Mother Nature was a cruel mistress. She took and she took, and when she finally gave, it was only for the briefest of minutes. Sander stopped in his tracks when the sun unexpectedly broke through the clouds. Elsewhere, the sky still looked brooding and gray, but in that moment, the sun’s rays glistened over the snowy landscape, giving him hope that the storm cycles were nearing their end.

Leander paused, too, and glanced toward the sun. Then he looked over his shoulder to meet Sander’s eyes.

While they traded a meaningful look, the clouds ate the sun, sinking the day into a familiar winter gloom. Sander refused to give up hope that this wasn’t a good sign, that it had been some freak occurrence rather than the impending end of the season. He saw the same determination in Leander’s eyes—right up until the gloom thickened and the clouds layered the heavens once more.

Within fifteen minutes of their brief interlude with the sun, snow began to fall.

It was almost enough to break a man, Sander thought.

Not me. Not today.

He walked on, shoulders hunched against a fresh gust of frigid wind.

The snow fell harder.

Why did it always have to come down to the wire? To stress and anxiety and turmoil? Chey paced through the library, wringing her hands, willing Raune and the guards to come through the door. As far as she could tell, they were on the cusp of the two-hour time limit, which meant that soon, very soon, she would have to make a decision about the children.

About escape.

If Raune and the guards had somehow been overtaken, there was no hope for her to best Helina’s men.

She glanced at the sleeping kids. Even Elias had finally succumbed, though not before wearing himself out completely. He’d skulked through the room, listening at the door often, all while whispering the details of freeing Raune. How he’d watched the guard dart past the room he’d been hiding in, how he’d summoned Raune and explained what was happening. Raune, having grasped the situation immediately, worked open the door in minutes. The two had hunted the hallways, first subduing the guard who’d run to the screams of fire, then painstakingly located Raune’s men.

Chey half focused on the tale and half fretted as time marched on. Once Elias joined his siblings in sleep, Chey had taken over the duty of watchman, pausing near the door to listen for movement. For voices.

It was agony not knowing whether Raune and his men had been successful—or whether they’d been taken by surprise and subdued.

Or killed.

What should she do? Raune had told her to get into the hidden passageways and hide. It would take more men than Helina had at her disposal to search all the hidden corridors, which meant that Chey might shift her children to vacant rooms via the tunnels, always staying just out of reach of danger. It was a better idea than subjecting her kids to the weather.

When she thought the two hours was up, Chey decided to give it another half hour. It meant being more vigilant, more on guard. The children needed the rest, she knew, in case they had to go on the run.

So she paced near the door, tense and alert, waiting for some kind of sign.

At first, Sander thought the distant buzz was far-off thunder. As it grew louder, he stopped and pushed back his hood to hear better, twisting his shoulders to look behind him. The silhouette of the forest was only a hazy gray mass whose treetops had disappeared into a heavy bank of clouds. Falling steadily, the snow was not as thick as he’d seen it, certainly not up to blizzard standards, and for that he was grateful.

Homing in on the strange buzz, he frowned and framed his face with a gloved hand to help block the wind. The shapes appeared on the same trail he and Leander walked, distorted in those first seconds until the hurtling snowmobiles defined themselves against the gray day.

Leander appeared at his side, a gun in hand. “That should be Mattias and Gunnar,” he said. “Do I have permission to fire if it’s not?”

“Yes.” Sander didn’t hesitate to give the order. There was nowhere to hide, nowhere to take cover in time to avoid the machines driving their way. Out here in the elements, with visibility compromised by the weather and help too far away, they were forced to defend themselves, violently if necessary. Sander knew the farmer’s sons wouldn’t think twice about taking him out, if that was their objective.

Tension tightened Sander’s shoulders as the snowmobiles drew closer. A hand lifted in the air from the driver of the machine on the right. Losing the tension in favor of stark relief, Sander waited until the snowmobiles had come to a stop before closing the distance to meet them. Mattias drove one snowmobile, Gunnar the other.

“About damn time,” Leander shouted, embracing Gunnar with one arm. The gun had been tucked away out of sight.

“Glad to see you both in one piece. We came across the wreck and weren’t sure how bad the injuries might be,” Mattias said, exchanging a brief hug with Sander.

“We’re all right. Bumps and bruises, nothing more,” Sander said. He noted that Mattias and Gunnar were both pulling sleds. One happened to be the sled formerly latched onto the back of the wrecked snowmobile.

“Should we expect company?” Leander asked, taking over the driver’s position from Gunnar.

“Not any time soon. We left the men at the farm secured well enough to give us a good head start. Joska’s dead,” Mattias said. “We’ll explain when we reach shelter.”

Sander mounted the machine behind Mattias, content to let his brother drive for now. He was somewhat unsurprised to hear of Joska’s death, realizing that the guard must have been the traitor working against them.

“The snowfall looks to be letting up again. We should be able to make good time,” Sander said.

“Won’t make it to the next farmhouse before nightfall, but we’ll make it eventually,” Leander said, giving the machine gas. He pulled away, and Mattias soon followed.

The men fell to silence as the snowmobiles picked up speed, ferrying them across the frozen landscape.

Sander’s determination to reach home by late tomorrow evening reached a fever pitch. If the weather held and they could refuel somewhere along the way, he didn’t see any reason why they couldn’t reach the docks by midafternoon. Then it was a matter of fighting the terrain overland to reach Kallaster Castle.

Soon. He would be home soon.