After trudging through the snow for hours, the horse began to protest by shaking her head and baying with displeasure. She needed water, food, shelter, and rest. So did he.

But he couldn’t stop.

Magnus leaned forward and stroked her mane. “Please keep going. You must. I need you.”

In response, the mare let out a mighty neigh, then bucked and threw Magnus from the saddle. He fell hard to the ground, but immediately scrambled up to his feet. Quickly, he tried to catch her reins, but they slipped through his gloved fingers.

Finally free, the horse galloped off into the distance.

“No!” he yelled after her.

He stared after her bleakly for several long moments of disbelief.

“Yes, wonderful,” he finally muttered. “Here I am, with nothing but a cloak and a thin, useless pair of gloves to keep me from freezing to death out here in the middle of bloody nowhere.”

He started walking, noting the position of the half-moon, which he could occasionally see through sporadic breaks in the clouds. The snow had now risen to his knees, making it impossible to move quickly.

The moon moved behind a heavy cloud, and once more his world was plunged back into darkness. Yet, he continued to move forward.

Another hour. Two, maybe three more after that. He’d lost track of time long ago.

Finally, he slowed to a halt. He hadn’t wanted to admit it, but now he was certain and there was no denying it: he was well and truly lost.

He wondered how the king would choose to end the princess’s life.

Would he be gentle with her, a girl who’d already experienced so much pain? Or would he be cruel, take his time torturing her before finally letting her soul go free?

King Gaius was so afraid of a sixteen-year-old girl that he insisted on having her captured so he could kill her himself.

A girl loved by her people, not only for her beauty, but for her spirit and courage.

Magnus had been cruel to her. Dismissive. Rude, cold, and unsympathetic.

Last night was the cruelest he’d ever been. He’d ransacked her chambers and stolen the earth Kindred while she was out shooting arrows with Kurtis. And then the last thing he said to her was that he never wanted to see her again.

His behavior was unforgivable.

But even then she’d seen past it, had insisted that she saw something more in him.

Magnus wasn’t any different than the king. He, too, was afraid of the princess. Her spirit was so bright, he’d been blinded by it.

And yet, he’d never wanted to close his eyes to block out that light.

“I will kill him if he touches her,” he managed to choke out, his throat raw. “I will tear his heart out.”

To think, not so long ago, Magnus longed to be like his father. Strong, ruthless, decisive. Immune to any form of remorse.

When he’d learned that it was the king who had ordered Queen Althea’s death, Magnus had ached for vengeance. But instead of acting on it, he’d doubted himself at every turn.

He was through doubting himself.

Magnus forced himself back to his feet. Weakly, slowly, he trudged onward, until the cold became so great that, despite his thick winter boots, he couldn’t feel his toes.

So this is how it ends, he thought.

Just as he’d been given perfect clarity about his life, it would be taken away. What a cruel joke.

He looked up at the black sky and started to laugh, snowflakes melting on his cheeks and sliding down to his chin.

“All right,” he said, his laughter growing sharper and more pained. “I’ve lost. I’ve lost and I’m lost. If only Kurtis could see me now.”

He should have taken out the boy’s eyes as well as his hand.

So many regrets.

If these were indeed his final moments, he would much rather think about Cleo than this. She’d once accused him of having a cold heart. Soon that would be very literally true. He’d heard that freezing to death was a great deal like drifting off to sleep—peaceful, with no pain.

But he needed pain. He needed to feel something so he could keep fighting against it.

“Oh goddess,” he said aloud. “I know I haven’t been your most humble servant. Nor do I believe in your radiance, now that I know you were only a greedy Watcher with stolen magic. But, whatever you are, whatever is out there looking down at us stupid mortals, please hear my prayer.”

He wrapped his arms across his chest, trying to harness what little warmth he had left for as long as possible. “Send me pain so I know I’m still alive. Help me continue to suffer. For if my father has already killed her, then I need to live so I can avenge her.”

So dark, that night. He could see no stars through the clouds. Nothing to light his way. Only the cold press of snow all around him.

“Please, goddess,” he implored again. “Give me a chance to make this right. I promise I won’t ask for anything else, ever again. Please”—he lowered his head to the snow and closed his eyes—“please let me live so I can kill him. So I can stop him from ever hurting anyone else again.”

Suddenly, Magnus heard something in the distance. An eerie howl.

His eyes snapped open and he scanned the endless darkness. The noise rang out again. It sounded like the howl of an ice wolf.

He glared up at the black sky. “I was trying to be sincere, and this is what I get in return? A hungry wolf to tear me apart on the worst night of my life? Much gratitude, goddess.”

The clouds parted and, gradually, the moon became visible again.

“Better,” he muttered, pushing against the snow and forcing himself to his feet. “Slightly better.”

With the help of the dim moonlight, he scanned the area again, searching for something, anything, that might offer him help. There was a forest up ahead, past the snowy plain. It wasn’t nearly as good as a village, but the trees might offer him enough warmth and shelter to survive the night.

Magnus trudged toward the forest, keeping one hand on the stolen sword at his side in case any hungry ice wolves decided to interrupt him.

He made it into the forest, and immediately set about searching for anything that might serve him well as shelter. But when he finally saw exactly what he was looking for, he was certain his eyes deceived him.

It was a small stone cottage, no larger than something that might belong to a Paelsian peasant, but to him it might as well have been a palace.

He approached cautiously and peered through a dirty, ice-encrusted window, but couldn’t see anything inside. No smoke rose from the chimney. No candles were lit. Just barely, he was able to climb three chiseled stone steps that led up to the door.

He tried the handle. It was unlocked. The door swung open without effort.

If this turned out to be the work of the goddess, he promised to start praying much more often.

Magnus stepped inside and felt around in the darkness until he found an oil lantern and a piece of flint. He struck the flint and lit the wick.

He nearly sobbed when the room swelled with light.

Taking the lantern in hand, he inspected the cottage. It was a single room, with a straw bed in one corner, equipped with a few ragged, but dry, quilts. In the opposite corner, he saw a large hearth, and some cooking pots.

On top of the hearth, next to another lantern, he found an effigy of the Goddess Cleiona, emblazoned with the symbols for fire and air. That meant that this cottage had at one point been occupied by an Auranian—or a Limerian who was secretly loyal to the Auranian goddess.