The ice-pixie archers fired first.
Their arrows descended from the crystal branches in a glittering storm. Each was scarcely longer than a man’s finger, but unnatural cold followed every shaft.
“Cover!” Kaylor shouted.
He raised his blue-and-silver shield. The dragon emblazoned across its face vanished beneath spreading frost as arrows shattered against it.
Grazim took position beside him.
The formation required no discussion.
Priest beside paladin.
Fendor watching the open flank.
Isamu poised to exploit the first weakness.
Hexen ready to become the beast.
Nethnarel facing the two women who had waited beside the frost giant’s throne.
They had stood this way before.
Perhaps it was the formation in which they had died.
The Herald of Fire moved ahead of them.
The Shard of Everlasting Life floated beside him, its inner light shifting between white and crimson. His burning wings stretched across the frozen court.
Grom the Everlasting rose from his throne.
Both of the frost giant’s heads stared hungrily at the shard.
“Give it to me.”
The Herald answered with light.
A brilliant bolt erupted from his hands and crossed the garden. It struck Grom in the chest with enough force to shake frost from every crystal tree.
For one instant, the giant vanished inside the radiance.
Then the light faded.
Grom remained standing.
A blackened wound marked his chest, but the attack had done little more than enrage him.
Both heads roared.
Grom drew a massive axe from behind the throne. Its blade was broad enough to split a wagon, and red runes glowed along its frozen edge.
Lady Frost raised her sword.
Dark Voice extended one black-gloved hand.
Above them, the surviving pixies nocked fresh arrows.
The battle began.
Dark Voice struck at the heroes with a wave of terror.
Her hood remained empty, but a scream emerged from the darkness beneath it. The sound became images inside their minds—graves opening, cities falling, and six nameless bodies lying beneath a blood-red sky.
Kaylor staggered.
Isamu lowered his head and endured.
Grazim tightened his hand around his holy symbol.
Nethnarel raised both arms.
“Not this time.”
She tore at the spell with her own magic.
Violet light collided with the darkness. For an instant, the two powers twisted together above the garden like fighting serpents.
The terror broke.
Dark Voice tilted her empty hood toward Nethnarel.
“You remember more than you should.”
Nethnarel’s pale hair lifted around her horns as wild magic gathered.
“I remember disliking you.”
Lady Frost answered with a spell of her own.
She swept her sword across the air. Ice gathered over its edge, becoming a crescent of white-blue power aimed directly at the heroes.
Nethnarel recognized the forming magic.
She cast a counterspell.
The two spells met.
The ice fractured in midair and burst apart, showering the garden with harmless snow.
Lady Frost smiled.
“Better.”
Nethnarel did not answer. The effort had already cost her more than she wished the enemy to know.
Grom charged.
Each of his steps shook the frozen terraces. The great axe rose above both heads and came down toward the Herald.
The celestial guardian crossed his arms.
Fire formed a shield before him.
The axe broke through it.
The impact drove the Herald to one knee.
Kaylor attacked from the giant’s right. He carried a sword in each hand now, one burning with divine light while the other moved in swift, disciplined arcs.
Both blades struck Grom’s leg.
The first opened the frost-covered flesh.
The second entered the same wound.
Grom’s hostile head snarled down at him.
The laughing head looked almost delighted.
“Your second blade remembers you.”
Kaylor pulled both swords free.
“I will find the rest of myself later.”
Grom swept the axe sideways.
Kaylor crossed his weapons and caught the haft rather than the blade. The force lifted him from the ground and threw him across the terrace.
Isamu reached him before Grom could follow.
The monk leapt onto a fallen crystal trunk, ran along its narrow surface, and struck the giant beneath one jaw. The blow turned Grom’s head but did not stop him.
Grom backhanded Isamu from the air.
He struck the crystal floor, rolled, and forced himself upright before the giant’s boot came down.
Hexen roared.
His human form expanded beneath his green robes. Bones shifted, hands became immense paws, and dark fur swept across his body.
A cave bear charged Grom from behind.
At Hexen’s call, wolves appeared throughout the garden.
They came from passages beneath the frozen terraces, gray shapes racing between crystal trees. Some were creatures Hexen had summoned from the living world. Others may have been beasts still trapped in the Queen’s service.
For that battle, it made no difference.
They attacked together.
The wolves descended upon Grom’s legs while Hexen struck his back. The bear’s claws tore through layers of frost and opened deep wounds beneath.
Grom spun.
His axe caught Hexen across the shoulder.
The cave bear was thrown aside in a spray of blood and dark fur.
The wolves continued attacking.
“They will not hold him!” Fendor shouted.
The elf stood at the edge of the battle, his black bow moving faster than the eye could follow. Arrow after arrow crossed the garden.
Some struck Grom.
Others flew upward into the pixies.
One tiny archer shattered against a crystal branch. A second fell with an arrow through its chest. Yet more hovered beyond them, firing from the high garden.
Seven had clustered together south of the throne.
Nethnarel saw them.
She also saw Kaylor and Isamu fighting dangerously close to the blast she would need.
“No,” she said.
Fendor loosed another arrow.
“They will kill us if we leave them there.”
“Neth,” Hexen called from the ground. “Burn them.”
She looked at the seven pixies.
Then at the party members beneath them.
“This is a terrible idea.”
Grazim raised his shield against another volley.
“It is the idea we have.”
The others moved as quickly as they could.
Nethnarel thrust both hands forward.
A bead of orange fire streaked through the garden.
It reached the clustered pixies and erupted.
The fireball engulfed all seven.
Four vanished instantly, their frozen bodies becoming steam inside the blast. Three emerged burning and badly wounded, their wings trailing smoke as they struggled to remain aloft.
The shock wave scattered arrows and filled the crystal branches with flame.
Kaylor glanced toward Nethnarel.
“That was close.”
“You asked for fire.”
“I did not.”
“Someone did.”
Grom’s roar drowned the rest.
Something inside the frost giant broke.
Perhaps it was pain.
Perhaps it was the sight of his servants dying.
Perhaps the power sustaining his two-headed form had simply reached its limit.
The giant went berserk.
Reason disappeared from both faces.
He abandoned defense and swung the enormous axe through everything within reach—wolves, crystal trees, frozen statues, and heroes alike. Each blow destroyed part of the garden.
The first cut one of Hexen’s wolves in half.
The second shattered a terrace and sent Isamu sliding toward a deep crevice.
The third struck the Herald.
The celestial guardian tried to rise into the air.
He was too slow.
Grom’s axe entered beneath one burning wing.
The blade passed through golden armor, celestial fire, and the Herald’s body.
The guardian fell.
His flames spread across the floor.
The shard dropped beside him.
For a moment, the entire battle seemed to stop.
The Herald looked toward Kaylor.
There was no grand final declaration.
No spell powerful enough to destroy his enemy.
Only the recognition that his vigil had ended.
Then the fire in his eyes went out.
The Herald of Fire died beneath Grom’s axe.
Leonidas ran for the shard.
Until that moment he had fought among the heroes without revealing whether he was companion, warrior, or something else. Now he threw aside his shield and seized the fallen crystal with both hands.
The shard changed size in his grasp, shrinking until it resembled a great dagger or broken sword.
Red light climbed his arms.
Leonidas cried out but did not release it.
“I have it!”
Lady Frost lifted her sword.
Clouds gathered beneath the cavern ceiling.
“Then die with it.”
An ice storm crashed upon the garden.
Hailstones the size of fists struck armor and flesh. Blades of ice cut through crystal branches. The floor disappeared beneath swirling white.
Grazim raised his shield and called upon divine protection.
Fendor was knocked to one knee.
Kaylor crossed both swords above his head.
Hexen, still wounded in the shape of the cave bear, covered two of his wolves beneath his body.
Nethnarel tried to counter the spell.
Dark Voice struck her first.
A lance of black magic passed through the storm and hit Nethnarel in the chest.
She fell.
The violet fire around her horns vanished.
“Neth!” Grazim shouted.
He fought toward her through the hail.
Fendor reached her first.
The elf drew an arrow unlike the others. Pale light moved along the shaft rather than metal or poison.
He fired it into the frozen ground beside her.
Healing magic spread outward from the impact.
Color returned faintly to Nethnarel’s face, but she did not wake.
Grazim dropped beside her and placed one hand over the wound left by Dark Voice.
His holy symbol blazed.
The distant divine presence answered.
Light passed from Grazim into Nethnarel.
She gasped.
Her eyes opened.
Above them, Grom struck Leonidas.
The warrior had attempted to retreat with the shard, but the berserk giant swept him aside with the haft of his axe.
Leonidas flew across the garden and struck a crystal pillar.
The shard remained clutched against his chest.
He did not rise.
Grom turned toward him.
Both giant faces smiled.
Nethnarel saw the unconscious warrior.
She saw the red light spilling from between his hands.
She saw Grom approaching.
“Hide him,” Grazim said.
Nethnarel’s breath caught.
“What?”
“The shard. Hide them both.”
Her magic was nearly spent.
She raised one trembling hand anyway.
“Leonidas,” she whispered. “Disappear.”
Wild magic crossed the garden.
Leonidas vanished.
The shard disappeared with him.
Grom stopped.
Both heads searched the broken terraces.
He could smell or sense the crystal, but he could no longer see where it lay.
The giant roared and swung blindly.
His axe destroyed the pillar beside Leonidas, missing the invisible warrior by only a few feet.
“We have to finish him!” Kaylor shouted.
Arrows, spells, and steel struck Grom.
He refused to fall.
Kaylor attacked with both swords, cutting again and again at the giant’s damaged legs.
Isamu struck the same weakened knee until the joint bent unnaturally.
Hexen and the surviving wolves tore into Grom’s back.
Grazim summoned the spirits of forgotten warriors.
They appeared around him in golden armor and moved through the battlefield like the memory of an army. Their weapons passed through the giant, burning him from within.
Fendor continued firing until only a few arrows remained.
Still Grom fought.
He spread destruction through the garden, striking friend and enemy alike. One wounded pixie fell beneath his axe. Another was crushed under his boot.
Nethnarel forced herself upright.
She had enough power remaining for one great spell.
Perhaps.
The fireball she had cast against the pixies still burned in her memory. She reached for the same pattern, but her magic resisted. Fire became ice. Ice became shadow. Shadow became a flock of black birds.
“No,” she said.
Dark Voice watched her from beyond the storm.
“You cannot control it.”
Nethnarel closed her eyes.
“I do not have to.”
She accepted the chaos.
The spell became fire again.
Nethnarel released her final fireball.
It struck Grom in the chest.
Flame engulfed both heads.
The giant staggered.
Kaylor drove both swords into the wound opened by the blast.
Grazim’s spirit guardians surged through him.
Isamu struck the broken knee one final time.
Hexen hit him from behind.
Fendor’s last ordinary arrow entered Grom’s remaining open eye.
The frost giant fell.
His immense body struck the crystal floor and shattered it.
For several moments, Grom continued to move. One hand clawed toward the place where Leonidas and the shard lay hidden.
Then the hand stopped.
Grom the Everlasting was dead.
The heroes had no time to celebrate.
Wounded pixies still filled the garden.
Six more fell before the surviving archers broke and attempted to flee. Fendor shot two from the air. Kaylor’s dancing blade caught another. Hexen’s wolves brought down the rest among the crystal flowers.
Lady Frost saw the giant fall.
She looked toward the hidden shard, then toward the heroes closing around her.
Her face twisted with fury.
“This is not over.”
She cut open the air with her sword.
A doorway of blowing snow appeared behind her.
Fendor fired.
The arrow struck her silver armor near the ribs.
Lady Frost stumbled but completed the step.
The portal closed.
She escaped into the winter.
Dark Voice remained.
The party turned upon her together.
Kaylor and Isamu drove back the remaining archers while Grazim’s spirits circled the hooded sorceress. Hexen’s surviving wolves attacked from either side. Fendor fired the first of his enchanted arrows.
Dark Voice wrapped herself in shadow.
The arrow disappeared.
Then Nethnarel stepped forward.
Blood darkened her black-and-red clothing. Her pale hair hung across one horn, and the fire around her hands had dimmed almost to nothing.
Dark Voice raised her empty hood.
“You should be dead.”
Nethnarel smiled.
“I have been told that before.”
Blades formed around Dark Voice.
They were made from shadow—curved, black weapons that drifted through the air around her. With a gesture, she sent them at Nethnarel.
Nethnarel countered with ice.
A wall of jagged frost erupted between them. The shadow blades struck it, passed halfway through, and became trapped.
Nethnarel closed both hands.
The ice shattered.
Dark Voice answered with another storm of blades.
Nethnarel hurled herself aside. One weapon cut her shoulder. Another passed so close to her face that frost formed along her cheek.
She released a bolt of violet fire.
Dark Voice caught it and transformed it into a spear of ice.
The spear flew back.
Nethnarel turned it aside, but the effort drove her to one knee.
The others began to advance.
Nethnarel raised one hand toward them.
“No.”
Grazim stopped.
This battle belonged to something the rest of them could not understand.
Dark Voice circled Nethnarel.
Shadow blades reformed around her.
“You remember me.”
“Not enough.”
“You feared me.”
“Possibly.”
“You loved what I taught you.”
Nethnarel’s magic flickered.
For an instant, the garden vanished from her sight. She saw a dark tower, a sky filled with violet fire, and a figure standing beside her.
Then the memory broke.
Dark Voice attacked.
Every shadow blade flew at once.
Nethnarel summoned ice around herself.
The blades struck.
The barrier fractured.
Black edges pushed through from every side.
Nethnarel stood inside the breaking shell and gathered the final remnants of her fire.
Wild magic twisted around her.
Violet became white.
White became red.
Red became a flame so bright that the ice surrounding her turned transparent.
Dark Voice hesitated.
Nethnarel looked through the cracked barrier.
“I do not need to remember you to defeat you.”
The ice exploded outward.
Fragments struck the shadow blades and scattered them.
Nethnarel stepped through the storm of frozen glass and released the fire.
The spell struck Dark Voice directly.
Flame filled the empty hood.
The black robes became an outline around a blazing shape that had no face.
Dark Voice screamed.
Her remaining shadow blades turned upon Nethnarel.
She caught them within a second wave of ice.
Fire and frost met around the hooded sorceress.
Everything near her began to melt.
Crystal flowers ran into pools of colored water. Frozen branches collapsed. The floor beneath Dark Voice became clear, revealing ancient bones trapped below.
Nethnarel forced more power into the spell.
Dark Voice’s scream faded.
The robes collapsed.
Nothing remained inside them.
Nethnarel stood amid fire, shadow, and melting ice.
Dark Voice was dead.
Only then did the garden become silent.
Nethnarel released the invisibility spell.
Leonidas reappeared beside the broken pillar, still unconscious and still gripping the shard.
Grazim healed him enough to wake.
Leonidas opened his eyes and looked down at the crystal resting against his chest.
Its light had become darker.
Red pulses moved through it like blood through a heart.
He recoiled and released it.
“The Herald was wrong,” he whispered.
Kaylor looked toward the body of the celestial guardian.
“About what?”
“The shard does not simply preserve life.”
Leonidas examined it without touching it again.
“It is evil.”
The red pulse strengthened.
“And it is growing stronger.”
No one volunteered to carry it.
They wrapped the shard in heavy cloth, then placed it inside their Bag of Holding. The magical opening closed around it.
For the moment, its light disappeared.
The garden yielded other treasures among its ruins: an ice-cold longbow, gemstones, a jeweled drinking horn, two powerful healing potions, and a scroll whose magic appeared capable of stopping time itself. From Dark Voice’s possessions they recovered a magical mace and a robe covered in small embroidered patches representing useful objects.
Leonidas found the strange drinking mug they had recovered earlier.
Despite everything, he drank from it again.
A moment later, he blinked several times and sat heavily upon a broken piece of Grom’s throne.
“I feel fuzzy.”
Fendor looked at him.
“You have recently been struck unconscious by a frost giant.”
“It is a different kind of fuzzy.”
“That is reassuring.”
“No,” said Nethnarel. “It is not.”
They stood amid the remains of the frozen court.
The Herald had died.
Lady Frost had escaped.
Dark Voice and Grom were dead.
The Shard of Everlasting Life was hidden within a place that should have contained anything.
Yet even inside the Bag of Holding, Grazim imagined he could feel it pulse.
A faint and patient heartbeat.
They had recovered the shard.
They had saved Wallowdale from Grom’s bargain.
But they had carried something evil out of the Labyrinth of Wicked Souls.
And none of them yet understood what it wanted.