The palace had looked shockingly close, but as with the mountains themselves when we first started this journey, it didn’t seem to get any closer for a long time. It didn’t help that our pace had slowed even further now that we had to break our own trail. We took turns at the task, swapping regularly and taking much more frequent breaks.

I occupied myself by keeping my internal fire running at full heat, carefully balanced just below breakout level. I kept expecting it to wink out when we approached too close to the palace, and my fear easily fueled the constant burn.

But finally, finally the palace did begin to creep closer, and no icy fingers reached out to steal my fire. At some point the snow had stopped as well, the latest fall only deep enough to cover Sterling and Oliver’s trail. I no longer begrudged a single aching, tired muscle from the pace at which we’d pushed ourselves the last few days. We’d made it just in time.

The now clear blue sky began to slowly change, tinging with pink and orange before deepening into indigo. I frowned at the palace which now loomed over us, close but not close enough. We wouldn’t make it today, after all.

Giselle seemed as reluctant as I was to stop, but neither of us wished to face the Snow Queen in the middle of the night, either. So when Giselle noticed a small cave off to one side of our current track, we reluctantly changed course. I had been far too distracted to gather wood, so we picked up what we could now. As we worked, I felt the silent presence of the Ice Palace casting its sinister shadow over everything. I found myself facing away from its fantastical shape as often as I could, but it took me some time to realize what was bothering me.

“There are no animals,” I said.

Giselle looked up from breaking off a small branch and peered around with a frown.

“It’s so silent.” I swept my own gaze around the area but saw nothing to refute my statement. “When was the last time you heard a bird, even?”

Giselle’s brow crinkled in thought, but she couldn’t come up with an answer.

“I’m sure I haven’t heard one since we saw the palace,” I said. “I couldn’t work out what was bothering me so much at first.”

I noticed a slight tremble to Giselle’s hand as she reached for a couple of twigs that had broken off her branch and fallen to the snow. I bit my lip. I shouldn’t have said anything. The whole situation was unnerving enough.

So when Giselle later gave a wordless cry from the mouth of the cave where she had gone to fill a pot with snow, I jumped up immediately from the small fire which I had been tending. As I hurried to join her, various terrifying possibilities raced through my mind. But when I staggered to a stop in the cave entrance, my mouth fell open. I hadn’t expected this.

“That’s…”

“Beautiful,” she breathed, not taking her eyes from the sky. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“I don’t remember seeing it last night…” I couldn’t blame her for her wonder.

“We were in a deeper cave,” she reminded me. “And I don’t remember coming out after dark. But perhaps this only happens here. Part of the enchantment of this place.”

Enchantment seemed the right word for it. I had never seen or even imagined such a thing in any of the kingdoms I had visited. Spectacular ribbons of violet and turquoise and emerald streaked through the dark night sky, throwing reflections of color down onto the white snow. As we watched, the ribbons pulsed and danced across the heavens.

“You don’t think they could hurt us, do you?” asked Giselle, after we had stood there for endless minutes in entranced silence.

I shook myself slightly and looked at her. But irresistibly, my eyes were drawn back to the incredible phenomenon.

“Surely not?” I whispered.

“It’s hard to believe something so beautiful could come from someone as evil as the Snow Queen.”

“Perhaps it doesn’t,” I said. “Or even if it is the result of one of her enchantments, not everything about them is bad. Think of the one that protects Valley View from the storms and snow. Her magic is a corruption of the objects of the godmothers, so it must have had some good purpose originally.”

Giselle nodded, her eyes still riveted on the sky. “I can’t imagine how I’m going to sleep now.”

It was a long time before we dragged ourselves away to cook some food, and then we brought it back to eat at the mouth of the cave. Eventually we lay down to sleep there, back-to-back, leaving our little fire to die out on its own and relying on my heat to keep us from freezing.

Neither of us thought we would actually be able to sleep, not with the outline of the Snow Queen’s palace black against the unending beauty of the sky. But eventually our long day of exertion overcame us, inexorably drawing us down into sleep.

* * *

I woke with a start, Giselle mumbling and twitching in her sleep beside me. A cold, clear day greeted me, the sky returned to its normal shade of blue. The stillness made the absence of other sounds stand out. Nothing flew through the sky or rustled in the trees. And not a sound emerged from the palace which, unlike the day before, now seemed closer than I remembered.

If I didn’t know better, I would believe us all alone up here, confronted with an empty building of ice. But we weren’t alone, and we’d do well not to forget it.

The reassuring warmth of my inner fire still burned, unaffected by the proximity of the Palace of Ice. It reassured me, somewhat, but I still remembered how easily it had been taken away. And how foolishly I had then behaved. I had worried that the powers had changed me, but in my efforts to prove I was the same person I was before them, I had overcompensated and rushed into action without proper thought.

The truth was that they had changed me. As had the rest of my experiences in Eldon. And I had to work out how to take all the new parts of me and make myself into a stronger whole. Because, with or without my powers, there was no going back to who I was before.

And now my fire had returned—and I was glad for it—but I couldn’t make the same mistakes. My new power was merely a tool. It didn’t define me, and it wasn’t what made me strong. My mind, and my determination, and the hours I had spent building my skills were just as valuable. As long as I remembered to use them.

Quickly I prepared some food and cleaned up our little camp, my mind lingering on the many unknowns about to confront us. When Giselle appeared, sleepily rubbing her eyes and claiming some breakfast, I was staring down at our packs.

“I think we should leave them here,” I said.

“Good morning to you, too,” she murmured. She took a bite. “Leave what?”

“Our packs.”

When she looked surprised, I raised my brows. “Do you want to face unknown dangers from a bizarre palace built of ice and a woman claiming to be some sort of queen of winter with a giant, heavy pack on your back?”

Giselle blinked at me, obviously still struggling to think so early in the morning. “I can’t say that I do, now that I come to think of it.”

I nodded once. “Exactly. If we leave them at the back of the cave, they should be safe enough.” I bit my lip. “I hope.”

It would be a deadly trip back down the mountain after we rescued Oliver if something happened to our packs while we were gone. Especially since he hadn’t taken his when he left Valley View, so we would have to share Giselle and my meager supplies between the three of us.

But that was a problem for later. We had to actually rescue Oliver first. And while I would love to think it was just a matter of marching into the palace, burning the place down, and marching back out with Oliver in tow, I didn’t really expect it to be so easy. Who knew how long we would be gone?

Giselle’s stiff posture as she broke a trail ahead of me told me she felt as unsure as I did. But neither of us said anything. Since neither of us had any intention of abandoning Oliver or Eldon, there was nothing to be done but press forward.

I just wished my mind didn’t insist on dwelling on all the awful things Oliver might have endured since being brought here. What would this Snow Queen do to him if he refused her wishes? My heart sped up a bit. And what if he agreed?

Shivers shook me only to alternate with bursts of heat so intense I could barely control them whenever I remembered Oliver’s arms around me and his lips against mine. Surely he would not agree to marry this woman who was tearing his kingdom apart. Assuming marriage was, indeed, her goal. Surely he would not.

The closer we got, the more incredible the ice palace became. The blue-green color reminded me of the marble used in the royal palace of Eldon, but it was different, too. Translucent in a way the marble couldn’t match.

A long sloping staircase emerged from the snow and led up to huge double doors. I didn’t exactly want to barrel through the front entrance, but I could see no other openings at ground level, and our progress with the snowshoes was so slow that I hated the idea of trying to circle the structure looking for another way in.

When Giselle fell back to let me take the lead for a while, she noticed my eyes fastened on the still-distant doors.

“We might as well,” she said. “Somehow I don’t think we’re going to slip into this queen’s domain without her noticing, whichever entry we use.”

I winced. “I suppose you’re right.” I glared at the ornate entrance, adding in a mutter, “Doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

I was still taking my turn at the front when Giselle’s sudden indrawn breath made me pause. I scanned our surroundings looking for a threat. I sighed when I spotted a dense flurry of snow approaching like a moving wall. Great. Just what we needed.

But when I began to push forward again, Giselle stayed frozen in place. I looked back at her and then back toward the incoming snow, examining it more closely.

“Wait, is that…” I looked up at the blue sky, still as clear as when I had opened my eyes this morning.

“It’s not coming out of the sky,” breathed Giselle, her fear clear in every word.

“Well, magical or natural, we’re too close to the palace to get caught in a blizzard now,” I said grimly, pushing forward again. I glanced back over my shoulder. “Giselle! Come on!”

The younger girl shook herself from her daze and hurried across the snow to join me.

“There’s something about it,” she called, as she half-slid, half-ran. “I don’t think we want to get caught in it.”

I didn’t stop again to ask what she meant because I felt all too certain she was right. But despite our increased pace and the nearness of the palace, the distant flakes rushed far too quickly to meet us. I tried to push my legs faster, but I could already see we weren’t going to make it.

The strange flurry approached us, moving horizontally to the ground and broad enough to stretch up above my head. The dense heart of it was still a little distance away, but the first flakes, dancing in front, had nearly reached us.

They came at us from the side, a strange whistle of wind driving them along, and one flew past just in front of me. I tried to keep moving, although my body wanted to freeze in shock. It had been huge, and the flake had glittered strangely as it passed.

A scream from behind made me whirl around, nearly falling as my snowshoes tangled. Giselle was still moving forward, but a small stream of red ran down her cheek from a long, narrow gash along one of her cheekbones. While I watched, trying to understand what had happened, a sharp pain raced along the arm which faced toward the encroaching snow.

I stared as the flake whose icy tip had cut clean through my layers to pierce my skin continued on its way, gusting up and then down in the strange breeze.

“Don’t stop,” screamed Giselle, waving me onward. “They’re not snowflakes—they’re iceflakes. And their edges are razor sharp.”

I had never heard of such a thing and, judging from her face, neither had she. I scrambled to face myself forward again, ignoring the sting in my arm and the warm trickle I felt making its way down my sleeve. The cut hadn’t been deep, thanks to all my protective layers, and I had no time to tend it now.

As I hurried forward, slipping and sliding awkwardly in my haste, more iceflakes flew past. They appeared like perfectly formed—but huge—snowflakes. Except now that I looked more closely, I could see the hard lines and glitter of ice instead of the soft white of snow. I had never seen such a thing before and, given the heavier weight of ice, the wind that blew them shouldn’t have been strong enough to lift them in such a manner.

Giselle gasped and moaned, and I gestured for her to come up beside me. “Get ahead,” I yelled at her, continuing to gesture wildly as she pushed past me, panting and gasping.

As soon as she entered my line of sight, flame rushed to fill my hands. I sent it streaming between us and the oncoming wave of iceflakes. The hiss of steam overpowered the wind as the flakes melted. But even as I sent out another burst, a flake danced up and over it, driven by the unnatural breeze, to swing down toward my nose.

I jerked my head from its path and snapped my hands into fists. I had reacted without thinking again. Fire wasn’t what was needed here.

Still pressing forward, my snowshoes sliding desperately across the snow, I thrust out my palms. A hot wind rushed from them, and I gestured around us. Like I had done in the blizzard, I created a whirlwind of air around us, with us in the still center. My wind overpowered the breeze that drove the flakes, and they spun away from us, some melting in the sudden warmth.

It was working. Except we were still rushing madly toward the palace doors, and keeping a circle of air around two moving people was far more difficult than keeping it around four immobile people. I battled to stop it from sweeping us away, along with the flakes. And we both now looked as if we were involved in some sort of mad dance, ducking and weaving to keep away from the flakes that made it through my imperfect shield.

The last stretch before the ice stairs seemed to extend forever, the densest part of the flurry having now hit with flakes coming at us from every direction. When Giselle reached the first step, she flung herself at it, only to slip and fall back into the snow. Snowshoes weren’t made for climbing ice stairs.

I threw myself down beside her, gripping her arm to keep her from rising.

“Take them off,” I shouted above the roar of my wind and the fury of the flurry. My hands remained out, my wind tightening around us. It was infinitely easier to control now that we were sitting still.

For a moment I forgot Giselle in my concentration, until I felt a tugging at my feet. Looking down, I saw that she had stripped off her own shoes, and now struggled to free my boots. I thrust my legs out in front of me to make her job easier, and she smiled at me with tight lips. She had a rip at her shoulder and on both legs, and red still dripped sluggishly down her face.

As soon as she had finished, she tugged me up to standing, my wind coming with us. But as she stepped up onto the first step, she nearly slid back again. I risked a glance downward and saw that the first few steps, the ones within reach of my hot wind, had started to melt, water dripping off them as they lost their shape.

“Jump over them,” I shouted, steadying Giselle from behind. I tried to lift my wind slightly as she leaped forward. Keeping it off the stairs but still low enough to protect us was a delicate balance I didn’t think I could achieve while running up stairs.

Eventually I gave up the effort and let my power rip at the stairs. We would just have to move faster than the wind could melt them.

“Go! Run!” I screamed at Giselle, who hesitated above me, looking back down to track my progress. She turned and dashed upward, and I followed.

I kept my eyes beneath me, watching each step, my whole focus on the next stride upward. So when the next step failed to materialize, the ice stretching out instead into a flat platform, I fell. Sliding forward across the smooth surface on my knees, I felt my grip on the wind slacken and then die. Giselle looked back at me, her eyes jumping to the flakes that rushed in to fill the quickly stilling air.

Sprinting the last steps, she grabbed at the icy handle of the door and tugged with all her might. The door swung open so smoothly that she nearly joined me on the ice. Regaining her balance, she swung it wide and then held it there, beckoning for me to join her.

Slipping and sliding, I forced my feet under me and ran as fast as the ice would allow, not slowing as I barreled through the doorway. The clang of heavy ice against heavy ice made me stop and turn. Giselle stood with her back against the now closed door, her breath heaving.

“Without your power, those would have cut us to ribbons,” she said, her wide eyes meeting mine.

“What did I say?” I asked. “Welcome to the Snow Queen’s domain.”