I soaked up the warmth with my knees pulled up to my chest, staring into the fire as the delirium passed. The villagers who had shared my fate would not be so lucky. I could only hope that they had had the sense to light a fire when they got to the far shore. When the worst of the shivering retreated back into my marrow, I stood. My bare feet felt like ice against the flagstones.

“Go,” I told Juniper. “Find Avery. Find Bjorn. Tell them there is fire and shelter here, if they leave their weapons behind. Tell them that if they do not, they will find only death.”

“I can’t leave you.”

“Then stay here, by the fire, and warm yourself. There is food, somewhere. Rest. But I have to do the rest of this alone.”

“Rowan—”

“Trust me.”

“Take my cloak, at least,” she said, unfastening it from her shoulders.

Juniper’s hair was tangled and matted, as I was sure mine was too, and she looked less real than the ghosts I still could half see out of the corner of my eye. I did not wait to discover what Juniper decided. Time was running out. I could almost hear the sand running through the hourglass, only instead of sand, I heard the soft flutter of falling petals.

Her breath slowed.

Thought was no longer reliable.

Words, faces, half-formed memories of a world that once had been. They floated around her, and once she thought she stood on top of the mountain, stars surrounding her, close enough to touch in the soft darkness of the sky.

I was Winter once, she thought in a rare moment of clarity.

She did not know what she was now.

Sometimes, when the wolf turned to nose her gently, she thought she heard the howls of the rest of the pack, but not often.

How long have I been cold? she wondered. How many lifetimes have I spent frozen while the rest of the world turned?

She could feel the burden of all those years now, pulling her down into the stone. All that kept her alive was the magic that still lingered in the roses, and that too was dying.

Rowan, she tried to say, but her lips refused to move, and the wolf whined deep in her throat.

You are free now, she thought, looking into those golden eyes. Free to be what you have always been.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Three

The halls were empty. My wolf paced beside me, sniffing at the cobwebbed corners, and I broke into as much of a run as my aching joints could manage.