Rorjak screamed and swept his arms up. Ice-cold wind from the Craig rushed to his call, barreling through high reaches of the sky with incredible speed. The fierce jets of frozen air slammed into the tops of her storm clouds, shearing them away and robbing her storm of its deadliest power. Starved of energy, her cyclones grew thin and ropy, then disappeared altogether.

Having muzzled her storm, the Ice King turned back to Khamsin. He slammed his free hand in her direction, and razor-sharp icicles shot from his fingertips, flying fast as arrows across, straight towards her.

“Calbernari!” Merimydion shouted. “Makatua! Poru myerina. Shields! Protect the woman!”

Calbernans leapt in front of Khamsin, and Rorjak’s ice missiles exploded against their shields, showering them all in a powdery cloud of shattered ice.

Rorjak responded with another fierce, bone-curdling scream and an upward thrust of his hand. The ground beneath the Calbernans rocked and quaked, then split as huge columns of ice shot up from the ground, pulverizing rock in its path and throwing the Calbernans off their feet.

No sooner had the ice columns erupted than they melted down, the water oozing out like clear jelly. It covered the fallen Calbernans, then hardened into an icy shell, cocooning half the men, trapping the others with thick manacles of ice around legs and arms. Rorjak unleashed his Gaze on the lot, freezing them solid.

His path once again cleared, Rorjak turned the full force of his Gaze not on Khamsin but on the sword in her hand. The sword began to shake, and fire and ice battled for dominance. Rorjak began to advance towards her. Clutched in his right hand, Wynter’s sword, Gunterfys, was now covered with ice and glowing with blue light. She tried to strike it with lightning, but every bolt diverted before it hit, as if some invisible, impenetrable shield surrounded the Ice King and his sword.

The power of Rorjak’s Gaze grew stronger with each approaching step. Kham’s hand went numb. The muscles in her arm strained as she fought to keep her grip on her now-violently-shuddering sword.

Several of the ice-trapped Calbernans had managed to hack themselves free. They rose again, but this time as thralls who set upon their countryman in a blizzard of ferocity. A dozen more of Merimydion’s remaining warriors leapt into Rorjak’s path, putting themselves between Khamsin and the vengeful god. They formed a wall of shields, and held the wall as ice from Rorjak’s gaze coated the shields three inches thick. He swept them away with a searing blast of frost and a slash of his sword.

Krysti, who had been icing garm with Thorgyll’s spear, ran towards Rorjak’s unprotected back. The snowy falls of Rorjak’s white hair stirred like the sensory hairs of a garm. The Ice King turned with the speed of a striking snake. He batted the spear away with his sword and swept Krysti off his feet with a swipe of his left arm.

“Krysti!” Kham cried.

The boy flew through the air and landed limp as a rag doll amidst a sea of dead garm and broken Calbernan bodies. He didn’t move again.

The ice thrall, Galacia Frey, picked up Krysti’s dropped spear and began freezing Calbernans to her left and right as they rushed to surround Rorjak.

Khamsin lunged towards Rorjak, sword upraised, but Gunterfys slammed into Blazing with stunning force. Sparks and ice showered from the two blades. A second, fearsome blow from Gunterfys sent Blazing spinning from Kham’s grasp. Rorjak caught her throat in a tight grip and lifted her off her feet.

Stripped of Roland’s sword, death mere moments away, Khamsin did the only thing she could think of. She flung open the gates to the source of her power and called the lightning. All of it. Every last ion of energy that crackled through the roiling black storm clouds overhead.

Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!

One after another, thick, hot, blinding bolts of concentrated electricity arced down from the heavens, following purple threads of plasma to their silver-eyed source. Deafening thunder boomed again and again. The ground shook, knocking combatants off their feet. The wild, hot music of the storm sang through Khamsin’s veins, and fire, hotter than the sun, filled her body.

She thrust out her palms, pressing them against the frozen white expanse of Rorjak’s chest, and released the power gathered inside her.

Light and heat exploded with a last, deafening boom. Rorjak and Khamsin flew backward in opposite directions and slammed to the ground.

Breath rasping through her bruised throat, ears ringing, Kham pushed to her feet, retrieved her sword, and staggered across the icy ground to the Ice King’s fallen form. There, her legs gave out, and she fell to her knees beside him. A smoldering, charred black hole was burned through his chest plate, but Khamsin wasn’t fool enough to think a little lightning could kill a god. She lifted her sword.

“Forgive me, Wynter.” Tears filled her eyes. Killing him would be like driving Roland’s sword through her own heart, but the Wynter she knew would rather die than let Rorjak live. She wiped her eyes resolutely and prepared to strike the killing blow. “I love you. I love you more than I ever knew I could love anyone.”

The bare skin beneath it was blackened as well, but the thick layer of ice that coated him had broken away and not re-formed. A faint hint of golden color had leeched back into his skin. Hope fluttered in her breast. Roland’s sword had melted the Ice Heart in Wyrn’s Temple. Was it possible her lightning had done the same to Wynter’s heart?

She laid a hand over his lightning-struck chest. The thud that answered was so slight, she almost missed it, but it was followed by a second thud, then a third. Weak, sluggish, but a heartbeat nonetheless. A living, beating heart.