SCARLETT
The aurora still shimmered overhead when I woke, though the fire had burned to glowing embers. Cold pressed in from every side, the glacier’s breath whispering against my skin. Kael slept upright beside me, arms crossed, flame-dim hair catching the faint green light. Darius lay on his side, breathing slow, a rare peace softening the hard lines of his face. Lucien was awake, of course he always was eyes like pieces of night beneath the aurora.
“You heard it too,” he said quietly.
I pulled my cloak tighter. “The voice.”
“The heart you guard,” he murmured, echoing the warning. “It will demand a sacrifice.”
His words sent a tremor through me. “What heart? Mine? Theirs?”
Lucien’s gaze lingered, unreadable. “Maybe all of them.”
We rose before first light, though the glacier never
