The Howling Pass earned its name from the wind. It shrieked through the narrow, jagged canyon of black ice and slate like the screams of the damned.
I stood on a high, jutting cliff overlooking the narrowest part of the pass, the freezing wind whipping my silver-furred cloak around me. Below, the canyon floor was a river of pristine, undisturbed snow.
Kaelen stood beside me, perfectly still, his massive frame blending seamlessly into the shadows of the overhanging rocks. We had been waiting for three hours. The cold didn't bother me; the White Wolf's magic kept my blood running hot, a steady, thrumming furnace in my chest.
"They are coming," Kaelen murmured, his sensitive Lycan ears swiveling slightly.
A moment later, I felt it. A rhythmic, heavy vibration in the bedrock.
Through the blinding snowstorm, a column of silver emerged. It was Inquisitor Vance, leading a detachment of two hundred Paladins. I had been right. His ego couldn't handle the humiliation at the Shadowkeep. He had crossed the border illegally, seeking to capture Lycan patrols or find the magical anomalies his seers had detected.
They marched in tight formation, their heavy boots crunching loudly, their holy weapons drawn and glowing with a faint, golden light to push back the gloom of the canyon.
"Two hundred men," Kaelen noted, a dark, rumbling chuckle vibrating in his chest. "Vance brought a hammer to kill a fly. He is terrified."
"He should be," I whispered.
I stepped forward, moving right to the edge of the cliff. I didn't bother hiding. I wanted them to see exactly what was going to kill them.
Vance was riding a massive, armored warhorse near the front of the column. He suddenly halted, raising a gauntleted hand. His sharp eyes scanned the cliffs, catching the movement of my silver cloak against the black rock.
"Halt!" Vance roared, his voice magically amplified to cut through the howling wind. "Lycans on the ridge! Form a shield wall!"
The Paladins immediately slammed their massive silver shields together, creating an impenetrable dome of holy metal and golden magic in the center of the canyon.
"King Kaelen!" Vance shouted, staring up at us. "You are harboring dark magic and fugitives of the law! Surrender the girl, and the Council may show you mercy!"
I looked down at the Inquisitor, feeling a profound sense of pity for his profound stupidity.
I didn't use the ruby glamour this time. There were no illusions needed in the Howling Pass. There were no witnesses here to report back to the Council about the true nature of my power. Here, I could finally let the White Wolf off her leash.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath of the freezing air.
Wake up, Nyx, I whispered in my mind.
Let them burn in the ice, my wolf snarled back.
I opened my eyes. They were no longer brown. They were twin stars of blinding, ethereal white light.
I raised both of my hands toward the sky. The atmosphere in the canyon instantly warped. The howling wind stopped dead. The snowflakes froze mid-air, suspended in a sudden, terrifying vacuum of anti-gravity.
Vance's horse reared up, screaming in panic. "Fire! Unleash the holy bolts! Bring her down!"
A volley of glowing, golden arrows shot up from behind the shield wall, hurtling toward me with lethal precision.
I didn't even blink. I simply snapped my wrists downward.
A shockwave of pure, unadulterated white energy exploded from my palms, crashing down into the canyon like a celestial meteor. The golden arrows disintegrated instantly upon touching my aura, turning to harmless ash in the wind.
The blast hit the canyon floor with a deafening BOOM.
The ground violently ruptured. Massive, jagged spikes of pure, glowing white ice erupted from the bedrock, shattering the Paladins' holy shield wall as if it were made of glass. Screams echoed through the pass as the Vanguard was violently thrown into the air, their silver armor useless against the sheer, catastrophic kinetic force of the White Wolf's magic.
"Now," I breathed, dropping to one knee, maintaining the terrifying pressure of the white ice pinning the survivors to the ground.
From the shadows behind me, Kaelen moved.
He didn't leap down. He simply vanished into the darkness, moving faster than the human eye could track.
Below, the massacre began. Where my white magic had shattered their defenses and paralyzed their bodies, Kaelen's shadows moved in to finish the job. Black claws tore through silver armor like tissue paper. The monstrous, primal roars of the Lycan King echoed off the canyon walls, accompanied by the wet, sickening sounds of absolute butchery.
It was over in less than three minutes.
The pristine white snow of the Howling Pass was painted a horrific, vivid crimson. The two hundred Paladins of the Vanguard were reduced to broken, mangled corpses.
Only one man was left alive.
Kaelen stood in the center of the carnage, his chest heaving, his claws dripping with blood. He held Inquisitor Vance off the ground by his throat. The Inquisitor's armor was crushed, his sword shattered, his face a mask of absolute, mind-breaking terror as he stared at the glowing white goddess standing on the cliff above, and the blood-soaked demon holding his life in its hands.
"Tell the High Council," Kaelen growled, his voice a demonic resonance that made the remaining ice shatter, "that the Northern Reaches are closed."