Free Cold Hearted: A Yancy Lazarus Novel (Episode Two) by James Hunter Page B

sorta blended in with the snow. Hey, better than nothing, and with the Old Man so distracted I probably didn’t need it anyhow.
    I sprinted forward, muttering “ gladium potestatis ” under my breath, bringing forth my Vis sword—a thin, single-edged, azure blade, about three feet in length, and looking as fragile as lace.
    I couldn’t kill Old Man Winter—like literally not possible—but I could end this. Just needed one solid blow, quick and decisive. I raised the sword to waist level, elbows slightly bent, blade canted to the right of my body, legs still pumping, breath too loud in my own ears.
    The old man thrust out his crook to turn another strike, his twig-thin wrist stretched out. A perfect target. With a heave, I twisted the blade through the air, throwing my hips and shoulders into the attack, yoko-giri . The horizontal side-slash technique was meant to disembowel an opponent, spill their guts onto the floor, but it would do just fine for Old Man Winter’s bony wrist.
    Grandpa was so preoccupied with Ben’s fire snake that he didn’t even notice until my blade passed through his arm with a slice and his staff clattered to the floor—hand still firmly attached. I let my blade disappear, dismissed my rough illusion, and dove through the air, snagging the staff from the floor and rolling back to my feet. I pivoted bringing the crook to bear. Old Man Winter had fallen onto his throne, legs sprawled out, amputated wrist held up as he looked on in bewilderment.
    The wound should’ve bled—cutting off someone’s hand is major surgery—but no blood flowed, not even a trickle. Just a frosty rim of red coated the end of his arm.
    The second snowman crumbled to the floor, gone as quick as it’d come.
    “What have you done?” He suddenly sounded his age. Gone was his cackling merriment, and I knew why.
    The loss of a hand wasn’t such a big deal to a fae being—he’d regrow the appendage in a couple of months. But losing the crook? That was big. It was a friggin’ portable powerhouse of energy. Fae power pumped through the reedy stick, which pulsed with cold life, waiting to be used, eager to freeze and kill, to bring on the black and cold. The thing was alive, possessed by a sort of shark-like sentience, a thing of living purpose, and it didn’t give a rat’s fuzzy ass who it served.
    The sentience reached out toward my mind, offering me scenes of endless winter: frozen spires reaching up to the sky; the whole Earth carpeted in thick, flawless snow; a field of endless white sparkling in chilly sunlight; bodies without number, petrified in perfect crystalline stillness. The world a mimicry of life—all of the beauty and none of the mess. No child would ever laugh there, but no child would ever cry. No one would smile or be warmed by a hug, but neither would anyone starve or feel the gnawing pain of cancer. Everything and everyone, beautiful forever. Everything and everyone, surgically sterile.
    The shepherd’s crook wanted these things, and it urged me to want them. It bartered with the things it knew I wanted, calling to the darkest part of my heart.
    The power to crush the Morrigan who’d wronged me, who’d robbed me of Ailia years ago. You could have her back , it whispered. It could show me how.
    The power to crush the Guild of the Staff, exact retribution for people like Ben who’d been denied help and justice because it would’ve been too messy, too difficult.
    A kingdom, the crook promised, all mine for the taking … and when I grew weary of reigning? Endless Winter. It could be patient, helpful, until I grew bored.
    It appealed to my pride and vanity, my hunger and lust, my anger and vengeance, my sorrow and pain. Thing sure as shit knew how to manipulate the human heart—would’ve made a killing selling time-shares.
    I pushed it all down, away, back into a little box in my head for later examination. Right now I had a mission—ice the old man and get Michael back. The crook nearly