But along with that thought came a terrible dread. A branch lowered before her, just as when she’d made her wand. A fresh leaf budded on it, then grew. Faded words were webbed through its veins.
Ellery reached for it.
XLIIIDOMENICWINTER
Within the cavern where all prophecies had first grown, Summer’s champion gasped for breath upon his knees. Alban roots threaded across every crook and crevice of the stone around him, entirely white except for the golden handprints beneath his palms.
A lone leaf sprouted beside him.
Fearful yet still hopeful, always hopeful, Domenic reached for it.
XLIVDESTINY
as Summer wilts and Winter lays its siege
an ancient battle shall be waged anew
and from the ruins only one endure
or see the land destroyed forevermore
XLVELLERY
WINTER
Snow lashed against Ellery as she knelt in the once-Barren’s clearing, sobbing. The leaf that had borne the true beginning of the prophecy was crumpled in her trembling hand.
One line replayed in her mind. Again. Again.
and from the ruins only one endure
For all that Domenic had stoked Ellery’s hopes, it was only now that any chance of peace had been ripped away that she realized she, too, shared the blame for their grand delusion. She’d wanted a happy ending just as desperately as he had; she’d convinced herself just as wholly as he’d convinced her.
But she and Domenic had never been destined to fall in love.
Around her, the storm’s darkness had encroached ever closer, so stifling that she couldn’t see beyond the bounds of the clearing. She cast a light, squinting into the violent wind. Freshly grown trees bowed and bent. Plums tore from the alban as it lurched back and forth.
So this was to be their great feat of magic that would stop the cataclysm, their so-called heroic sacrifice.
A duel.
Summer or Winter. His life, or hers.
Maybe she should forfeit. When Ellery had drawn her wand on Domenic this morning, she’d been driven by panic more than logic. To fight him now felt like a different choice; if it were just a matter of her life for his then she would choose Domenic’s without hesitation. She didn’t want to be in a world without him in it.
Maybe the world would be better without her anyway. Winter had been Alderland’s greatest enemy for a millennium; if its champion died, it wouldn’t be eradicated completely—it was too much a part of the land to be fully destroyed. It would merely be subdued again.
But no.No. Even if she died, the winterghasts would return year after year. This senseless, awful war would forever continue.
Yet if she won…
Ellery stood, surveying the land she had resurrected: every ruby fruit, every evergreen bough. For all Winter’s terror, it contained beauty, too.
With her victory, it would be Winter that ruled Alderland. Surely then she could create new Living Wands. And though Summer might be weakened, it would never be the enemy Winter had been. Its own wands would remain. After all, Syarthis had sought to revert to what it had been before. If it had believed Ellery’s victory alone could accomplish that, it would’ve tipped the scales in her favor, not sabotaged both her and Domenic in hopes that they would never duel, and the cataclysm would go unthwarted.
Six weeks of Summer wasn’t balance. But Ellery could double the size of the Order while freeing the country from ghasts and scurges in the process. It was as close to peace as Alderland could hope for.
And so, Ellery made her choice. She’d fight for Winter.
