But how is he here? How?
He reads the question in my eyes. “Your father told you legends. The God Knife didn’t kill the prince when you cut him because it cannot kill with a simple swipe. Though it is a god remnant and dangerous in the wrong hands, the blade I forged is only lethal to living gods because it can penetrate their bones. That’s all.” He presses my hand to his chest where the blade had penetrated to the hilt. “It isn’t lethal to me,” he says, “because a clever sorcerer knows better than to create a weapon that can be used against him. I mark what’s mine. The God Knife knows me. It bears my rune. My name.”
Another kiss, deeper and so intense that I’m gasping when he pulls away.
“Get down!” Helena screams.
The crows turn and swoop, hundreds diving toward us in an unnatural attack. Because they are unnatural. These things are not birds. They’re demons who steal the souls of men.
Just like their maker.
And I’m done with these bastards. All of them.
“Fulmanesh. Fulmanesh, fulmanesh, fulmanesh, fulmanesh, iyuma.”
I form the words with my hands, drawing from the torch fire around us, channeling all my power into lighting these little pricks up like fireflies.
The second the fire forms in my hands, I will it skyward. The crows retreat, but I throw my arms out at my sides, spread my stance, and dig deep into my darkness, making those little deaths flutter with delight.
The prince’s winged demons catch my flame. The sounds that leave them are unholy screeches clawing my bones. Instinctively, I clamp my fingers into fists and squeeze until my fingernails cut into my skin.
The flames flash higher but then extinguish, and the birds collapse in on themselves, darkness into darkness. Ash falls from the sky like raining death.
Alexus stares at me in wonder, his eyes darkening with a look I learned far too well that night in Nephele’s refuge, one of ignited passion.
Victory rushes through me. In the heat of the moment, with confidence and power thrumming in my veins, I turn toward the Prince of the East.
But he isn’t there. Neither is Vexx.
I spin around, scanning the wood, searching.
Vexx is escaping into the forest. I start to chase him, but a surge of hot wind blasts down the path.
Alexus throws his arm up and leans over me, a shield against the heat, and the Witch Walker magick I’d felt so abundantly vanishes, their song falling silent.
Alexus and I straighten, and I turn, as though my mind knows exactly where I need to look to find the man I’d searched for moments before.
My gaze comes to rest on the Prince of the East’s still-scarred face. He stands on the eastern side of the path, twenty feet from the slaughter, near the tent where I saw inside his disgusting soul.
Nephele is with him, on her knees, the God Knife’s black edge laid across the pale column of her throat.
38
Raina
Wherever the prince was before, watching me from beyond, he is not there now. Now, he’s here, like he stepped from one world to another.
From invisible to visible.
Alexus, Rhonin, Colden, and Helena stare with eyes wide—at me, at one another, at the prince, at Nephele. The scene is as quiet as midnight in the vale midwinter, save for the rushing of our breaths.
The last ash from the crows settles over the wood, coloring the white world gray. Cinders crumble to dust in my hair, on my skin, on my clothes, the death scent heavy in my lungs. Damp forest, pungent rot, and burnt feathers.
But there’s more. New scents. New deaths.
The Witch Walkers are gone. The snow where they stood is gone too, replaced by a dark stain of ash that trails along the fringe of the wood then fades.
“Raina Bloodgood,” the prince says. “Did you really think that you could take from me so brazenly and not pay?”
It takes a moment for his meaning to sink in. He isn’t talking about Nephele.
That hot wind. Summerlander magick.
He destroyed the Witch Walkers. Burned them to ash the way I burned his crows.
Colden raises his hatchet. Aims. “You bastard.”
The prince tsks, his hand tightly wound in Nephele’s hair. “Now that would be very foolish, especially for a king.” He trails the tip of the bone blade up the side of my sister’s face to her temple and angles it just right for penetration. “Unless you want this talented witch of yours to make her way to the Shadow World sooner rather than later.”
He means it. His shadows coil around Nephele, binding her hands, closing over her mouth. I’d wondered why he didn’t just ride in on his red cloud and take Colden from Winterhold instead of going to the trouble to sneak an army across the Northlands.
But now I think I know why. The prince must be close to what he wants if he means to take it. It’s why he couldn’t just find me in the wood and steal the knife. His magick is not so simple as sifting across the world and arriving wherever he wishes. Other than watching him move through shadows here in the wood, I’ve only ever seen him vanish. All magick has limitations, and I have to wonder if this is his.
It must be, and that leaves me with the worry that if the prince decides to leave us, he’ll take Nephele with him—and she won’t be able to fight. Not only has he silenced her voice, but he’s somehow subduing her power.
Her witch’s marks are gone.
“What do you want?” I sign in a flurry, too scared to move toward him but knowing I need to maintain some semblance of control over the situation.
Alexus stands beside me, rigid and on guard, every thick muscle in his torso tensing. “She asked, What do you want?”
Smiling like a fiend, the prince answers. “Well, for starters, I want you, Raina Bloodgood. I didn’t at first, but now, as we’ve discussed, you have use. I also want Neri sent back to the Shadow World, but someone made sure that can’t happen. Not easily, anyway.” He gives Alexus a sharp glare. “All because he wanted to save the little witch from Silver Hollow who’s caught his ancient eye. You set a god free for a woman you hardly know.”
Gods and stars. That’s what Neri meant when he said to tell him that he did save me. He wasn’t speaking of Colden. He made a deal with Alexus—his freedom from Alexus’s prison in exchange for my safety.
The prince sets his eyes on Rhonin and Helena. “And oh, how I wanted this God Knife once I knew it existed. And now I have it, no thanks to you two, thief and spy.” He slides his gaze to Colden. “Then there’s the infamous Frost King. A pawn in a game I plan to win. I want you too, though I sense no power inside you anymore. Just useless immortality. What’s the point in living forever if you’re boring? Do you even have skill?”