Vhalla was reminded of the ruins from which she had pilfered Achel. It was a cosmos of magic, sparkling infinitely before her. The shining colors bled from one crystal to the next in magical conversation. Vhalla could see dark pockmarks from where men had tried to claim powers from the cavern.

“There’s no time.” Aldrik strode forward, and she fell into place behind him.

Vhalla clenched her fists, opening her Channel. The crystals surrounding her compounded her magic, making it greater than she had ever felt. She tried to brace herself for any surprise that could lurk around any corner, and she prayed she would be ready.

VHALLA SHIVERED. IN the dim light, the puffs of air marking her breaths almost looked magical as they dissipated through her cracked lips. It was a long night after long days, but she felt awake and alert.

“Are you all right?” Vhalla asked. “Are the crystals affecting you?”

“They are, but I will be fine. We won’t need much time.” His voice was low and garbled, the light shifted strangely over his shoulders.

They crossed through a small archway into a different antechamber. The glowing light followed their movement, and the crystals responded to her footsteps in silent welcome. Vhalla searched for the place where Victor may be hiding, but she couldn’t find anything. It seemed a straight shot, almost like how a temple would lead to the Mother’s pyre.

Vhalla stretched out her magical hearing, but she couldn’t even hear breathing.

Aldrik stopped before a massive door. It radiated a similar power to what Vhalla had felt in the North, though deeper and stronger. Crystals had grown overtop it, resisting the glow that had been following Vhalla and Aldrik in shining protest.

“I need you to open those,” Aldrik ordered.

“Why?”

“Do you want me to risk touching crystals further?” he snapped.

“Oh . . . of course,” Vhalla mumbled. She started for the doors, her feet heavier with every step. Vhalla paused, her hand a breath from the crystal.

“What are you waiting for?” Aldrik growled. “Open it.”

“This-this is the barrier, isn’t it?” She turned and took a long, hard look at the man who had taken her to the threshold of fate.

He froze.

“Victor couldn’t have gone farther than here. He hasn’t . . .” Now that she was here, the idea that Victor could open the barrier because he was a Waterrunner like Egmun seemed asinine. This was a greater magic. “Let’s go back the way we came.” Vhalla tried to sound casual. “Maybe we missed Victor along the way. We can wait outside.”

She took a step, which he met with force and speed. His hand closed around her bare wrist, painfully tight. An agonizing feeling sunk through her suddenly shaking bones as her stomach plummeted from her body.

“Aldrik, your hands are cold,” she whispered in horror. She had relished in the hot lightning of his touch too many times to be mistaken when the fire was suddenly absent. She had learned to love her prince for all he was, for how the fire in his veins gave light to his passions and an inferno to his anger. Nothing about him was ever cold. “Let me go.”

He began to laugh slowly. The unfamiliar icy fingers bit deep into her flesh. The noise echoed disjointedly from his body, not belonging to the lips they emerged from.

Vhalla tugged hard against his grip. “Let me go!” She withdrew a hand, frozen in horror as Aldrik’s face rippled, dissipating like steam.

“No, I don’t think so, my little Windwalker.” Victor’s voice, cool and calculating, it echoed through her worst nightmares come to life. “Do you know how long I have bided my time? Waiting, waiting! Everything has been going according to plan, and you will not take this from me now.”

Victor shed the last of his meticulously crafted illusion like a snake shedding its skin. The man grinned triumphantly, revealing a malicious glee.

Vhalla screamed and raised her hand. Victor produced a crystal from his pocket, slamming it into the base of her neck, setting her to sputtering. Ice crackled around it, making a collar around her throat, alight with Channel-blocking crystal magic.

She coughed at the shock of the cold. Her magic may be gone, but her fight wasn’t. Vhalla raked her nails across his cheek. Victor took the hit, laughing gleefully. “Is that any way to treat your mentor?”

“You are not my mentor!” she screamed through the ice biting her neck.

“Petulant bitch,” he hummed gleefully and shoved her against the crystal barrier blocking the door.

Light exploded behind her eyes as the crystals forcefully extracted power from her. Victor’s magic assaulted her Channels, and Vhalla felt like nothing more than a funnel for his will. His abilities as a Waterrunner shone through, and he pushed the magic out of her, into the crystal barrier at her back, beseeching it to open for his dark desires.

The world shattered, and Vhalla collapsed limply, her skin awash in the magic of crystals. Victor braced her as he watched the doors swing open before them.

“You dumb child,” he hummed, throwing her numb body over his shoulder. It felt as if part of her had been ripped out, and all that remained was frayed seams. “Did you really believe he, of all people, would bring you here?”

The world buzzed, and Vhalla’s eyes lost their focus.

“Only his magic would lower the barrier. Magic that Egmun had to use to restore the barrier because of his lovely, late mother.” Victor threw her onto the ground. Vhalla’s head cracked against the stone, and she groaned, attempting to roll onto her knees. “Oh, don’t even try it.”