Page 117 of Autumn Queens & Shadows

“Attack?” she asked, standing, the blood that had clung to her began trickling down the rest of her body as if it seeped from her own wounds. “I’m not going to attack her, Oryn. This wasn’t an attack. In an attack, people get to at least defend themselves, don’t they?” She looked at all of her people that had hung their heads low. “Don’t they!” she shouted, and then took one deep breath, letting out a shaky one. She gave them all a painted-on smile, all colours of doom and disaster. But even poison could disguise itself as a flower. Everyone braced themselves for what was to come. They could feel it in the chilling air. “Iskyla will understand. Just as she expected me to.”

Then the wind and snow stirred, two massive figures taking shape and an odd icy colour. The frost dragons roared, their clamour making the ground shake and stir awake the peaceful death. It was like the dead had all stopped in their tracks and turned to her attention, waiting. Waiting for more to join them.

She mounted one of the dragons and turned to me. “If anything happens, let Kilian know first, not Snow.”

“You really think I’d let you leave my sight like this?”

Her dragon launched up in the air with no warning.

“Little shit!” I shouted, but she was gone.

Oryn grabbed my arm just as I was about to fade to her. “You’d be giving yourself a death sentence if you fade within the Islines, let alone use your magic.”

“She already gave me that death sentence by getting on that dragon.”

“You could have stopped her.”

“Why? I like her a little crazy.”

“A little crazy?” His eyes were wide. “You’ve not seen what happens when she lets go of that tight control she has on herself. She’s like a daughter to me before she is my queen, I cannot allow her to get hurt. Call your brother. I beg of you.”

“Nothing will touch her.” I said, backing away. “Can’t promise the same for the rest.”

She had been quick. Quicker than I was. It had taken me four times to fade to her through the thick fog of magic that covered the Islines. She stood at the edge of the cliff overlooking the largest Isline village I’d seen. There were too many shadows around her, too many shades in her eyes, too many expressions on her face.

The wind picked up, a gentle layer of snow lifted from the ground and circled around her body to create a white cloak resembling the one she wore as the White Veil. Wolves of frost materialised next, one by one, dozens of them pranced towards the edge and then jumped off the cliff to the village below.

The ground shook as they landed one after the other, and then panicked screams filled the air. Men, women and children ran and hid as her beasts prowled closer and closer, as her dragons of frost filled the skies and poured blistering ice on everything laying below. Every counterattack from their Aura was useless, the moment pieces of ice broke, they mended a second later—indestructible. Thora had tapped into her gates of magic, feeding from them. Except that there was no gate, no bound, no restriction on what she called forth. It was just pouring out of her.

The next minute passed in a flash.

Blood soaked everything in sight. Every new wolf that formed at her command was made of red ice. Not only could the Isline Aura not stop them, but they also couldn’t control them either. No one could control blood. No one but her. Even the white ice—all was tightly tethered to her, only taking orders from her command. Just how I’d taught her ten years ago.

She pushed off the cliff and jumped, the wind making her land softly below. Her creatures of ice halted their movement, and whoever had survived huddled close together, hiding and murmuring prayers to their cold god who had just suddenly left them to the mercy of another much colder god.

“It didn’t have to come to this. But you have all exhausted my kindness,” Thora spoke loudly, pulling her hood back, and even the wind went entirely silent like the men and women below when they realised who she was. “You didn’t like my peace,” she said, picking up a small wooden toy buried in the snow and bending to offer it to a child. “Why?” When he made no move to retrieve it, her fingers twisted by her side.

Suddenly, he stood on controlled steps and took it, his mother screaming when he would not obey a single one of her pleas. Thora threw an arm around his shoulders and pulled him by her side as she directed her attention over the villagers. “You know how many mothers have shed tears and screamed for their children as your people keep stepping where I do not welcome them?” Thora stood, still holding onto the terrified boy. “Where are they? Where are your kings and queens? Where are the ones who sent that order? I want nothing from you as long as you hand them to me.”

No one would answer, no one would even look her in the eye. They weren’t looking at her to disguise and protect someone.

At a twist of her fingers, everyone’s head tipped up, their eyes popping all open. Abandoning the boy, she walked between them, looking at each pair of eyes as she went past.

“Why do you hide?” she asked, putting a finger under a man’s chin. “Cousin? Uncle?”

“You’re no kin of mine.”

“No?” she asked, and the man’s face went beet red until he stopped breathing. Thora pointed to the man and turned to the rest. “Is that who was to protect you from me?”

“You’re like your father,” an older woman spat in old Ysolt.

Thora’s head slowly turned to her, and the woman shot to her feet, eyes wide and screaming as she made her way to her side. She smiled sweetly at the old woman, her green eyes almost shifted in colour, a gleam flickering in them. “Careful what you wish for.”

The woman screamed and cried as she unwillingly walked to a cliff edge and threw herself off it, plunging to her death.

The wind picked up and Thora walked back to the little boy as one by one, the villagers began walking towards the cliff edge. All beside the children.

“Help us,” some cried in my direction.