‘Wilt?’
Her breath steamed ahead of her, and the muscles in her arms shrieked with pain as the ice swallowed her blades entirely and reached her skin.
She knew before it formed in front of her what she now faced. What would end her.
The wraith reached its shifting hand into her chest and grasped the beating life within, pulling her down into the ice below.
The boy who had been Frankle sat perfectly still on his stone throne, watching his forces fall. The girl and the cat cut through them like a whirlwind—gloomclaws, wolves, Incarnate. It didn’t seem to make any difference. Each piece he sent to face them was toppled and moved past, the two of them getting ever closer to him.
He felt a twist of nausea rise in his stomach, a spasm he had to close his eyes to focus on and resist, thrust
