She heard steps coming up the stairs and turned, expecting to see Jax.

Schnurr led two other men into the trophy room. The two men firmly held Jax’s arms. Their fingers pulsed purple and blue across Jax’s skin. His tongue had been turned into ice, spilling out of his open mouth. Her friend shivered and shook, every now and then a spark of fire would lick away at the ice forming around his hands and arms. It seemed all he could do was keep his blood from freezing.

“Let him go,” Vhalla ordered quietly.

“You’re not in a position to make demands.” Major Schnurr ran his hands along the trophy tables. “What did you come here looking for, Vhalla Yarl?”

“Your knowledge and your life.” She fearlessly threw her threat at his feet.

Major Schnurr didn’t even trip. “Did you want—this?” He dropped on the table the book he’d been holding. It was one Vhalla had decided would be useful when rummaging through his study. Schnurr deftly opened it to a page.

Vhalla read the old Western tongue with ease. “The Sword of Jadar.” She raised her attention to the major. “Do you have it?”

“The weapon was stolen from us and destroyed.” Major Schnurr snapped the book closed.

“When?” Vhalla asked, not believing him for a moment.

“About ten years ago,” the major replied. “Solaris’s minister began tampering with powers that he had no idea how to tame. Though I’m surprised your dear crown prince didn’t tell you of it,” Major Schnurr sneered.

She faked anger at Schnurr’s verbal jab, but was really focused on Jax. How were they going to get out of here alive? Vhalla’s hand dropped to the last of the fasteners on her thigh.

“I wonder if you’ll figure out—I don’t need the sword.” Vhalla drew the axe, and the whole room stopped in breathless wonder and horror. She saw the look on Jax’s face; it was pure fear and loathing. The Knights wore expressions of ominous glee.

“You will let us go.” Vhalla held out the axe toward the major.

“Vhalla, you are poor with your numbers.” The man chuckled. “You forgot our two Northern friends who escaped the Night of Fire and Wind. The same two that we decided to help smuggle West in order to try to bring you to us later.”

Her arm trembled. The Knights were behind the Northerners who’d killed Larel at the Crossroads?

“And you’ve forgotten again, or didn’t really look, I came with four men.”

She turned to the Knights holding Jax. Jax’s eyes looked down the stairs.

“There is no way out of this, Vhalla Yarl.” Major Schnurr took a bold step forward. “If you attack me, he dies. If you think you can save him by attacking the two holding him first, he dies from the archer and Waterrunner at the foot of the stairs.”

The major rounded on her. Vhalla tried to put together an alternative solution. A different approach than what she was handed.

“Or you kill us all, and accept his blood on your hands.”

She stared at the axe. Kill them all. She could save Jax. She would kill them all. Vhalla looked up at her friend. She’d be gambling with his life, and the odds weren’t on her side.

“Or—give yourself to us and save your palms from being washed in more blood. Let your friend live.”

Vhalla looked down at the axe. It seemed to shine brighter, as if it knew it could soon gorge itself on life. Vhalla wanted to give in, to satiate its need—her need—its need.

Then her eyes found Major Schnurr, in all his joyous triumph. If she gambled with Jax’s life, win or lose, she’d be no better than the men she loathed. She’d be trading in whatever scraps of humanity she still clung to.

Jax scowled at her and shook his head, making muffled protest noises.

With a soft sigh she closed her Channel and dropped the axe. Live or die, she’d do it with some shred of principles.

Major Schnurr slammed his shoulder into her back, knocking her forward. Vhalla caught the table to try to right herself, and he quickly grabbed her wrists. Vhalla felt the sickening, unnatural cool of shackles, and she was forced to watch as they were clamped once more on her. The shackles buzzed quietly, the crystals activating, blocking her Channel and even the faintest possibility of a magical resistance. Of course they still had crystal cuffs in their trophy room.

Fire rode on a scream up Jax’s throat, hissing through the ice. Vhalla couldn’t stop herself from trying to reach him, but Major Schnurr kicked her down, placing his boot atop her temple and causing her to see stars.

“He’s a liability and a smear on Western nobility,” Major Schnurr mused. “Kill him.”

“You said you’d let him live!” Vhalla cried. But her words were lost as a Knight buried an ice dagger to the hilt between Jax’s ribs. The Westerner wheezed and coughed up blood as he slumped.

“You think . . . that’ll stop me?” Jax laughed and lunged, his side already soaked to his waist with blood.

“Jax, stop!” Vhalla screamed. She didn’t want this. She didn’t want to watch another one of her friends die.

A second ice dagger pierced his back. Jax was thrown to the floor and didn’t get up. He wheezed and stared at her with dulling eyes.

“You said you’d let him live!” she raged at Schnurr. “You said you’d let him go!”