I saw were ordinarily dressed guardsmen. The elementals we’d defeated on the battlefield all wore coats with green-and-gold embroidery that had seemed to designate their status as earth wielders.
“Mikhail, Stanislav,” Sasha said with a tone of derision, “I’ve come to retake my city.”
“You’re welcome to try,” said the fair one, the one Sasha had called Mikhail, “but we’ll kill you as easily as we killed your parents, even with that weak little campfire you surrounded yourself with.”
Sasha’s flames burned brighter, and I tensed, expecting sudden violence. Instead, a dark laugh escaped him. “I doubt it. Unlike them, I am not asleep.”
Mikhail’s expression seemed to lose some of its arrogance, but he shrugged. “Then we will kill you fully awake.”
Mikhail made a signal to his bogatyri, and as they rushed toward us—including Grigory—vines erupted from beneath our feet in every direction. They weren’t as thick or impossibly dense as the brambles on the outside had been, but they were growing larger as we watched. Before any of us could respond, Sasha’s flames burgeoned in a blinding flash of light. They spread from vine to vine, rendering them to black ash instantly. Many of the guardsmen wore expressions of dawning fear, like they hadn’t truly realized what the fire surrounding the prince could do until they saw it turn the vines to dust.
Still, they’d been commanded to attack, so they bravely continued, and I forced myself to watch as they, too, were decimated by Sasha’s fire as easily as the vines had been. I watched because I knew the princes were far more powerful than the guardsmen, and that they sacrificed them like mindless pawns. I let this knowledge fuel the power growing within me, and snow began to fall as the wind picked up. The princes on the steps looked unintimidated—Mikhail perhaps slightly more irritated—but Stanislav hadn’t moved or said a word.
“Impressive,” Mikhail said in a condescending tone, “but now it’s our turn.”
I tried to brace myself, but how could I? I had no idea what they could do.
Mikhail leaped from the top of the steps. He landed with a boom that echoed through the courtyard, so hard that it left a circular indentation in the hard ground. Sasha ran toward him, fire blazing, but it wasn’t fast enough. Mikhail jumped back, and with hand rais
ed, he summoned the circle of earth to lift. It was a wheel as wide as three men. He sent it flying in a blur toward Sasha, who tried to slow its impact with a burst of flames but ended up having to dodge. The wheel of hard-packed earth and rock crashed into many of his men, killing them instantly.
By the time we had registered what happened to the men, Mikhail was already moving again. From a different part of the ground, he summoned another wheel of earth and sent it flying toward Sasha.
I pushed away all thoughts of doubt and offensive or defensive tactics and just responded. The power within me lashed out with a sudden burst of cold wind that both blew the massive wheel off course and froze it, so when it finally landed, it shattered harmlessly.
I felt a gaze on me, heavy and malevolent, and I looked up to find Stanislav had moved while our focus had been on Mikhail. Now he watched me appraisingly. He brought his hands together in front of his chest, and as he did, the earth shook beneath us.
Elation, I thought desperately, sending an image of what I needed from him: to fly toward the people and knock them away from the cracks developing on the ground.
With a cry, he came, his wings tucked close to his sides as he dove in a dizzying fall. He pulled up at the last second and flew like an arrow through the midst of men, forcing them to jump aside just before the ground split open.
It was a yawning chasm, worse even then the one the Drevlian captain had created. Deep and dark and endless. It separated us—Sasha and Ivan and Grigory on one side; the guardsmen, Boris, and me on the other side.
Mikhail continued his barrage of earth and rocks, while Boris did his best to keep them from slamming into any of us.
And then Sasha faced off with Mikhail, struggling to get close enough to destroy him with fire. Every time the flames blazed, hot enough for me to feel them across the chasm, Mikhail was still able to summon a wall of stone and earth strong enough to deflect the powerful fire.
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