REBORN

  DAUGHTER OF ICE AND MOONLIGHT

  BOOK THREE

  KATERINA MARTINEZ

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  A Final Word

  Also by Katerina Martinez

  About the Author

  Copyright

  CHAPTER ONE

  I had thirteen days to right a great wrong… and I had no idea where to start. For the longest time, I had yearned to return to Arcadia. I had wanted so badly to be given a chance to fix the damage I had caused to this world and its people. Now that I was here, witnessing for the first time the true extent of that damage, I found myself entirely lost.

  The forest of the Moon Children was gone, hacked apart and cut down. Windhelm, instead of a beacon of light and hope, was a darkened void that sucked the light out of the very landscape around it. How much time had passed in Arcadia since the last time I was here? Months? Years? It seemed unlikely that it had been years, but who knew how my actions had disrupted the flow of time?

  I was sick to my stomach.

  I felt Valerian’s hand rest on my shoulder, and my instinct was to sob… but I held my tears. Crying wasn’t going to fix anything. It certainly wasn’t going to make me feel better, either. I turned my eyes up at him, but he wasn’t looking at me; he was scanning the horizon, his eyes narrow, his gaze sharp and true.

  Then he said something I wasn’t expecting to hear.

  “We are not alone.”

  I frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “Stand up, but keep your voice low, and don’t make any sudden movements.”

  We were standing at the top of a hill, overlooking what was left of the forest and Windhelm far off in the distance. The macabre sight had been too much for me, and I had fallen to my knees. I got up now, slowly, using his hand for support.

  “What is it?” I dared to ask.

  “A Souldirge,” Valerian said, keeping his voice low. “It hasn’t made itself known yet, but it’s out there.”

  The word sent a shudder down my spine.

  Souldirge.

  I remembered that creature from the Royal Selection. It had almost torn up Lord Cyr after it broke free of its restraints. Had I not leapt into the arena to try distract it, the creature may have ripped the lordling limb from limb. The sheen of its white exoskeleton, its bony crown, its long, razor-sharp claws… I didn’t want to have to come across another one.

  We had only just gotten back.

  “Why would there be one of those out here?” I asked, barely whispering. “They aren’t native to the forests.”

  “No,” Valerian’s voice was low, and gruff. “They aren’t.”

  Another bit of memory came back. I had only distracted the Souldirge, but I’d had no idea how to deal with the beast. It was Valerian who had subdued it, and he hadn’t done it by brute force. I actually wasn’t sure what he had done to it. To this day, we hadn’t really talked about the Royal Selection or about his affinity with—wait.

  We had talked about his past. He had called himself a hunter, of a sort. The kind that dealt with dark magic, curses, and dangerous or misunderstood creatures. I remembered, now. It seemed like so long ago we’d had that brief conversation, a conversation he had tried to deflect and then cut short. I had even accused him of smelling like he was wreathed in dark magic.

  Like it curled off him.

  Maybe it was because we had spent so much time together, or maybe the fact that we had been on Earth for so long, with so many other scents to distract my nose, I hadn’t smelled it on him since. I still couldn’t, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t there. It didn’t mean his abilities, and his mystery, was gone; maybe they were just suppressed.

  The last time he had dealt with a Souldirge, he had put it to sleep. He could do that again, right? The tension in his muscles, the punctuation in his words, and the way his eyes were darting left and right told me he wasn’t so confident in his abilities as he had been that day, during the Royal Selection.

  “We need to move,” he said, “Slowly.”

  “Move?” I asked, “Move where?”

  “Anywhere. That way.”

  “Are you sure one of those things is out there?”

  “It’s definitely out there, and it’s hungry.”

  That was enough for me to decide not to stick around. I started moving down the hill, away from the general direction Valerian thought the creature was in, and away from the place where the portal remained. It was still there, though it wasn’t shimmering anymore; it was little more than a haze, a distortion of the air around it.

  It would remain that way for a while, maybe for a few days, unfurling only if someone got near enough to it to make it open. Going back through it had crossed my mind at least once, especially considering there was a hungry creature out there, somewhere, whose attention we didn’t want. It was only a fleeting thought, though. Valerian and I were exactly where we were supposed to be.

  There was no going back, now.

  The only problem was, we were still spent. Though we were back in Arcadia, my Fae magic had only just begun to recharge. I wouldn’t be back to fighting form until at least the morning, and Valerian was in the same boat. Our best bet right now was to walk, to come down the hill, and begin our trek toward… anywhere that wasn’t here.

  And anywhere but home.

  Windhelm had changed. Neither of us were truly ready to deal with what was waiting for us there, where I could only imagine there were plenty more horrible revelations to be discovered. Because already I knew, deep in my gut, that something terrible had happened at the palace.

  How could my parents have allowed the forest to have been cut down like this? My mother is a Moon Child herself. She would never have let her family’s ancestral home be desecrated like this. It didn’t make sense, and thinking about it only made the sickness I was feeling even worse.

  “Act naturally,” Valerian said, keeping his voice low, “But know that we are being followed.”

  Those words made my blood run cold. “It knows we’re here?”

  “It knew the moment we crested the hill. The Souldirge’s sense of smell is unparalleled in Arcadia, and we smell like Earth.”

  “How long will it follow us?”

  “It’s hard to say, but if we let it know that we’ve detected it, it will attack. We need to keep walking, pretend we don’t know it’s there, and avoid any dark areas.”

  Valerian then grunted, as if he had just thought of something.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “Strange that this creature would be hunting in broad moonlight like this. It must be starving.”

  “And it could be anywhere…” I said, trailing off.

  White, glistening snow blanketed the landscape around us, and while the trees were in fact gone, their stumps were covered in that same, shiny snow and ice that covered the ground. This creature, what I remembered of it, was entirely cased in a white exoskeleton that shone like it was made of glossy ice. It could have been hiding in plain sight, and I wouldn’t have had a single chance at spotting it.

  That being said, if it was following us, then it was behind us, and I wasn’t about to turn around and check for it.

  “This isn’t the welcome I wanted,” I said.

  “You expected something else?” Valerian asked.

  “I didn’t expect anything, but I had hoped for something better…” I trailed off. “Being captured by Windhelm’s Swords would’ve been preferrable to this.”

  “How would that have been preferrable?”

  “Because it would have been normal. Windhelm’s Swords frequently patrol portal sites. They know when they’re supposed to open, and they station Fae at those portals to try to keep human incursions to a minimum. They should have been waiting for us. The fact that they’re not there just makes this all… worse.”

  Valerian took a deep breath, then exhaled. “This is not the place I expected to return to, either. I have always known of this forest’s existence, and I have never known Windhelm to be anything less than a glimmering jewel in the snow… even if that jewel stood for everything that was wrong with the rest of the Winter Kingdom.”

  “How could you say that?”

  “We’ve been over this, Amara.”

  “I know, and I know I’ve lived a life of privilege and luxury, but my parents… they’ve always done their best to foster a system of equality, and justice.”

  “And freedom?”

  I frowned. “That’s unfair.”

  “You ran away from the castle because they wanted you to marry someone you didn’t want to marry. They didn’t give you a choice in the matter. I think it’s fair to say you’ve witnessed some of the oppression many of the Fae who live outside of the castle’s walls feel every single day that goes by in this place. Arcadia isn’t the magical wonderland
humans fantasize it to be.”

  My frown turned into a scowl. “Is a political discussion really what we should be doing right now?”

  “The only thing we should be doing right now is trying to make it to that other hill, and making sure the creature following us doesn’t know we’ve spotted it.”

  “Why that hill?”

  “Because we’ll be able to see a little more of the area around us. I don’t know where the road is, exactly, but we may be able to see it from up there. Once we can see it, we can start moving toward it. Hopefully, the closer we get to the road, the less inclined the Souldirge will be to keep following us.”

  I sighed. “Alright, fine. I guess we should be used to being stalked by now. Will it lose interest eventually?”

  “Not likely. Not until we reach the road. If we reach the road.”

  “If?”

  “The Souldirge will attack when it feels like it can grab one of us and flee without being attacked in return. They’re opportunistic hunters. So long as we stay close to each other and don’t—stop.”

  Valerian shoved a hand across my chest, forcing me to stop in my tracks. My heart leapt into my throat, and my heart started instantly pounding against the sides of my neck. “What is it?” I dared ask.

  “Don’t move a muscle,” he said. “I’ve just seen a Souldirge skirt behind the hill we’re about to climb.”

  “But that’s in front of us… how did it get there so fast?”

  “It’s not the same creature.”

  The blood drained from my face. “There are two?”

  “Yes. Be as quiet as you can, and stay perfectly still.”

  Shit.

  Shit, shit, shit.

  I didn’t know where to look. I couldn’t see either of the two creatures which were stalking us, but if what Valerian had just said was true, then there was one in front of us, and one behind us. Two Souldirges; one for each of us.

  Valerian carefully stepped in front of me, moving slowly but with conviction. I dared turn my head and scan the way we had come. What I saw back there turned my blood to ice. It wasn’t a creature—no. What I saw were our tracks, two sets of footprints in the snow… followed by a third set of much larger, much more bestial footprints. The kinds of marks a large creature with long limbs, long fingers, and claws might make.

  But no Souldirge.

  “I can’t see it,” I said. “Why can’t I see it?”

  “It’s using the terrain to mask it’s presence.”

  “But there’s nothing back here! No trees, no rocks. How can it be hiding in plain sight like this?”

  “Now is not the time to consider that. You need to run.”

  “Me? What about you?”

  “You can turn into a wolf and maybe outrun them. I can’t. I’ll distract them and draw them that way, you run in the opposite direction.”

  “That’s your plan? Really?”

  “It’s the only one I have.”

  “It’s a stupid plan, Valerian.”

  “I’m not important, Amara. Not as important as you are. You’re the only one who can set things right. If I have to give my life up so that you can do that, I will. You go that way, you get into your wolf form, you put your head down, and you start running for the both of us. Don’t stop. Don’t ever stop running, do you understand?”

  My heart skipped faster, thumped harder. Tears came this time, totally unbidden. “I’m not… leaving you here to die.”

  “We don’t have a choice. You don’t have a choice.”

  “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Amara, we don’t have the time for this.”

  I was about to reply, when I heard a sound coming from the other side of the hill we were about to climb. It had sounded like a crack, followed by a thud. I heard something hiss, a sound that made my already freezing blood run even colder. There was another thud, another crack, and what sounded like a scuffle.

  I wasn’t sure what was happening, but none of it was good. Valerian and I found ourselves backing away from the hill, watching the source of the noise that had died down as suddenly as it had been initially heard.

  “What was that?” I dared ask.

  “I’m not sure,” Valerian said. “Stay behind me.”

  My worst fears were realized when a creature rose to the top of the hill. At first, all I saw were antlers. I was expecting to see the hunched form of a Souldirge follow those large antlers, until I realized, this creature was way too tall to be one of those beasts.

  Watching on bated breath, my eyes widened, and my heart surged as the creature that crested the hill wasn’t a Souldirge at all… but a Maukibou, tall, and white, and majestic against the full moon behind it. The creature padded the ground, warm puffs of breath issuing out of its nostrils. Its white fur was scraggly in places, patchy, and dirty, and one of its antlers was busted and broken, but it was unmistakably him.

  “Colbolt?” I dared.

  The Maukibou padded the ground once more and lowered its head.

  “Colbolt!” I yelled, and I broke past Valerian and sprinted toward the creature, climbing the hill like a mad woman and throwing my arms around the warm, fluffy, white Maukibou’s neck. “It’s really you,” I cried, tears spilling from my eyes. “I can’t believe you’re here.”

  Colbolt snorted. When I pulled away, I realized he had a series of nasty scars down the side of his face. The scars went past one of his eyes, which looked milky, and unseeing. I rubbed him gently along his mottled neck, feeling more scar tissue under my hand.

  “What happened to you?” I asked, my heart breaking. “Have you been out here all this time?”

  Another snort. He turned his head, giving me his good eye. In it, I saw recognition, determination, and happiness. Without having to say the words I knew, he had been here, in this forest, since we left… waiting for me to come back. Who knows what he had seen, or what monster he had run afoul of to have been left with those scars.

  Valerian joined us at the top of the hill. He also patted Colbolt on the neck, and Colbolt rubbed his cheek along Valerian’s hand. “That’s a good boy,” Valerian said. “Thank you, my friend.”

  Colbolt lowered his head, padded the ground, and snorted again. “I think he wants us to get on,” I said.

  Wasting no time, Valerian climbed on Colbolt’s back. He extended his hand, helping me to do the same. When we were both settled, Colbolt turned around and started moving down the hill.

  “Where is he taking us?” Valerian asked.

  “I’m not sure,” I said.

  Colbolt grunted.

  “I could be wrong,” Valerian said, “But I think that means, somewhere safe.”

  “I hope that’s true,” I said. “I could do with a rest.”

  “Wherever we’re going, we would probably do well to remember… this isn’t the same Arcadia we left behind. There are going to be dangers and monsters everywhere.”

  “I know… but if Colbolt survived out here, waiting for us all this time, then there’s hope, too. That’s worth fighting for.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  I opened my eyes with a start, my heart wedged in my throat. I blinked rapidly, trying to get my bearings. Had I fallen asleep? Turning my head up slightly, I found myself staring at Valerian’s chin. He had his arms wrapped around my waist, and I was leaning against his body. Both of us were bobbing gently up and down as Colbolt carried us along the frozen wasteland the Winter Kingdom had become.

  Valerian gently tilted his head down. “You’re awake,” he said.

  “I didn’t realize I’d fallen asleep,” I croaked. “How long was I out?”

  “A few hours.”

  “Hours?”

  “You were clearly more tired than you knew.”

  Valerian went to remove his arms from around my waist, but I placed my hands on top of his. “No,” I said, “It’s okay.”

  “I only wanted to make sure you wouldn’t fall… and that you would be comfortable.”