A demon would have toyed with him but she was the same girl who'd chased him with flowers she'd twisted into his hair when he wasn't looking. Full of smiles and giggles. He'd loved her then in a way he'd never understood. And now...

He swallowed. Now she turned everything upside down. He still stumbled about, dizzy. One clear thought repeated in his head-he needed to find her. He couldn't lose Eleanor to the cold.

"Over there," Phil pointed ahead. The creases of his face lifted with his voice. "Tracks."

Deep shadowy footprints interrupted the path as if someone had dropped from the sky and darted off into the woods. Hard-packed, undisturbed snow had led up to this point. Could Eleanor have done this? "How?" It didn't seem right.

"Magic." Phil wriggled his gloved fingers in the air, then unbuckled the straps from Erick's chest and secured them to a tree trunk beside the path.

Shivers slithered down Erick's spine like an icy serpent. "Wait, Phil."

With the strength of a man decades younger, Phil grabbed Erick's thick coat sleeve and tugged him into the dense evergreens. Pine needles scratched and slapped Erick in the face. Just beyond, in a clearing, they both halted. Phil's grip dropped.

Before them, blackened needles fell like ash from dead trees. Icicles dripped from shriveled branches. Death spread like darkness through the woods as far as they could see.

Unnatural. They shouldn't be here. Something bad was about to happen. Erick could feel it in his gut. They had no magic to defend themselves against whatever had claimed this forest.

"Ellie must have passed through here. Who else could have done this?"

The footprints stopped at the center of the clearing, as if an invisible body waited there.

"No, this isn't Ellie." Something stronger did this. Something that could float up into the air. Ellie didn't have that kind of magic, nor the strength to power it. Erick scanned the trees but nothing looked back at him. Someone watched them, though. Its quiet gaze stabbed needles of tension into his neck. "Back to the path."

When he stepped back, his heel scraped what shouldn't have been. His back slammed against it. He spun about.

Ice. A solid, uninterrupted wall of ice. It blocked their way. Through its milky surface, the path quickly disappeared, hidden by white.

"Run." Erick raced toward a gap in the trees but the wall rushed up from the snow. It hissed and crackled as it hardened. He chased its edge. His boots crunched deep into the snow and suction tugged against him like tiny hands. In his gut, icy fingers squeezed and scratched. If he could just grab hold of the wall's edge to pull himself to safety. He strained but couldn't reach. Cold burned his gasping lungs and constricted throat.

Phil panted beside him and somehow gained the lead. The old man threw himself beyond the edge, hand grappling for Erick's. His fingers wrenched down Erick's wrist and caught on his glove. But the rumbling wall shoved away Phil's arm. Erick's glove ripped off with Phil's thrown grip.

Shit. Erick's heart tumbled in his chest. He lurched toward the growing edge and somehow managed to grab hold. He pulled, wrenching the aching muscles in his back. But the wall closed over his fingers and seized his hand. His body jerked on the tether of his arm and screams tore from his throat. Frantically, he dug his heels into the ice but couldn't pull free. Ice bit at his skin, its venom numbed him.

The wall closed, edges joined in a circular prison. Trapped. Cold sweat beaded on his forehead as he scanned the bare snow for his captor. Nothing. No one.

Something wanted him alive. For what?

He couldn't be here. He needed to find Eleanor. Darkness had nearly crept across the sky. Stars shone in the dark blue. She'd freeze.

Erick dug at the ice wall with his free hand. Shavings fell from his numb fingertips. Though he glanced back frequently, something could sneak up on him while his back was turned. Fear trickled down his neck.

"Let her go. Just creep back to your crumbling kingdom of sexist asses." His mother. She stood behind him.

His back went rigid. Erick turned about expecting the blade that sparkled in her shaking hand.

She gasped in breath and sobbed it back out, face distorted like a crumpled piece of paper. Her knuckles whitened around the hilt of a sword. Its narrow tip swayed less than an inch from Erick's chest.

Afraid that a quick word could spring her into action, he carefully drawled, "Mother, she'll die in the cold."

"No. That's not why you're here. It was the same with your father. I'd made it here, almost free when they found me. Mercenary elves dragged me back." She spat out the words and the blade shook erratically. "I'd rather have died than go back." Her shoulder tensed as if readying to make the blow.

He flinched back from the blade. Heart tumbling, he scrambled for something to save himself. He threw words, like sand, "You have Phil now. He loves you."

She shook her head and blinked tears, lower lip crushed against her upper lip. "I lived in a tower guarded by racists and he did nothing. That wasn't love." A sob escaped and she held the rest in with a curled wrist.

Pain shouldn't push his chest. He couldn't look at her. The tears on her cheeks made his eyes sting. He unclenched his jaw but didn't know what to say. Tongue pressed against the roof of his mouth, he could only swallow.

She took a deep breath. "I won't let you do to her what they did to me." Her voice broke.

He looked up.

Both her hands tightened around the hilt while her swollen eyes blinked streams of tears.

Heat sank through his chest and slumped his shoulders. Useless, his arms hung, though he wanted to hold her. "I'm sorry. I didn't know." But he did. He'd known. He'd just been so fixated on the misery she'd rained on him, that he hadn't thought of her. He hadn't thought of why she'd hurt him.

"I don't want to hurt you," his mother sobbed. "Will you go back?" Please, say you'll go back.

He couldn't, not without Eleanor. "I love her."

The blade pierced his chest. He couldn't jerk free. It drove in, tearing through flesh and bone. Pain squeezed him. He couldn't push her hands away. Couldn't breathe. Gasped for air that wouldn't come. Burning throbs spread from the wound and spilled down his sides. Beyond his struggling heart, he barely heard his mother.

She wept over him. "I loved you in my way. But you look so much like him. I let them have you to give you what I couldn't. I thought they'd make you a better man than I could have but you're the same." She yanked the sword free.

Erick screamed with what breath he had left. He writhed, empty and burning. Blood spurted from the wound. His heart skipped beats and darkness ebbed at the stars and moons above him.

No. He struggled to push back the darkness. He needed to save Eleanor.

Snow crunched beneath his mother's stumbling steps. She sobbed as she dragged the bloody blade away. It scraped along the hard surface.

Please.

But his wailed thought went unanswered. She didn't seem to hear.

Jaw clenched in agony, he couldn't speak. He couldn't beg for her help. He couldn't save Eleanor like this.

Blood and life seeped into the melting snow. Pain drifted, replaced by numbing cold that spread through his chest. Oh, no. Erick tried to tug his hand free from the wall. He couldn't die here. Not yet.

He'd turned his present card upside down. That should have prevented The Tower card from falling.

Yet despite his struggles, Erick couldn't move. He only hastened the oozing numbness up his neck and into his skull.

He'd failed. He'd never let any woman close to him, afraid they'd be like his mother. Now he lay here dying because of that failure. If he'd accepted Eleanor, if he'd seen her for who she was, he wouldn't be here and she wouldn't freeze in the snow. And Phil. What will my mother do to Phil? Earth, this is all my fault.

All for what? What had he been so afraid of losing? He hated the cursed crown. He had no cravings for power, no head for diplomacy. Loss and mourning had consumed him. What the hell did Ellie see in him?

Something scraped ice and crunched in the snow. He couldn't turn his head to look.

Phil. Earth, he hoped it was Phil. But the rhythm was off. Quick and fluttering, like a woman.

Shit. His mother. Come to finish the job. He coughed blood and struggled against closing darkness.

Eleanor's face appeared over him. Angelic except for the scowl on her face. "You're such an idiot."

An ember of warmth flickered heat through his chest. He clung to it, hoping for just a few more minutes. "Ellie," he tried to say but his mouth wouldn't work.

"Don't." She dropped to her knees and burned his wound with her tiny hands.

Unbearable agony arched his back and lurched his gut. If he could scream, he'd beg her to stop.

Chapter Twenty-Three.

December 30, 9544 AR

Damien Pass, San tarra Mountains

Pain bludgeoned Marilyn's chest and sobs gushed out. Why hadn't he just gone home? He wouldn't have writhed beneath her blade. Marilyn squeezed her eyes shut but the image stained the backs of her eyelids. His blood, her son's blood dripped down her blade into the snow. The red splatters on her pant legs seeped through and should have chilled her skin. But they burned.

She hadn't wanted to hurt him. Marilyn wiped at the tears that stung her eyes and cheeks. Her empty insides churned and she wished she could go back to undo what she'd done. She'd only meant to save the girl. He'd refused to set the girl free. Marilyn had no other choice.

But it was all for naught.

Eleanor had climbed over the wall. Despite Marilyn's warnings, the girl repeated the same mistake Marilyn had twenty-five years ago.

Earth, that girl.

Marilyn wiped her dripping nose with her thick coat sleeve and sniffled. There was nothing more she could do, short of dragging Eleanor to Gildon. The thought lifted Marilyn's heavy gut a bit but no. That would be wrong. Marilyn would be no better than the girl's elven mother if she did that. Damn it.

"What did you do?" Phil's voice demanded.

"Not enough." She should have finished him but she couldn't. Her son, her own flesh and blood had bled at the end of her blade. He'd have slowly died from the wound. That should have been enough.

Marilyn opened her eyes and found Phil standing before her in the pink moonlight.

The hard bulge of his brow shadowed his face but softened as his gaze searched hers. "You didn't." He exhaled, seemingly relieved. "He's okay. Earth."

The jerk would probably gloat soon about the good in everyone. He had no idea how close she'd come to saving Eleanor. Bitterly, Marilyn muttered, "Yes. You won. She chose him." Marilyn stepped around Phil to trudge through the snow, back to Damien Pass.

"Wait, Marilyn." He grabbed hold of her wrist and tried to turn her around. "Everything is as it should be. We can start over, now. You and me."

"I already am starting over. Go see to your protege." "Eleanor has him."

Marilyn's chin tensed and strained her lips. She covered her mouth but couldn't hold back renewed sobs. They shook her chest and squeaked through her cold fingers. That girl. Earth, why didn't Eleanor listen?

"Shhh, my love." Phil pulled her into his embrace.

Marilyn wanted to shove him away but she needed him, just one last time. She hid in the warmth of his chest and her wet cheeks stuck to the fur of his coat. Her whole body trembled as ache burst out her throat.

"It's okay. He won't hurt her. He's not like his father."

How could he be any different? Erick looked just like Raulin. Even his voice and cadence. Only a few stray thoughts of worry and kindness didn't fit the mirror image. Could that slight difference be enough? Marilyn's tongue swelled against the back of her throat and she nearly choked.

Had she done wrong here tonight?

Marilyn shifted her weight back onto her own two feet. No. Twenty-five years ago, when she fled through this mountain pass, she'd wished for someone's help. Eleanor deserved that chance for escape. "You don't know what you're talking about. You can't see what happens behind closed doors." Marilyn lifted her face from the sticky fur. She swallowed and pushed back out of Phil's arms. "Better to err on the side of caution."

"No, Marilyn. Don't. Please. I need you."

"Enough to keep me locked in a tower, for fear I'd leave you?" "No. I would never."

"But you did." He never tried to rescue her. Her chest caved and heated. To keep from crying, she touched her lips.

Phil reached for her, as if he meant to comfort her. "Don't." Marilyn jerked her shoulder away.

His lower lip fell away from his mouth and his gaze faltered. "Didn't I take good care of you?" He threw images at her of their nights together, seemingly meaning to soften her to him.

But it wasn't enough to ease the pain in her chest and gut.

Marilyn spun about and ran. Spells sputtered from her lips to bend moonlight and lift her from the snow. She ran on crystallized vapor. No tracks.

Yet he followed. His feet crushed snow as he ran only a few feet behind her. "Marilyn."

It shouldn't hurt. She shouldn't want to crumple into his arms and sob how much she loved him. It wasn't love. Dependence. She'd known nothing else for the past ten years in her prison.

His panting breath and crunching steps faded behind her.

Free. That word should taste sweet on her tongue and tickle like a melting snowflake. But tears stung her eyes and salt filled her mouth.

Something cold draped over Erick's chest. Colder than the snow at his back. It fought every painful breath.

His lids scraped up his eyes. Vision blurred, Erick made out a dark smear. A faint perfume wafted up his nostrils and sped his aching heart. "Ellie?" he coughed.

She didn't respond.