“What is ‘reika’?” Dilys Merimydion murmured beside her. The Calbernan had declared that, since she was the one with whom he had negotiated, keeping her alive was the only way to ensure fulfillment of their bargain. He and one hundred of his fiercest warriors had therefore attached themselves to her to ensure her safety.

She spared the Calbernan leader a quick glance before putting the spyglass back to her eye. “A vile creature in need of killing.”

“Ah. Yes, many reika there are.” He leaned on his elbows, the thick ropes of his green-black hair flopping on the snow, and peered through his own spyglass.

On either side of Reika and Rorjak, the Valik and Galacia ice thralls sat tall and threatening in the saddle. The frozen Galacia no longer held one of Thorgyll’s mighty spears. Reika had commandeered it.

Dread filled Khamsin’s heart. The ice thralls—man and beast—and Rorjak’s army of Frost Giants and garm outnumbered her own forces three to one. Even with Blazing, she wasn’t sure she and her allies could stand against the power of a god made flesh.

Across the field, the armies of Summerlea and Calberna had assembled. To the left, the forces of Summerlea flew the Coruscate green-and-scarlet banners. To the right, beneath the blue-green banners of the Isles, Calberna’s tattooed warriors clutched their gleaming tridents and long, coffin-shaped shields. Fleets of archers were assembled before the infantry, while on the left and right flanks, mounted spearman and crossbowmen waited for the order to charge. Falcon rode at the center of the combined forces, the long curve of his Sunbow in hand. He had replaced his helm with the battle crown of Summerlea.

“That is a large army,” Merimydion observed. “Victory will cost many lives. Many times many. When your husband dies today, if you and I still take breath at battle’s end, then you will come, too, in the summer to the palace by the sea? With your sisters to be courted for marriage, yes?”

“No.” She put her spyglass down. “That will not happen, Sealord, no matter what the outcome of today’s battle. The likelihood that I will survive this is very slim. But if do, whether Wynter survives or not, my place will still be here in Wintercraig, defending my people.”

“Hhnn.” He made a noise somewhere between a grunt, a laugh, and a sigh. “This is a pity, Khamsin of the Storms. You are myerial-myerinas, a treasure of treasures. You would mother many great warriors for Calberna.”

On the field below, Falcon saved her from further discussion when he pulled an arrow from his quiver, nocked it, and raised his bow high. The archers along both flanks of the main army followed suit. Khamsin was too far away to hear the command, but all at once, arrows went soaring. The arrow from Falcon’s bow left a trail of blinding light in its wake.

“There’s our signal,” Khamsin said, grateful for the reprieve. Merimydion was exotically handsome, surprisingly charming in his own way, and most definitely all male. Had she loved Wynter any less, she might have been tempted to take him up on his offer of courtship. But for her, there would only ever be one man, and his name was Wynter of the Craig.

As the Sunfire arrow flew across the sky, the Ice King raised his sword and slashed it forward.

The Frost Giants roared. Long, loud, terrible, the roars generated gale-force winds—freezing, roiling clouds of snow and ice that raced across the field, swallowing everything in their path. They caught the arrows in midflight, tossing them away like matchsticks.

In the Summerlea ranks, a wave of heat swelled up in response, melting snow and ice as it billowed out to meet the howling blizzard winds. Khamsin felt energy ripple across her skin as the two waves of opposing magic clashed on the field. Storm clouds erupted, boiling up high and fast. Lightning crackled across their surface. Rorjak released his Gaze, and the building storm turned into a white wall of whirling ice and snow.

Ice shot like arrows from massive storm clouds, but Falcon managed to melt the hailstones with his weathergift before they reached the mortal troops.

The tempest called to her gift, power tingling in her skin. She wanted to reach out and shape the flows of winter ice and summer heat. But to do so now would give away their position. She needed to be much closer to Wynter before she revealed herself. The wind blew in her face, making her hair stream out behind her. So long as Falcon kept the storm in the sky, with the wind blasting in her direction and carrying her scent away from the field, she and Merimydion had a chance to flank the Ice King’s army.

The Frost Giants roared again. Another wall of ice and snow blasted across the field. This time, on the heels of the howling blizzard winds, hidden from Summerlander view, garm and ice-thralled bears, wolves, and snow lions raced towards the mortal lines.

“Let’s go,” she said. “Even with Sunfire arrows, Falcon’s not going to last long against that.”

By the time she and her companions circled behind the rear flank of the Ice King’s army, the magic of Summer and Winter were clashing as ferociously in the sky as their armies battled on the field below.

Falcon’s center line had fallen back, attempting to draw the Ice King’s army in so that the cavalry on both flanks could catch them in a pincer and pick off the garm with cross fire to give Khamsin time to get as close to Wynter as possible. But as boiling blue clouds of vapor poured over the armies, and the fallen rose again to add their numbers to the Ice King’s, it became increasingly obvious that the pincer strategy was going to fail—and fast.

She was going to have to use the storm to slow them down, but the minute she did, Rorjak would feel her magic and track it back to her. She would lose the element of surprise.