“We have to stop,” Leander shouted.

“This is as good a spot as any.” Although Sander did not want to stop, he knew there was nothing else they could do. Ice pellets battered his face around the protection of the goggles. He couldn’t see farther than a few feet in any direction and, if pressed, would not be able to say for certain they were on the right path. The cold seemed to have frozen out the raging fever he’d set out with back at the truck. Sander wasn’t sure if that was a good or bad thing. It was time to take shelter from the elements, to get something warm in their bodies. A hot cup of coffee sounded like heaven.

“Stay here. I’ll set up the tent,” Leander said, killing the engine. He swung to the ground and plodded to the sled.

“I’m not an invalid,” Sander muttered. Despite Leander’s protests, he helped raise the small tent. They erected it next to the snowmobile, attempting to put a buffer between them and the weather. Wind and snow ripped at their jackets, the temperature dropping fast. It was so cold that Sander’s teeth chattered and his fingers shook inside his gloves.

At least he wasn’t sweating any longer.

Small blessing.

Sander climbed into the tent after retrieving enough food to see them through the night, sat cross-legged, and pulled a Mylar blanket around his body. Leander did the same after zipping the tent closed. The waterproof material of their temporary shelter shuddered and rippled against the gusts from the storm, reminding Sander of a bird startled into flight. There was something ominous about the sound that Sander couldn’t put his finger on. Once or twice it seemed as if the shudders and ripples whispered malevolently, the voice of Death closing in.

“Here. Heat packets.” Leander activated one and handed it across to Sander.

Accepting the packet, Sander pushed it down the front of his coat. Heat radiated through the layers of clothing, a small, much needed comfort.

“This, too,” Leander said, handing across two white pills.

Sander didn’t argue. He popped both into his mouth and rooted out his canteen for a drink.

“You feeling better? You look a little better,” Leander said while setting up a pocket stove. In minutes he had a fuel tablet lit and a tiny carafe of water sitting above the flame. After dumping instant coffee into two aluminum cups, Leander handed one to Sander.

“Little bit. Fever’s mostly gone.” Sander accepted the cup and waited for the water to boil. He didn’t want to eat until he’d warmed up his insides.

“Could be the meds, though. We’ll have to watch it,” Leander said. Once the water was hot enough, Leander filled Sander’s mug, then his own.

Using a small spoon, Sander stirred the coffee then brought the cup to his mouth for a cautious sip. He wouldn’t admit that he still felt like crap, meds or no meds. The fever did seem to be gone, or at least less severe than it had been, which was a step in the right direction.

After a moment of consideration, Sander said, “We’re lost, aren’t we?”

Leander methodically sipped his coffee. “Yes. I tried to keep us on the same heading after the curve, but the weather made it impossible. If we’re still anywhere near the trail, it’ll be a miracle.”

“That’s what happens when you can’t see five feet in front of your face.” Sander didn’t blame Leander. It was nothing short of a miracle as well that Leander had made it back to the truck on his own. This was a much longer distance to travel in blizzard conditions. As directional as Sander was in his homeland, all his navigational skills went by the wayside when the world narrowed down to a small bubble of space that measured feet instead of miles. There were no landmarks to go by, no telltale terrain distinctions to guide them.

Cursing under his breath, Sander sipped the coffee again.

The need to be back at Kallaster had grown stronger with each passing hour until frustration gnawed at his insides and made it difficult to think of anything else.

“Maybe the storm will clear come morning,” Leander said, sounding dubious.

“Maybe I’ll sprout wings and fly,” Sander groused. In an uncharacteristic fit of anger, he threw the remains of the coffee and the cup at the wall of the tent. The cup bounced off, sending splatters of coffee across the material, and landed on the ground near Leander’s foot.

Leander arched a brow but said nothing.

Snatching up the trail mix, Sander tore open the package and filled his mouth. He chewed as if he were punishing the seeds, nuts, and raisins, a muscle in his jaw flexing after he swallowed.

When he’d finished eating, Sander stretched out and crossed his boots at the ankles. He ignored the throb in his thigh from the gunshot and a general malaise hanging on from his fever. Staring at the wavering top of the tent, he turned his attention to the current problem at hand.

Namely: surviving the night.

Chey estimated the time to be somewhere between two and three in the morning. She abandoned the search and retreated to the couch, finally giving her swollen fingertips a rest.

All her searching had gotten her exactly nowhere. If the hall tree was a doorway, she’d not found the trigger to open it.

Reclining, she rubbed her belly and stared at the dark ceiling. The baby was active, and for that she was thankful. Her worry over her other children, however, brought the sting of tears to the back of her eyes. Were they sleeping? Had Helina spent more time with Elias, feeding him lies? What about Emily and Erick? Would she do the same to them? Try and turn them against her?

Pressing the heels of her hands against her eyelids, Chey drew in a few deep breaths and regained control of her emotions. She didn’t have the time or the luxury to wallow in self-pity and fear. What she needed was a plan.

Shouting and screaming and beating at the door wouldn’t do anything but upset her and her unborn child. Chey knew the guards had no intention of opening the door anyway, perhaps even if she faked labor.

What then? What else?

If she managed to pry open the lock, the guards would physically prevent her from leaving the parlor. It wasn’t as if she could go all stealth ninja and fight her way free. Not with this belly.

She could hope that Raune somehow worked his way free, overtook the current guard, and freed her to regain control of the castle.

What if Raune is dead?

She had to face reality. It was possible.

Chey’s thoughts continued to dart from one scenario to the next, as they had all night, looking for ways out. Looking for an opening. For answers.

The next thing she knew, hands pulled her up from the couch. A flashlight beam slanted back and forth across the parlor, half blinding her and adding to her general confusion.

“What’s going on? Raune, is that you?” Chey asked. She must have fallen asleep. Dammit.

Led into the low-lit hallway, Chey blinked away her disorientation to find that it wasn’t Raune who held her but Helina’s trusted guards. The men, wearing grim expressions, guided her into the hall and eventually the grand foyer, where several lit candles on thin iron pedestals cast the only illumination. Darkness lurked beyond the windows of the castle, proving daylight had not yet arrived.

Waiting with Helina near the door were Chey’s children. Chey gasped with relief to see them whole and hale, without a mark on them.

After she was released by the guards, Chey hurried to them and carefully dropped to a knee. Gathering the children to her, she hugged them fiercely and pressed urgent kisses to their cherubic cheeks. Elias bore it stoically, as if he thought he was too old for such nonsense.

“Mom, why do you have a bump on your head?” Elias asked.

Realizing that her kids were decked out in snow gear, Chey swallowed down a fresh bout of unease and met Elias’s eyes. “I took a spill, that’s all. I’m fine. Why are you dressed in your coats and snow boots?”

Down deep, Chey knew. She knew what Helina had planned. Helina had, after all, warned her before.

“We’re going to the mainland, Momma! Elias and me and Erick are in charge of getting you to the docks and onto the boat,” Emily said, chiming in. Her eyes lit with childish excitement at the idea of a grand adventure.

There were only two guards and Helina in the foyer. Chey frantically weighed the odds of her success with an unexpected attack as Emily parroted phrases no doubt put in her head by Helina.

If she could stun one guard, grab his gun and round on the other, she might have a chance. Helina, that crusty bitch, was too old and fragile to take her down physically.

Two against one. Could she do it? To lead her children into a blizzard was tantamount to suicide. Erick, the youngest, was the most vulnerable. Chey needed to keep the kids in the shelter of the castle if they had any hope of survival at all.

“Momma, are you listening?” Emily demanded.

“Yes, I’m listening, darling,” Chey said.

“It’s time. Bring her coat.” Helina gestured to someone out of Chey’s line of sight.

Pressing to a stand, Chey glanced over her shoulder, dismayed to see two more guards approaching the foyer.

Four against one. Even if she hadn’t been heavily pregnant, Chey knew she couldn’t win that fight.

She accepted a coat from one guard and tried to meet his eyes. He avoided eye contact, making Chey suspect that Helina had forewarned them.

Chey drew on the coat and took her time doing up the zipper.

“Gloves are in the pockets. Here are your boots,” the second guard said, putting a pair of snow boots at Chey’s feet.

The boots were heavy, with thick tread. Chey considered using one as a weapon. Desperate, feeling that she needed to do everything in her power to keep her children out of the elements, she hesitated. Silence fell upon the foyer. The guards and Helina were waiting for her to pick up the boots and put them on, Chey knew.

“I wouldn’t,” Helina said quietly, as if she’d read Chey’s mind.

Refusing to give credence to Helina’s comment, Chey turned to face the guards.

Such a risk she was taking.

A necessary one.

She not only risked Helina’s wrath, but upsetting her children.

Surprise flickered across the expressions of all four guards. They pinned wary looks in Chey’s direction.

“As wife of the king, I order you to stand down. To continue with your current course of action will be deemed treason when His Majesty returns, and the crimes dealt with accordingly,” Chey said, meeting each man’s gaze. She infused all the authority she could muster into the command.

“Mom, what—”

“Momma!”

“Silence!” Helina demanded, cracking the end of her cane on the floor. “You will remove her at once—”

“Not only will your crimes be aptly punished, but I’ll make sure the king understands you willfully acted against my wishes. Against me. And his heirs. I won’t need to encourage harder sentences when the king hears what you’ve done,” Chey continued, cutting Helina off. One guard wavered, doubt surfacing in his eyes. He was not one of Helina’s original guards, but one of the staff at Kallaster.

“These are the words of a desperate mother, you must remember,” Helina said to the guards. “She will say and do anything, even lie, to turn you against me. Remember what I told you about the message we received of the king.”

About to snap that Sander was not dead, Chey checked the impulse. Helina had, at the very least, not tortured the children with that news. If she argued it out loud, she would be causing her kids immeasurable grief.

“Mom, what’s going on?” Elias demanded, frowning.

“Just a moment,” Chey said to her son, not breaking eye contact with the guards. One still seemed unsure, as if he might be swayed to Chey’s side. To the other guards, Chey added, “Don’t think for a moment that you haven’t signed your own death warrant. Simply being here, knowing what she plans to do, puts you in grave danger. After it’s over, she won’t hesitate to have you—”

“Guards! Listen not a moment longer. I’ve made my promises, and I intend to keep them,” Helina said.

Erick tugged at Chey’s pant leg, wanting up.

“Let’s go,” one of the guards said with a gesture toward Chey. A gesture that meant he expected her to finish dressing and get on with her journey.

The lone guard who might have stood up for her backed down, Chey noticed with dismay, as his brethren made their choice.

A choice to stand with Helina.

Chey kissed the top of Erick’s head and changed into the snow boots. The guards were too on edge now, too wary, for her to attempt an attack.

“Put your gloves on. We’re heading to the docks, then to the mainland,” she told her children in a firm voice.

“But Mom—” Elias quieted when Chey gave him a direct look.

“Hurry now. I’ll answer your questions when we get to the mainland.” Chey made sure each child had their gloves on and hoods up. Drawing on gloves of her own, she straightened and sent Helina a withering look. Not that she thought it would do any good. Helina felt no guilt, no remorse, for what she was about to do. There wasn’t an ounce of compassion in that woman’s body.

Chey flipped up her hood, tightened the strings beneath her chin, and led the children through the foyer. A frigid gust of wind took Chey’s breath away as she stood on the threshold, overlooking the snow-covered bailey, after the guard opened the door. Someone had recently cleared the pathway from the castle to the far gate, snow piled high on each side.

“Make sure they reach the gate safely,” Helina said to the guards.

Holding Erick and Emily’s hands, trusting Elias to follow close at her side, Chey crossed the broad porch and descended the steps to the bailey. Out in the open, away from the protection of the porch roof, Chey experienced the true force of the storm. Wind tried to knock her sideways, blowing snow and sleet into her cheeks and eyes. Automatically, she reached down to tug the children’s hoods further over their heads, attempting to protect them from the worst of it.

I can do this. We’ll make it. We’re strong. Repeating the litany, she carefully made her way across the bailey to the gate, following the shoveled path. Between the darkness and the sideways snow, she found it difficult to see. Navigating the terrain outside the walls of the castle would be much harder.

A guard pulled open one side of the heavy gate and waited for Chey to move on.

And so she did.

Into a blinding blizzard, with the temperature so cold her bones were already shivering. Snow drifts partially covered the road leading away from Kallaster, the same road the citizens had taken yesterday, and the one that had brought Helina here. At least Chey could still make out the general direction, using her boots to kick snow away from the asphalt.

The creak and bang of the gate closing, cutting off Kallaster for good, sounded like a death knell.