Cold water coursing over skin.

Violet was greeted by gray skies looming low over a long, cold beach. She awoke, in a sense, at the water's edge, the water lapping over her, her face alone still on dry land. The freezing water's touch was an infinite comfort, gentle and alluring, and she came within an inch of allowing herself to slip away, to be carried off by the waves into the dark. Instead, she rose.

Winter?

No words answered her. She shivered. She did not recognize this place, yet she did not think she was dead. Lightly, she touched her bare chest, finding only a faint white scar from where Maeve's blade had burst outward. Remarkable.

Curious, though without urgency, for there was an innate peacefulness to her surroundings, Violet reached for her magic. Mortal first, and then Winter. Neither answered her, but she found something else instead, something that felt like the sensation of drawing a deep breath of clean mountain air. And so, with nothing else to do, she inhaled.

She rose into the air. It was effortless. A breathy laugh escaped her at the sheer thrill of it, and she kicked her feet against the open air, laughing louder. With a thought her gradual ascent became an upward shot, and the wind roared in her ears, plastering her hair to her shoulders and neck. She stopped eventually, up among the low clouds, the beach below visible in miniature—a thin gray band separating the black ocean from an endless expanse of white fog.

Oh, she had always wanted to fly!

Something soft, like teasing fingers, brushed the back of her neck. Without alarm she turned, and her cheek brushed against a fluffy curtain. Feathers. Softer than down and whiter than pearl.

Wings. Her wings.

Once she saw them she became aware of them, felt them as if they were no less a part of her than her arms and legs. They extended two and a half meters in each direction, tapering to a curved point at their ends. She floated in air, entirely still, pinned to the sky by wings that did not beat. With a whoop she rose further, faster, her wings curling around her until she was an arrow, aimed and loosed to spear the very stars.

She rose higher and higher until the ground below had vanished into fog and the air was thin and icy-fresh on her skin. It occurred to her that she did not know precisely how to descend—and with the thought she fell, wind howling as she laughed high and free. Mere meters from the ground, she unfurled her wings and slammed to a stop, the tips of her toes barely brushing the cold, packed sand of the beach.

Still breathing heavily from the thrill of flight, Violet sat down upon the sand to rest. Waves crashed against the beach, and a salty breeze brought with it the scent of a gathering storm. Slowly, the strangeness of her circumstances began to dawn on her, like emerging from from a pleasant dream. It was not that she had forgotten what had happened, the piercing pain that followed Maeve's betrayal, the obligations that yet remained before her—but it had all seemed unimportant until now. It was time, at last. Time to awaken.

Lightning flashed out over the ocean. Black veins crawled through the lighter clouds above, and rain began to fall. Wind roared with terrible intensity, and Violet scrambled to her feet, struggling to maintain her footing before the gale. On the horizon, a dark line was growing gradually thicker. Steadily it rose, from a line to a band to a wall, an irresistible wave as tall as a mountain and as swift as a bullet. Violet turned to face it, spreading her arms and letting out a final breath.

Her last impression of this world was one of water, capricious and wrathful and tempestuous; of destruction, fog being peeled back and mountains below torn asunder, rivers flooded, caverns crushed; and of motion, being gently lifted by the murderous ocean and carried high, higher than she had dared to fly.

A pang of sadness washed over her. It reminded her all too much of the death of the Other's world, an end to something beautiful. But a foreign calm and comfort washed it away, like a loving stroke to the cheek, and she understood. This was not destruction but a return; the end of fleeting moments of beauty that had never been meant to stay. As she woke, another returned to its endless sleep.

A sigh—of the world. An easing of the air. A calm of the water. A pause for words.

GOODBYE, VIOLET. I AM GLAD.

Violet opened her eyes.

Cold water coursing over skin.

~#~

The ice above creaked. Then it shattered.

A cascade of water roiled up from below, crushing the delicate black ice-flowers, scouring the ceiling of its icicles. Violet's hand shot up through the hole she had torn in the ice above and found purchase, allowing her to drag herself upward, out from the water to the air above. She coughed, spitting water, and rubbed her eyes vigorously. A jolt of adrenaline rushed through her, the disastrous battle in the Other's homeland suddenly just minutes old, and ice formed a sleek blade in her hand as she rose, finding easy footing on the slick surface underfoot.

Turning slowly as she forced her breathing to slow, Violet took in her surroundings. She knew this place. How she had arrived here, though—that she could not say. She stood in the same frozen cavern that the fae healer had brought her to before she rode out in search of Satria, where she had been meant to rest for a long month and arise renewed. A terrible trepidation washed over her as to what it must mean that she had awoken here, in this place. For how long had she slumbered? What would she find when she left this cave?

Her head snapped to the side, reacting reflexively to a sound more sensed than heard. Silently she crept forward, fingers coiling and uncoiling around the ice dagger.

There. Voices, faint. She could not make them out, but the words sounded closer to English than the fae tongue. Either was preferable to whatever foul language creatures sculpted by the Other might speak. Winter still stood, it seemed.

The voices grew louder, then ceased, replaced by oncoming footsteps. Violet leapt up into a smooth indentation in the ice coating the cavern's wall and waited, unconsciously drawing the darkness around herself as she assessed her ability to fight. She felt . . . surprisingly good, fresh. Stronger than she had for a long time, strong enough to only now realize how much the constant fighting in the war against Voldemort had worn her down. So too were the chains placed on her by Bellatrix's curse broken. Like a bird whose clipped wings had regrown, the sense of freedom was enough to nearly bring her to tears.

Wings.

Dare she hope?

The footsteps grew closer, and Violet realized she could sense that those approaching were fae—as she had always been able to, but now with a perfect clarity and precision that had never been present before. It was like removing a pane of frosted glass and seeing the world in truth at last.

There were two of them, both, bizarrely, of Summer. But there was a slight inconsistency in their grandeur, an underlying complexity that she could not place. Still, even if Summer was the least of her concerns right now, that didn't mean she was the same for them. Violet tensed, ready to spring.

Two shadows fell on the ground as the figures approached from around a curve in the cavern, cast by veins of blue luminescence within the ice. Violet drew a slow breath, then exhaled sharply as they came into view.

"Sirius?" she cried, the ice in her hand melting to water in an instant. "What are you—how?"

He wore no heavy clothes; unlike during his previous visit to Winter, a warmth glowed within him that warded off the cold. The same could be said for his companion, achingly lovely and with an ethereal grace that Violet did not remember of her. Fleur.

"Non!" Fleur gasped, her mouth falling into an O. "Violet?"

Sirius reacted far less dramatically, merely inclining his head and smiling gently. "The winter solstice. As I suspected—it would be tonight, or it would be never."

His voice was a rich rumble, and now that he was closer Violet could see his hair was speckled with glints of gold, as if coated in the dust of that most noble metal. The essence of Summer that had been steadily growing within him now blazed as bright as a star, dwarfing Fleur's. Grief filled Violet; for better or worse, Sirius seemed to resist his fate no longer. She knew it was him still—it could not possibly have been long enough for his humanity to fade. But when she looked at him, she saw not her godfather but the King of Summer. He stood with a regal authority at odds with the rebellious irreverence he had always treasured, and though she was unclothed, he exhibited none of the discomfort she would have expected from him because of it. How had this happened? How had so much changed?

The solstice—that's what he had said. Violet calculated quickly, or as quickly as she could; maths would never be her strength. She had fallen on her birthday, so if it was truly the winter solstice, that meant she had been unconscious for nigh five months.

A lot could happen in a war over five months. Some might be won. And, judging by Sirius's state, at least one had been lost.

"What happened?" Violet demanded. "Satria—"

"Well," answered Sirius. "Along with Jon, though he has now returned to his home. It seems that when the False Queen, Maeve, made her own escape from the wasted lands, she was unable to prevent them from passing through her portal with her. Most fortuitously for us all."

"And—you . . . why did you—"

"It was an easy choice," Sirius interrupted gently, his word even but carrying a heavy weight. "There was nothing left for me in the mortal world. You were here. You were in danger. Sirius Black couldn't have protected you. But Summer did."

A frisson of awe and fright shot through Violet—his words, so simple, left volumes unsaid but clearly heard.

"Maeve brought the Lady Satria's court to siege," Sirius continued, his voice suddenly swelling with aching power. "Winter against Winter. But when they came, they found iron. And fire."

" 'E 'as been magnifique," Fleur exclaimed. "I felt eet, in my 'eart, I think, when Summer founds its king. And I knew I 'ad to go. To where, non, I didn't, but I knew. And een ze forest I found zis place. Bill is 'ere too, but 'e does not like the cold very much." She laughed. "It eez funny. I used to complain about eet much more than 'im, but things are different now."

Violet's head spun. She had endless questions, about what had happened to Esrid's invasion, to the Ministry, to Voldemort, to the Weapon, but they turned to dust on her tongue. Instead she slumped against the smooth, icy wall of the cave and slid down it, burying her face in shaking hands. It had all gone so very wrong—and yet, she knew not when she had taken her first awry step. Regret was senseless, useless, she knew, yet she had to wonder what could she have done differently.

That she lived at all was nearly beyond belief. It was thanks to others that she did. Sacrifices made in her name. Sirius's. Satria's, no doubt, in some form. And another's, perhaps most of all. Cat. Eerie, enigmatic, other. And gone. Violet could sense that. There was a void in the Wyld shaped like a mischievous feline grin. Some sliver of this most magical place had turned mundane. She remembered cryptic words, a final riddle, and something else.

A cold, dead ring burned on her finger where it had not before. She touched it, and a weightless cloak settled over her shoulders. Elder wood came from nowhere into her grasp. So she had changed too.

What does it mean to master Death? To bridle the void, to embody powerlessness?

Violet knew the answer. To master Death was to accept it, embrace its coming, as she always had.

There are no immortals.

And the Hallows had come to her by death, one and all: her father, struck down before entering her memories; Dumbledore, a mentor, a man she betrayed, who had met his fate bereft of the weapon that might have saved him; and Cat, who had been something more than anyone or anything else Violet had encountered in all the worlds she had tread, an indelible mark that was now whited out. Yes, the Hallows had earned their epithet well.

A bitter prize, to be certain. But then, most things were, these days.

Sirius watched her in sanguine contemplation. If he recognized the cloak she now wore—its aspect was different, darker, and it did not hide her from sight—he didn't comment on it. But he did turn away, looking to the hint of the setting sun toward the cave's entrance.

"I cannot stay. Lady Satria ought hear of this immediately, and preparations must be made. Maeve will have sensed this, I do not doubt. She will know she has waited too long. She will act tonight, before the solstice ends and her powers leave their apogee. Violet, it is . . . the lifting of a terrible burden to see you awoken. Whatever . . . else, I hope you know that."

And then, without further ceremony, he was gone, and Fleur's fire seemed to burn brighter in contrast. Violet doffed the Cloak, and its slippery, substanceless form seemed to melt to nothing—yet it was with her, like the shadow of Death itself.

She cast a murmured spell of Conjuration, picturing a long, black dress—but the Elder Wand instead brought forth a gown of raven's feathers, with immaculate detail and a perfect imitation of a true bird's wings that Violet could never have managed deliberately. The feathertips were burnt with a rime of white frost.

A cold shiver ran through her as she cast the spell. Something was different—it was not just Death whose shadow she walked in.

"Violet?" came Fleur's tentative voice. Violet started, realizing only then that she had spent over a minute in silent contemplation. She looked up and put on a wry smile.

"I'm not sure what I find stranger. That a Summer King should stand alongside a Lady of Winter, or that it should be Sirius wearing the crown."

"Eez it so very odd?" Fleur asked. "The Blacks 'ave Summer blood. And Summer must 'ave a King."

"Perhaps not," said Violet with a sigh. "My fault in any case. The poi—influence—only touched him after I dragged him into my world, and into ruin. The same with everyone else who's made the mistake of getting close to me—these feathers should be of the albatross. And now you're here too."

It seemed deeply unfair. Cold she had always been, yet the mortal world had softened her. She had dared to feel as a mortal would and had been stung for it—in a fashion that was also so very mortal, she could admit. The more she thought about it, the more ludicrous it seemed. What part of the mortal world had she touched and not left for the worse? Dumbledore, dead, betrayed by her so soon after he had finally put aside his mistrust. Scrimgeour and the Ministry, abandoned in their time of need. Sirius . . . lost. The Order, shattered. Tracey, dead. Ron, some of the other students—Merlin knew what their fates had been. Probably there were others too, lost in her recollections. There could be only one conclusion from all that.

"I can never return," Violet breathed. It was not her first time thinking it, but it was her first time knowing it. Should she somehow still prevail over her foes, should Voldemort and the others to whom she owed a debt of death—Bellatrix—fall at last, that would be it. She would not return to Hogwarts, would not travel to distant shores, would not become Minister—and how fanciful that fleeting thought seemed now. The Wyld, the world that had become her first home, would so too be her only home. The words tasted sour on her tongue. She was mortal, was she not? Did she not have as much claim to their world as anyone else? So why, then, was she such a poison to it?

"What?" exclaimed Fleur. "Non, I do not understand. Eez it to do with the water? Eet changed you, you cannot leave the Wyld? But surely zere is something we can do!"

Violet grimaced, shaking her head. She didn't want to explain this, not to anyone, but especially not to Fleur, suffused as she was with radiance and beauty. She seemed aglow with life, joy, even, and it was like looking into the sun. The instinct was to turn away.

But Violet did not. How could she, after Fleur turned her back to everything that was happening in the mortal world to watch over her for months? She wrung her hands, remembering the calm of her long dream and half wishing for it back. But that, too, she could never return to.

"It's simple, really," she said, quietly. "It turns out there is little I cannot destroy, few I cannot slay. But when I look back, everything I tried to protect ended up just as broken, just as dead as what I raised a sword against. I mean, bloody hell—I don't think there's a single person in all the mortal world who's better off for my return from the Wyld. Maybe I should have just stayed here from the start. I was already once a Savior. Only downhill from there."

There. It was said. She took a little petty satisfaction from it, like making a rude gesture to the contrivances of fortune against her. Now she could focus entirely on what mattered, and what she did best: bringing war to those foolish enough to make her their enemy.

"Violet?" said Fleur, after a long moment, a faint tremble in her voice. "What ze fuck are you talking about?"

Violet opened her mouth to respond, but Fleur cut her off, growing more impassioned. " 'ow can you say that? Can't you see ze way you 'ave 'elped so many people? 'Ow many Aurors, how many of ze Order 'as your wand saved? You-Know-Who would 'ave won the war long ago if not for you. 'Ow can you—Jon! 'E is a rich man because of you! Very rich, paid in fae treasures! Sirius, you say you doomed 'im, but 'e 'as told me that when 'e met you 'e was ready to die for 'is vengeance. And 'ow—how—can you say zat when you—when you gave me ze one thing I was certain I could never have! Do you think—do you really think—that I would 'ave spent months in zis frozen place for anyone?"

Her voice, having risen to a shout, hung on that last, accusing question. A red flush had colored her cheeks and neck, and her eyes glistened with moisture, as blue and lovely as sapphires. Violet struggled for a response, for a lump was blocking her throat, but Fleur saved her from it by pulling her into a furiously tight hug. Fleur was warm and soft and carried the scent of life—of wildflowers abloom and pollen in the air and long days with short nights. And before Violet realized what was happening she was crying, freely and without shame.

They stayed that way for a time. Violet wiped at her eye and watched as the perfect bead of a tear solidified into a glinting white gem the size of a marble. With a smile, she closed her fingers around it, intent to hold onto it for a little longer yet.

"Thank you," Violet murmured, not sure what for but all the more certain because of it. "Thank you, Fleur."

~#~

The first breath of evening fresh air outside the cave was sweeter than honey. A surge of vigor rose within Violet. All the sensations of life seemed particularly keen, the tingle of her bare feet against the snow, the ghostly weight of Death's Cloak, and magic—magic like she had never felt before, coursing through blood and bone like a mighty destrier bound by the lightest of reins. So too had faded the sense of melancholy that Violet only now realized had been with her for a very long time indeed. So she had made mistakes. So fortune had proven a fickle friend. Fleur had clearly demonstrated to her the blindness brought on by lingering on what was done. Desperation and regret had melted away in place of a simpler, sharper feeling: the intent to bring harm to her enemies, and a fresh certainty in her ability to do so.

For the months she had spent in repose had left her deeply changed. The Elder Wand, once so thirsty for blood that it seemed always a moment's laxness from wielding her, was calm. No less eager, no less ready, but with a new respect for its master. Could it be that the legendarily disloyal wand had at last chosen its witch?

But it was her own magic that felt most different of all. It yearned to be wielded—and so, as Fleur looked on, Violet let loose.

She whipped the Elder Wand upward, and a vast cloud of snow rose, whirling and spinning until it took the form of gleaming ice formed into broad shoulders and rippling armor plates—a towering frozen statue imbued with arcane animation. With the slightest thought, the ice swirled and erupted into light and heat, the golem's limbs thinning into whiplike tendrils as it became a creature of flame. Then it was a storm confined in a humanoid shape, formed of lighting coursing into itself with a ceaseless cacophony of thunder, illuminating the twilit clouds above. She was right!

Violet dismissed her creation with a flick of her free hand, returning it to the snow it had once been. Taking a moment to calm herself, she called forth a haze of Winter magic in her left hand and twisted the Elder Wand in her right, a thin ribbon of fire spinning around it, and between the two magics there was not a thing different. Yes, right she was—this was Winter and wand, mortal and fae—a perfect union at last.

No longer did she wield two forms of magic. They had been linked, entwined, and mutually empowering yes, but always distinct. Now they were merged, the whole greater than the sum of its parts. Why could a Cutting Curse not be formed of a crescent of Winter's cold? Why should jagged ice not enjoy the supremacy of the Elder Wand? It was perfect. An unhidden, uncaring smile of simple happiness came over Violet. It was a smile for the beauty of magic and for the love of it.

In her excitement, she let out a jubilant cry for Winter—we did it! After strife and obstacle, together they had achieved what she had long sensed was her destiny. Farther back than Bellatrix's ambush. It had been the battle in the Department of Mysteries against the Unspeakables when she first sensed the possibility for something more. Perhaps it had started even before them. She waited for Winter's reply, the sensations of emotion and color that she had slowly grown accustomed to. But as the seconds crept by, no response came.

But surely that couldn't be! Winter was closer to her than ever before—how could it possibly fail to hear her? And then she remembered the end of her months-long dream and Winter's last words to her, and she realized something that tinged her joy with sorrow. It was not that Winter could not hear her. It was that Winter could no longer respond. Winter was not merely near her. Winter was within her, more fully than ever before, but the life was gone from it. It was inert. Power, but only that. Apotheosis. For one to rise, another must fall.

As Summer's chance for something new—arisen in response to Winter's choosing of Violet—had died with Sirius's resignation to becoming fae, so too did Winter lay down its spark of change. In all things, the Courts must be equal. But the spark was not gone. It was within Violet, and she felt the weight of responsibility it represented. She was the one who could alter the fate of the Winter Court now, the one with the mortal impudence to dare meddle with ancient truths and the fae knowledge to comprehend them. She could try—and she might fail—but she could try.

She could seek to end the eternal and fruitless war with Summer, be it in peace or total conquest. Sirius was to be their King, and he would remember what it was to be human for some time yet. What better opportunity could there possibly be to reshape the eternal, to rewrite the most ancient of laws? She could push fae to escape the trap of their nature, as Satria had. At last, Winter's true plan was clear. Whatever it was that caused it to take on a semblance of life, it had known that any action it took to change things would be matched and opposed by forces more fundamental than even the Courts. Only through Violet, through the sovereignty of the mortal soul, could hope for a true future of the fae exist. Esrid, Summer, feeble Mab and treacherous Maeve … they too were and had been her responsibility, but they were not why Winter chose her.

Winter had sacrificed its very agency—a thing it should never have possessed—to create something new. A truly mortal fae; a truly fae mortal. Perhaps it had had no choice. If the Other was the image of a being like Winter when it was capable of thinking and acting of its own accord, it might have been only a matter of time before Winter followed in its footsteps. But even if that was true, even if it had ultimately only given Violet her gifts so that she could bring about its own dream of change, it was no less meaningful a sacrifice. No less a risk.

It had been a marvelous gamble worthy of a mortal. Violet only hoped it would prove a wise one.

"Incredible," Fleur said, staring at where the snowy ground had been scarred black by lightning. "I do not know . . . such magic . . ."

"You haven't seen anything yet," Violet replied, unable to keep a grin off her face, suddenly certain of something delightful. Taking a moment only to transfigure her feathered gown into a backless cut, she drew a gasp of airy laughter from Fleur as Violet suddenly grasped her by the waist, pulled her into her arms, and leapt.

As they soared, held aloft by perfect white wings, the same in every way as in her dream, the land below steadily shrunk. The Wyld was revealing itself to Violet as she had never seen it before. And, slowly, her exultation curdled to horror.

Under the bright moon she could see Satria's court, from which thin trails of smoke rose. Beyond it was arrayed dark lines of entrenchments, but it was not that which evoked such a reaction from her. But for a few scattered patches of undisturbed terrain—the cave, the court, a few other places—the aberrant crystals of the Other covered the land in every direction as far as the eye could see. Their colors, once beyond comprehension, now had names in Violet's mind, a lingering gift of her mental clash with the Other. They were no less hideous for it.

As she rose higher, the Origin of the Wyld became visible, though barely more than a speck, and with a hint of relief she noted that the crystal had been kept back for a sizable radius around the grand tree. The crystal had crossed into Summer in places, though that could be seen only even more faintly from this distance.

"Eet does not stop," Fleur murmured into Violet's ear. She had finally stopped clinging quite so frantically tight now that she had remembered Violet's rather outsized strength and the shock of their sudden flight had abated. "Strange . . . I 'ave not been 'ere for long at all, but to see eet like zis is a terrible thing."

If not for the sight below, the moment would have been quite pleasant. There was something enticing about being up here with Fleur, with the land and sky laid out for them yet entirely alone. But more pressing matters called.

"Well," said Violet, the Elder Wand thrumming in her hand, "it looks like I have work to do."

~#~

To fly unassisted was everything Violet had imagined it being—everything she had dreamed of, too. But the temptation to revel in her newfound ability was tempered by necessity and the sight below. First, she would fight. Then she would soar.

Violet and Fleur glided downward, as silent and weightless as the drifting flakes of snow around them. Below, the tableu of a bitterly contested battlefield resolved itself. On one side of the blasted and scorched land—cleared of trees and turned a sick gray by the churning of slush into mud—were the enemy lines. Violet observed the sight with some curiosity. Though no stranger to fae warfare, nor even to war brought to the gates of Satria's court, she had never witnessed a siege of this scale. There must have been thousands of fae arrayed outside walls under Maeve's banner, and no doubt thousands more within it, under Satria's. How many months had been spent this way, with the majority of Winter's strength expended on a stalemate of an internal conflict, all while a true enemy claimed more of the Wyld by the day?

How foolish it seemed from here, literally high above. Surely, surely she could bring this to an end. Bring the war with Summer to an end too. Once Maeve was dead and Satria was Queen and Sirius King . . . it all felt so very possible. Peace—a strange concept, and one whose value she had never quite recognized before her slumber, before Winter's last gift. This was her true purpose. Not just to protect the Wyld, but to change it, free it and its inhabitants from the fetters of their nature. And if war truly beat so intimately in the fae heart that it could not be abandoned, so be it. There were lands uncountable beyond the Wyld, a thousand worlds and more to be conquered.

They descended further toward the court, until Violet could make out individual shapes on the walls and streets. They stirred to motion at the sight of her, pointing to the sky and hastening about. Idly, she hoped no one would shoot at her. They wouldn't hit her, but she didn't think Fleur would appreciate the experience.

The court was battered. Buildings were half-collapsed, as if repairing them no longer seemed worth doing. Parts of the streets were pitted and cracked. Scars of distorted space spoke of the lingering effects of devastating and esoteric magics.

A hint of of an insidious feeling crept in—it would never have come to this if Violet hadn't allowed Maeve to get the better of her; how foolish she had been to forget her capacity for duplicity—but Violet cast the emotion aside, drowning it in silent and controlled wrath. Besides, she had seen the court in ruins before, and this was not like then. The walls were taller than she had ever seen them, crowned by cruel barbs of ice. Banners and cold blue torches danced in the wind. And, curiously, the smoke she had spotted from a distance rose not from uncontrolled fires but an immense pyre set in a large, open courtyard.

"What in Merlin's name is that for?" Violet asked.

Fleur shifted in Violet's arms. "The Summer contingent. They established an . . . enclave in the courtyard. They like eet warm."

"Summer is on our side?" Violet exclaimed. Bloody hell. Maybe there was less for her to do than she had thought.

"Sirius eez," Fleur said neutrally. "Summer . . . eet is 'arder to say. They are passionate, and for ze time being enamored with their mortal King. But I think eet was wise zat the Lady extended her invitation to only a few."

Violet shook her head, trying to put it out of her mind for now. High-minded aspirations for the future and her recent associations with Summer-affiliated mortals aside, she was not entirely comfortable with the prospect of going to battle with true Summer fae by her side. But she trusted Satria, and she trusted Sirius. For all she knew, desperation would make for stranger bedfellows yet before this all came to an end.

Gliding past the pyre, Violet dove, swooping down and around a spire and picking up speed as she did, flashing just over the ground so that her bare foot trailed through the snow below before climbing once more with a single beat of her wings. She could sense Satria's presence, picking it out of the mass of gathered fae with perfect ease.

She flew across the remainder of the court and on the other side, in the shadow of the court and obscured from the sight of the enemy, infantry columns were forming, cavalry gathering. Sirius had said that Maeve would attack, and Violet sensed he was correct. She could smell blood on the air, like an echo of the future reaching back to the here and now. She caught sight of Satria speaking to several other figures, the silver circlet Violet had always snickered at now shining atop her brow like the moon itself. Violet's heart leapt—there was a part of her that still felt just hours away from the Other's burning hell of a world and the certainty that they would all perish there. A part of her that had not quite believed that Satria could have escaped. But there she stood, atop a pale horse and fairly radiating power. Winter would soon have a new Queen.

Violet set Fleur down a short distance from the assembling forces. She still wasn't entirely certain of the nature of Fleur's presence here, and irrational or not, she still saw her as an innocent, someone to keep away from the shadowy daggers of Winter.

Rather too late for that, alas.

The thought vanished from Violet's mind as Satria nudged her steed to turn and locked eyes with Violet. Even from a distance, Violet could see her take a sharp breath.

Violet closed her eyes and stepped.

Not Apparition nor true Winter teleportation, Violet's magic carried her to Satria without the faintest hint of a sound. No trace of Bellatrix's curse remained. The dense magic of the Wyld, normally a barrier to all forms of teleportation, seemed to hinder her hardly at all now. Soon, she would consider the implications of that, and of all the other things, but it didn't matter in the least now, as she appeared just a pace away from Satria, making her household guard startle before they recognized Violet. A strange frisson ran through Violet as the silence stretched. There was a softness to Satria's expression that cast warmth upon her Winter beauty, and Violet must have been seeing things, because she could have sworn there was more shine than usual to Satria's eyes.

Tens, if not hundreds, of contemplative fae eyes rested on her. Violet felt none of them but Satria's.

Satria took a step forward and raised a hand, moving as if underwater. Tentatively, she cupped Violet's cheek, gently, as if too firm a touch might shatter her. Violet met her eyes and slowly blinked.

"He spoke true," Satria said, her voice less than a whisper. "You have returned to me."

Violet exhaled, her eyes fluttering as a sense of perfect calm radiated through her. "I'm so, so—"

She broke off, cocking her head to listen. A deep, thrumming tone rose slowly in pitch. A horn.

Satria pulled away. The Elder Wand took form in Violet's hand. All around, there was a sudden stir of activity, the assembled fighters moving with an outward calm that belied the predator's instinct within them, one and all. Alchemical silver rustled against leather as it was bared to the cold air. Warhorses snorted and kicked at the snow, eager for blood to be spilled. And, from somewhere along the court's walls, a second horn blew, challenging the first.

Sirius was right. Maeve was done waiting.

AN: Better late than never, I suppose! Hopefully the next chapter won't take me quite so long to get out. I've been a bit busy of late, but hopefully that's resolved now.

In any case, I also have a fic recommendation you might enjoy if you like this story—Colors of the Rainbow, by VeilWeaver. I've done a bit of proofreading and brainstorming with the author for it, and I for one am very interested in seeing where it goes. The main character is Harry's OC sister (not WBWL), who has a very interesting and unique twist on her magic based on light and colors. Give it a try! You can find the link as one of my favorited stories on my profile.