Page 66 of How to Claim A Shadow King

The way it made me feel.

I exhale slowly.

A hot tingle sparks at the base of my neck, rushing down my arm. When I open my eyes, a brilliant, steady sphere of orange-gold light hovers above my open palm. The glow gilds the white petals, the frost melting away into tiny, shimmering droplets of water under the heat.

I did that.

“I did it,” I say on a breath, almost too afraid to move. I don’t want it to pop; I’m not ready to let it go.

"Excellent," Ter squawks, flapping his wings once. Sandwich shakes his head in protest, and Ter hops down to the horse’s shoulders. "Now, hold the shape. Expand it."

I focus on the warmth, pushing the heat further, trying to make it. For a second, the gold light expands.

I suck in a breath, watching it with awe, wondering what my mother would think of me now.

She’d think I was making this up. She’d say it wasn’t ladylike.

The light flickers wildly, spitting jagged orange sparks into the grass before dying out completely with a pathetic hiss.

"You're overthinking again," Ter scolds, clicking his beak. "You cannot hold the power if your mind is jumping around.”

"It's difficult to concentrate when my entire life has been upended!" I snap, my palms stinging as the leftover energy dissipates.

It’s not untrue, but it’s also not… a bad thing.

Was I happy in Stormspire?

Before Ter can launch into another critique, before I can puzzle my way through my own question, everything changes.

Sandwich lets out a low, terrified whinny, his nostrils flaring as he violently stamps his front hooves, backing away from the trellises so fast his lead pulls taut in my hand.

The cheerful sunshine vanishes.

A sudden, suffocating darkness that has absolutely nothing to do with Malakai’s velvet shadows swallows the world around us.

The temperature plummets, and my breath plumes into a white cloud in front of my face.

Beside me, the pale white roses violently wither, turning pitch black before rotting into dust. The glossy green leaves wilt, covered in a layer of purple frost that smells wrong.

"Aveline," Ter whispers. "Get behind the horse. Now."

The air in front of us warps, rippling before tearing open.

A sickly violet light pours from the fissure.

I draw my cloak around myself, trying to move but frozen to the spot.

From the center of the crack, a figure steps onto the grounds.

My stomach twists with fear, and heat begins to crackle down my spine.

Devastatingly beautiful, the woman stares at me, imperious. There’s no joy in her features, rather, she seems carved from ice by someone who knew what beauty was but left out the warmth of it.

Lilac skin sets off liquid silver hair that floats around her shoulders. A crown of black ice sparkles on her brow, and her eyes are a solid, terrifying violet—completely devoid of pupils, pulsing with a wild, untamed magic that makes the hairs on my arms stand straight up.

I know who she is instinctively, though the crown and pointed ears would be a dead giveaway had I not.

The Unseelie Queen tilts her head, her gaze sliding past Ter, past the trembling horse, until her freezing, violet eyes lock directly onto mine.