I whirl, dodging a blow, as the slender figure of Leith appears like a phantom. He holds the stone he’d removed from his crown as it suddenly emits a blast of fire.
The fighting doesn’t stop, but it slows as everyone dodges the flames.
Members of the Rising fall as the patrol take the upper hand.
I beat back a guard and then hasten down the stairs. A blur of black and red stain the snow surrounding the wooden bird.
“Where are the ravens?” Leith demands as I approach.
Soren storms down the stairs past me. “There are no birds.”
He glances from the cage to the sky. “Then I’ll have to settle for one bird, one stone.” Without warning, he thrusts a ball of flaming, red hot magic in my direction, as though projecting its energy to destroy me, but I meet him with my ice magic, holding it out from my chest and concentrating my energy on restoring balance.
Heat radiates from Leith, and my hand chills as I dash toward Soren to envelop him behind my protective shield, but he stands in front of the people.
“Leave them alone,” Soren warns Leith.
“Get them behind the wall of ice,” I shout.
“No more walls,” the people call. “We want our freedom.”
Another flame from Leith licks the boundary of the ice magic formed around me. I send a surge of energy outward, hoping to freeze Leith, to put an end to this violence.
He tries to burn away the ice I created. Simultaneously, he volleys fire as I concentrate on strengthening the protective dome of ice.
“You’re finished,” Leith screams as a wall of fire blisters and melts the ice.
I tap deep into my energy, summoning my intention. I want to protect the people. To free them from tyranny.
“You will burn,” the king hisses, his flames scorching the ice.
“Give me your worst. And I will give you my best,” I roar, countering with all my strength. My ice wall thickens and I call for the people nearest to come close, but they’ve linked arms and form a ring around the king and me as fire and ice do battle.
“We will not surrender. We will not retreat. We unite under the ravens,” they chant. “And if we don’t have our freedom then we’d rather meet our fate.”
“Gladly,” Leith cackles and aims his blaze of fire from the stone at those nearest him in the circle. I thrust the ice energy toward the flame, desperate to intercept it before it lands on the members of the Rising.
I douse the fire with frost and rush forward, desperate for Soren and the people to come behind the wall of ice, but it’s not large enough as Leith continues and expands his assault. The wooden bird we constructed splinters and then erupts into flames.
The smell of burning, much like the ashpit, soon sends some people scattering.
Again, I urge Soren to come behind the protective wall of ice, but his expression turns suddenly, strangely placid. His eyes close. I call to him once more. He opens his mouth, but no sound comes out. He’s frozen, a solid statue, much like Leith was, but I didn’t turn my magic on him. What happened?
Leith advances on me with flames burning in one hand and a knife in the other, trained on Soren. A kraa summons our attention upward.
All at once, there’s a swoop. A glide. The golden raven rushes through the sky. Torsuld, the rightful king breached the boundary and returned to his people.
Soren’s frozen form disappears into the pulsing crowd as shoulders and elbows bump into me, jostling us apart. I struggle to get closer to him, but columns of fire blast from Leith as people throw themselves through the snow and try to flee.
Looking to the raven in the sky, Leith calls, “I’ve waited for this moment for a long time. Your death will have to wait.” He spares one glance at me as I cast frost from my hands, sending out a lateral ring of ice instead of a wall, something to dowse the flames, but Leith steps into them and emerges in the air in the form of a blazing ashen-silver bird.
I’m sent reeling backward and hit the ground hard.
All who remain on the battlefield in front of the castle look up. The snow drops slowly now against the gray clouds as a golden bird and a silver bird clash high above. Their calls are fierce as they engage in an aerial fight with sharp beaks and claws.
They swoop and dive, dip and charge. Silver feathers drift like the snow from the sky and the people cheer. But Leith is not overcome. He dive bombs the golden raven with talons outstretched. The golden raven whirls and rounds on the false king. Their cries fill the sky and the rest of us are silent. They rise and fall, evade and plunge, whip back and lock talons.
If Leith is up there, where is the stone from the crown? I scan the ground. It could be anywhere.
First, I must locate Soren. Amidst the people, I soon find him, an iced-over statue. I study his form beneath the Frosted Oblivion: his expression placid and his eyes mercifully closed to the horror before us. This must be the Frosted Oblivion.
“I will undo this,” I say and breathe a kiss onto his frozen lips.
Chapter 29
Soren
The world is cold and desolate, an empty icescape of death and undoing. I’m alone, searching and stumbling until a kraa rings through the air. The golden raven wheels toward me in the sky. I’m not sure if I’m dead, but blood doesn’t flow in my veins. My heart is frozen, another brick in the wall of no.
The bird alights and becomes a man, a thunderous, mighty mountain of a man, yet he’s
