After a moment, she pulls Donia up by her hair and kisses both cheeks. Her frigid lips leave frost burn on Donia’s skin. Being the Winter Girl gives her some tolerance of the ice, but Beira is Winter. Since the last Summer King died over nine hundred years ago and the then newborn king was cursed, no one has been able to stand against her.

“I believe I already told you what would happen to you, dearie,” Beira whispers, and then she seals her lips to Donia’s. The ice pours from the angry queen’s lips into Donia’s mouth. In moments, she will be frozen alive.

She doesn’t see Seth until he throws himself at Beira.

The furious Winter Queen drops Donia, but she doesn’t understand why until she sees the rusty iron sticking out of Beira’s neck.

With surprising strength for a mortal—especially an injured one—he’s attacked Beira, and the Winter Queen is not amused. She lashes out at Seth with a burst of ice and cold; the force of it slams him into a wall. Beira follows him in that too-fast-to-follow way.

“Do you think that little trinket will kill me?” She digs her fingers into the skin of his stomach and—using his ribs as a handle—jerks him to his feet.

He screams over and over, awful sounds that make Donia tremble, but she can’t help him. She can’t even lift her head from the floor. The mortal has risked his death to help her, but even that seems too little, too late. She feels the ice that Beira has exhaled into her body. It’s killing her.

Beira removes her bony fingers from Seth’s stomach, and he slides down the wall, slumping in a boneless pile.

Donia struggles to crawl to him as the ice slides down her throat, choking her, filling her lungs. She’s not sure what she can do, but she wants to save him.

Beira doesn’t attempt to stop her, but she doesn’t need to. Donia has barely managed to move. Her vision blurs, and she closes her eyes.

Donia has no idea how long she is motionless on the floor. She opens her eyes when a burst of heat stirs her.

Aislinn is there. The girl is no longer mortal. She’s the queen that Keenan sought, and she’s at his side now. They’re both glowing so brightly that it hurts to see them. The newly ascended Summer Queen is holding Beira’s arms as Keenan leans closer, his lips almost touching Beira’s mouth.

Then he just breathes.

Sunlight pours onto her like some viscous fluid.

The Winter Queen struggles to turn her head and can’t. She’s held in place by the sunlit hands of the Summer King and Queen as she chokes on sunlight. The heat burns through Beira’s throat; steam hisses from the cut.