Page 174 of Veil of Blood and Bone

Ipush away from the sill and the lingering scent of the two argr who refused to wait for me, anger burning across my ribcage.

Faster. You’ll never make it in time.

I have to trust we’re heading in the same direction. The right one. Trust we’ll reach the jötun before it crushes Helene.

Thunder rolls, the land stretching endlessly beneath me, contorting the longer I stare at it.

Woods spread, the blizzard pushing its poison out and separating this world from the rest.

Odd magic dampens the breeze. It permeates everything, warping the thread of connection between us. I urge the raven’s body faster but the trail I followed minutes prior is already lost.

Helene’s scent disappears.

There’s no telling what you’ll find when you arrive. What will you do if you are too late? The insidious voice is louder now than my own. And still too muddled by panic to be distinguishable.

Pain spikes through my skull with more force than Thor’s hammer.

Leave her. Save yourself. It will be the smartest choice you’ve ever made.

I push harder, wings beating and muscles straining. Below me, the freeze cracks old trunks in two. The ground shakes with each new fall.

Where is the jötun?

His scent is everywhere. Impossible to separate and discern. Another burst of power sends me closer to the road, and the crackling of ice is too heavy for the land to support.

There.

Something silver winks in the whiteout.

The car is lost to the snow. Only the rough edge of the trunk pokes out from a pyramid of crystalline hail, the trees depositing their flakes with a vengeance.

An unnatural wind eddies me in the opposite direction, the twists of fate keeping me from the automobile.

I squint and double down, with wings flapping monochrome black against the white. There. A change of direction brings a glimpse of metal.

Not only do I sense the car, but the women trapped inside. The scent of blood and human panic. A sharp yell tears through my senses.

The frost giant approaches.

Nasty, noxious things. They take delight in causing pain in others. Not only physically but emotionally, mentally. It’s the same kind of psychological warfare that makes Wren’s kinfolk so profound at the games they play.

Frost giants aren’t concerned with immediate gain. And right now, he’s toying with the girls. A slow stalk, an approach they see coming and know they can’t escape.

There is nowhere to run.

Do something! I scream the words into the void like she’ll hear them.

Magic lifts inside of me and gives me a push forward. Even the propulsion isn’t enough to make headway, though. Muscles tense and go sluggish, but the wind is stronger.

It howls, rages. Pushes me back as many feet as I steal.

Then the creature is there. It bends to the window, looming, the ice giant larger than ten wolves standing on each other's shoulders. The glimpse of his true form is gone, only a small part of him, a sliver, slipped through into this world. My mind disconnects the two images the moment my head starts to hurt. The giant able to crush entire villages is not the same creature we see on this side of the veil.

I drop to get under the gust, but it throws me off course. Rather than fight it, I let it take me closer to the trees.

I have to get to her.

Helene has managed to fend off two trolls. Giants are different. Smarter. Brutal.