Corien had separated the castings, hidden them individually throughout the fortress, and he hadn’t told her.

The last tattered cords of her control snapped.

She screamed in fury and flung her hands at the shield, calling the empirium to her in an incandescent wave of power. The room exploded into gold, every fleck of dust, every trace of air and moisture illuminated with brilliant light.

Obritsa threw up her arms to shield her eyes.

A high, discordant hum pierced the air—the shield vibrating on the floor. Then, with a loud crack, it shot toward the ceiling, shattered into dust, and was gone. All that remained was a charred spot on the floor and a spiderweb of cracks that spanned from wall to wall. The room quaked violently, the ceiling swaying overhead.

Rielle sagged to the floor, her mind bursting with stars. Her bones and muscles ached, her teeth and the space behind her eyes pulsed with pain—but beneath it was a depraved, wriggling pleasure. There was a delicate tingling in her fingers and toes, a supple energy playing at the ends of her hair and crackling along the soft lines of her skin.

She sensed a light nearby, turned slowly toward it as if moving through water.

“Go, Rielle,” said Obritsa, her voice tight with fear. “Hurry. The tower is falling.”

A loud snap split the air, and the floor gave way beneath Rielle’s feet as she stepped through the ring of light hovering in the air to her left. She felt Obritsa right on her heels and heard the threads snap closed behind them as they fell together into a white world of snow.

The air was so cold it immediately stole Rielle’s breath. She pushed to her feet, gasping, and fumbled to put on her gloves. Beside her, Obritsa adjusted the rucksack on her shoulders.

They stood on a glacier, a low range of gray-and-white mountains behind them. A few hundred yards ahead of them gleamed a black grin of water shot through with icebergs. And in the distance, dark mountains that pierced the clouds.

Rielle’s heart pounded as she watched them. Those mountains marked the Northern Reach, and she had escaped from it. From him.

And as soon as the thought formed, he found her.

Rielle, what have you done? He groped for her, his fingers brushing against her wrist, his voice caressing her neck. His anger tugged at her chest; she was supper, caught in a snare. The shield, Rielle! How could you do this to me? To us?

Rielle cried out, “Again, Obritsa! North!”

The girl obeyed, her wide frightened eyes the only things visible behind her layers of furs.

Rielle went first, Obritsa close on her heels, and as Rielle passed through the ring of light, Corien’s roar of fury struck the back of her neck like a whip.

• • •

They landed in a deep drift of snow.

Rielle choked on it, the fresh white powder up to her chin, and pawed around for Obritsa. She found the girl’s gloved hand, held tight to it, then sent out a burst of power that melted every flake within ten feet of where they stood. Water gushed to the bare black ground in a brief cold torrent.

Gasping and coughing for air, her furs drenched, Obritsa nevertheless did not hesitate. She summoned more threads, each drifting in a cloud of steam as the snow once again closed in fast around them.

A vision settled before Rielle’s eyes: the black fortress at the Northern Reach, a gaping hole at the corner where the tower she had collapsed had once stood.

She blinked, and then Corien was beside her, cloaked in black and gray furs. He had left his face bare, and in the relentless snow, his pale-eyed beauty was even more startling.

“What is the point of this, Rielle?” he asked her. “What are you hoping to achieve?”

Though he was not truly there, he was real enough in her mind, and Rielle swayed toward the promise of warmth in his arms.

But then she turned away from him, remembering the cruciata corpse hanging from the ceiling, the stolen Kirvayan children crammed into cages, the crawlers howling in their pit.

“You lied to me,” she told him. “You never told me what you had been doing, what atrocities you have made real. I may be a monster, but I am not so monstrous that I can permit the abuse of children and godsbeasts.”

Corien laughed gently. “You’re confused, darling. You’re tired. I understand. Come home to me. Come home and rest.” His voice slipped down the curve of her back. “Remember how good I made you feel, how you came apart again and again under my hands? Remember the power of that, the rightness of it? You belong here. You belong in my arms, Rielle.”

Teeth chattering in the cold, Rielle shouted at Obritsa, “Faster, please!”

“Our throne awaits us,” Corien said urgently. “If monstrous acts are required to achieve that, then so be it. It was a monstrous act that was done to me and my people. All great work must start somewhere, and what our future holds will be glorious enough to burn away any memory of the grotesque and cruel. You want this more than anything. I can feel it. I know you, Rielle.”

Obritsa looked back over her shoulder. “It’s ready!”

Rielle hurried toward the ring of light shining above the snow.

“You’re lying to yourself!” Corien roared. “Without me, what will be left of you? You’ll be alone! You’ll never find—”

Rielle stepped through the threads, and his voice disappeared.

• • •

They landed on a steep icy slope. Rielle immediately skidded, then caught herself on a nearby rock.

But Obritsa could not find her footing and slid past Rielle with a sharp cry of fear.

Rielle reached out and stopped her, freezing Obritsa in a net of power that held her sprawled motionless in the snow.

As Rielle felt herself begin to slip, her grip on the rock failing, inspiration bloomed. She touched the empirium and sent a gentle wave of power rushing out over their little stretch of mountain. Snow and ice became mounds of downy grass dotted with wildflowers, and the air turned balmy and sweet.

She collapsed into a cool patch of clover, breathing in the smell of green.

Corien’s voice came quietly. I’m ashamed of how I spoke to you. I was afraid when I realized you’d left me. I’m sorry. I was cruel, and I lied to you. Rielle, you’ll never be alone. His voice held stifled tears. And I’ll never stop loving you. I’ll never abandon you or flee from you or flinch away in fear. Queen of my heart, I was made for this. I was brought into this world to love you.

Obritsa crawled through the grass to Rielle’s side, helped her sit up. She had summoned more threads, a ring of them humming cheerfully at Rielle’s toes.

“It’s time,” said Obritsa, panting. “Come. It’s fading fast.”