The barrier was gone.
Jason felt its absence the way a man feels a missing tooth with his tongue—constantly, irritatingly, impossible to ignore. Months of work. Layers of protection woven so tightly into the land around the cottage that nothing should have been able to see in, let alone walk in. And a single higher ice elf had unmade it simply by existing near it.
He stood at the edge of the ruined street with his arms folded, watching his family.
Amarok sat on a broken wall with Rok cradled against his enormous chest, humming something deep and tuneless. Luna hovered over Ylva, checking her stitches every few minutes and getting snapped at every time. Mae was feeding Lirael bread soaked in milk. Tauriel stood slightly apart, frost still glittering in her hair, holding Nova with the stiff care of someone afraid of breaking something precious.
They were alive. All of them.
And every single one of them was a target.
