Gloved hands wrenched her off. Too close to her damp neck and drenched sex, they lost all reservations. They tugged at Erick's robe and groped at her flesh.

Her whole body tensed rigid. She screamed a newly learned spell. Flames burst from her skin, fueled by stolen power.

Her guards fell away to bat at what they'd mistaken for an illusion. Swollen, oozing burns argued otherwise. Wizard fire.

Glowing ash floated on the air and charred fragments of purple silk fluttered to the floor. Her bare skin shivered from the loss.

Eleanor snatched Erick's robe again and wrapped it about her naked body. "You have no idea what I'm capable of." If only it was more. That spell used up everything she'd taken from their captain. Hopefully, the battle wouldn't come down to Bistonians writhing under her grasp. Not again. "I'll kill each and every one of you if I have to." She retied Erick's robe taut at her waist. "Just do what I say."

But her guards blocked the door. Faces creased with a sick mixture of hatred and sexual frustration, they glared at her as if she'd betrayed them. As if she should be grateful for all the years of imprisonment. They'd misunderstood their roles.

"Yes, I'm a monster." That last word puffed out on a painful breath. "Whose side would you rather I be on? I can slaughter you all or I can help you kill them. My uncle is waiting. Now open the fucking door. Send the order to bring me enemy wounded. And tell my uncle to relinquish command to my father's second-in-command." If Phil died, Erick would spiral into another depression. "Move."

Their hesitation suffocated her. She didn't want to kill them. She didn't want to do any of this.

They turned from her in unison, as if of one mind and heaved furniture out of the way.

Uneasy breath filled her. Another battle. This wasn't supposed to happen. Not for months. Not until spring or summer, when she'd be strong enough or gone.

The door crashed open. Bistonian officers, winded and dripping with sweat, hauled in nearly dead enemies.

A graying major screamed at her men, spittle flying from his mouth. But he didn't stay for excuses. He dropped a body at their feet and stormed out, avoiding eye contact with Eleanor. They all did, to escape the dreaded chore. How had they kept Erick from seeing what she'd done in the last war? Could they block tonight's battle from his mind?

Her young guards didn't seem to understand but they followed the older officers.

"Wait, Marcus." She stopped the last one. "I need you to shuffle bodies. Stack the dead in the queen's quarters."

The few conscious wounded writhed on the floor and hollered curses at her. Blood spurted from their mouths and gushed from multiple wounds. One crawled to her, fixated on using her for escape.

Eleanor slumped to her knees beside him. Images of his son flashed through his mind when she stopped his bare hands. She drained him quickly but that didn't relieve the guilt. Tears burned her cheeks and her nose dripped. Salt filled her mouth and air puffed from her tightening chest.

The enemy soldier fell limp and lifeless. She couldn't let them live. They'd wake and kill Erick.

"Next." Her voice crackled and she had to repeat herself. Too slowly, Marcus dragged another body to her. "Faster," Eleanor snapped and it scraped her throat.

He brought her a nearly-dead. Barely anything trickled from him. This wouldn't be enough. If she hadn't wasted energy on the wizardry spell, she'd have what she needed.

Quickly, Eleanor drained the rest and tried to ignore their pasts. If only their thoughts didn't leak. Some bled their entire lives onto her mind, making her theft all the more heinous. By the time, she'd finished collecting what she could, she shook with sobs. Earth, she didn't want to do this.

She gasped in breath and tried to calm her aching mind for the next misery. "Feed the fire." Heat would ease the biting cold afterwards.

Logs thumped bricks in the fireplace and stirred ash that made her cough.

Eleanor tried to focus on the high-pitched buzz from outside. Everyone moved about so quickly. She laced a gentle tone through them. Lilting music, hot soup, thick blankets, everything comforting she could think of followed, like a scarf guided by a string through the front of a bodice. With the energy she'd stolen, she blasted her tone into their minds and tugged the scarf tight. The buzz lowered and softened, until half the Porteran minds fell still.

Thuds fell in unison. Bistonian soldiers slaughtered victims of her spell. No screams. No pain. Silently, enemy soldiers slipped away into the imaginary world she'd created for them.

Cold burst up her arms and legs. Drained, she curled up in a ball. The fire didn't help.

Outside, clanks and screams started again. At least three-hundred Porterans remained. Oh no. She'd hoped for fewer, much fewer. Their resistant minds wouldn't break without immense force from energy she didn't have.

Only about fifty Bistonian minds hummed outside. Earth, even if they all fought in their prime, rested and well-fed, they wouldn't be enough. Five years ago, Biston had a massive army of thousands and most perished in an outmatched battle.

She needed to talk to Phil. He would know what to do.

Footsteps sounded in the stairwell. Phil's mind reached out to her, racing with apologies that didn't make sense. Worries weighed on the soldier accompanying him.

But she'd been tricked before. Eleanor snatched Erick's sword and listened for some clue.

Something cold pricked the inside of her belly.

She hadn't expected Phil to come so soon, not without an argument. Only one pair of heels clicked on the brick steps. That couldn't be right. She felt two minds.

Everything awful she'd said to him these past few days squeezed and weighted her chest. Eleanor rose on wobbly legs and stumbled to the door, praying it was a trick or Phil carrying someone else.

Eleanor stepped out into the hall. Only pale light from the Old Moon spilled in through the window beside her.

The door to the stairwell before her opened.

A grimacing officer shifted Phil's weight on his shoulder.

Not again. Oh please, not again. She dropped Erick's sword but didn't hear a sound. Everything went quiet.

It isn't your fault.

But it was. She shouldn't have let him out there. He wasn't a young man anymore. She was supposed to protect him.

"Put me down," Phil grunted.

Gingerly, the lieutenant lowered Phil to the wooden floor.

Her uncle's papery face creased in pain. A gaping wound in his chest oozed dark fluid that spilled down his sides.

Eleanor dropped to her knees beside him. He'd lost so much blood. She could feel his heart struggling. A punctured lung hissed.

She bit her lip, wishing she'd reserved energy. The soldier who'd carried him had some but not enough. "Why didn't you go to your girlfriend?" The demon could have easily healed him, if not the elves who guarded her.

Phil coughed blood and shook his head. "Hates me," he wheezed. I'm sorry for what I put you through. It wasn't fair. I love you like a daughter, Ellie. I thought I was doing right for you. I never loved Erick more than you.

She wept, chest heaving and aching. "Don't." She closed her hands over his wound to stop the blood but it gushed between her fingers, hot and thick. Too much. She couldn't stop it.

There had to be enough energy somewhere.

The officer offered his bare hand. Despite Phil's protests, she took it, leaving the officer just enough to breathe.

"Marcus," she screamed.

"Don't Ellie." I'm an old man. I've lived my life. Another sob escaped her chest. "No."

When Marcus ran up, she didn't give him a chance to talk. She seized his ankle, under his pant leg and took what she could without killing him. He fell, heart still beating, lungs still breathing, eyes closed in sleep.

But it wasn't enough. The late hour, combined with their exhaustion left too little. She bit her lip. One option remained. One dangerous option, she'd never resorted to before. It could kill her and everyone in the palace if she couldn't control it. A spell from the demon.

"Don't." She couldn't think about that right now.

She'd heard Ceres had murdered an entire swamp with this spell but her men had survived. It could be done. But Ceres was a queen with libraries of spells in her head, practiced and confident. She'd killed an elven queen in battle and won wars against wizards and two elven nations by Eleanor's age. In comparison, Eleanor was nothing. A clipped bird in a rusted cage.

But she pressed one hand to the cold floor. Grit and splinters dug beneath her fingernails as she focused on the kinetic energy deep inside every molecule of the palace floors, walls and air. She just needed a small portion, just a few degrees.

The temperature draw spell tingled her tongue like mint oil. As the last word fell, luscious heat burst up from the floor. It washed over her and splashed inside. Sweeter than sugar and richer than thick cream, the taste tempted her for a swallow. A little more. A few seconds longer. Just enough to remember the flavor. She gulped it up and it caressed her insides like Erick's touch on her bare skin. A lover's moan fell from her mouth before she realized what she'd done.

Misty fog swirled out on her breath and the floor bit her fingertips with its sticky cold. Droplets of moisture froze and slicked every surface in the palace. Ice glistened in the pale moonlight.

Oh, no.

Eleanor jerked her hand from the floor.

Uncle Phil's shivering form clung to life. His blood crystallized all around him and fog barely puffed from his mouth.

In the distance, the battle hum rose to an even higher pitch. She hadn't killed them but she would.

Save our men, her uncle's slipping mind pleaded.

She pressed her shaky hands to his chest. Adrenaline pounded through her veins. Too much energy vibrated through her. It burst from her touch into Phil.

He flinched and shook from the force.

Her spell flooded out, shoving and pulling his flesh, forcing cells to multiply and fill in the gaps. It burned his nerves and seared their skin.

Teeth bared and clenched, Phil writhed and silently screamed for her to stop but she didn't have time to be gentle. Men were dying, the hum weakening. Biston was falling.

Phil coughed and wheezed when she forced air back into his patched lung. His heart raced at a dangerous speed for his age. She forced up a memory of his girlfriend in his arms but he didn't relax.

"Save them."

Adrenaline clouted her brain. She couldn't differentiate between the hum of the enemy and her few countrymen. Grace evaded her and her mind slipped in the masses. Frustration made her sloppy but she finally laced their minds together. She stole images from Phil's memories of home. Of the smell of fresh crops, of the lake on a warm summer afternoon, of comforting meals with family and a loving mother's hug. Strength she'd never before known crashed from her skull and through the masses of Porterans outside.

She crumpled to the ice-slicked floor, empty. Her torso ached as if she'd thrown up every organ. She shivered, not from the cold but the loss of delightful power that had vibrated and coursed through her. For a brief moment, she'd been more than this. More than an impotent demon.

Thuds didn't fall. Instead, metal clanked. Barely audible.

Eleanor listened for the few sentient minds. Less than a dozen amidst a sleeping three hundred. Five Bistonians and five Porterans.

Phil stirred beside her. He tried to rise, as if he could tip the scale.

"No. I'll go." Erick couldn't lose another oath-brother. Eleanor forced herself up, face unsticking from the ice. All of her body throbbed. Her trembling legs faltered and she leaned against the frozen wall to keep upright. Bare feet numb, she couldn't feel the floor that seemed to wobble.

Erick couldn't bear the loss of his queen Phil projected.

That future looked all the more uncertain in this current light. But she argued, "It's the deadliest piece in chess." But she wasn't a queen. A pawn, a lowly pawn reserved to trick a king into checkmate.

She grabbed the hilt of Erick's sword and pulled it free from the thin ice that glued it to the hall floor. She stumbled back against the wall, feet slipping on the ice.

Phil's hand steadied her. "Your part is done."

Chapter Seventeen.

December 27, 9544 AR

Valetta, Biston

Erick puffed out fog and sucked in stinging breath. Cold. Ice shimmered on every surface. "Violet?" Erick bolted up and scanned the room for her.

Her mask lay face down in dark ice, outer feathers tipped with what looked like snow. No, ash. Bits of silk and lace lay deeper, barely visible, edges darkened. Burnt.

They couldn't have burned her. The floor wasn't blackened. She had to be safe somewhere hiding. Maybe she'd used fiery magic in self defense. "Violet?"

His body tensed and pain shot through his chest. She was gone. They'd taken her.

How much time had passed? He rolled out of bed and nearly slid on his bare ass. Melting ice slicked his every step. Puddles glared in the morning light. He'd slept while they stole her? His stomach churned. How? "Phil."

Erick threw open his closet and tugged on clothes. They couldn't have gotten far. He rubbed his head, trying to loosen memories of last night. Why had Porter's army come for Violet? Reiley wanted Eleanor. None of this made sense. Dizziness clouded his mind and his whole body felt weak as if drained of energy.

Phil's heels clicked in the hallway and the door opened. Wrinkles had deepened on his face as if he'd aged ten years.

"Quickly," Erick demanded and knelt to buckle his boots.

Erick expected a damage report but the old man grumbled instead, "Have you checked on Eleanor?"

Oh, Henry would kill him. "They took her too?" Shit.

Phil shook his head and his Adam's apple bobbed with a hard swallow.

Of course not. Only Violet. Erick rose and snatched his coat. "Get a troop ready." He'd find Violet no matter where that bastard king took her.