For a moment, Jess didn't think she'd get out of the pitch black basement. It took forever feeling along the wall to find the small door that was somehow even darker. Maybe the darkness was for the best - she couldn't see the cobwebs stretching across her face as she army-crawled across the cold dirt floor.

  A decrepit wooden door blocked the end of the tunnel. Jess pushed against it, and hundreds of splinters stabbed her palms, pushed in by the weight of a few feet of snow. She twisted her body in the tight space to use her feet to bust through the frozen hinges and push the door open.

  Seconds after clearing the tunnel, the house behind her exploded. A cloud of snow powered engulfed the last bit of busted glass and splintered wood, like the wall of an avalanche. The air glittered with frozen crystals suspended in midair.

  Jess ducked to protect her head from the wood and glass flying in all directions, but she knew she had to start running soon. Her feet drove her forwards before her eyes could see where she was heading. She almost ran face-first into a tree, but it was a relief to know she was going the right way.

  The sound of fighting shadowed her as she ran, but she could hardly recognize it as fighting. It was so quiet. There were no gasps or cries or shouts, or even the classic Hollywood punching sound effects. The only thing Jess could compare it to was the sound of ice cracking and shattering. Sharp noises accompanied by the whoosh of fast moving air.

  As she weaved through the trees, something exploded above her head. She stopped and looked up to see an icicle embedded deep in bark.

  A roar sounded from the sight of the battle, and Jess had officially lost all track of what was going on. Had a bear shown up to the fight? As much as she wanted her questions answered, she knew she was not safe until she followed Sigyn's instructions and crossed the lake.

  She took a few steps out onto and then stopped. Under the blanket of snow, it was impossible to tell how thick the ice was. Above her on the hill, the trees began to quiver. Something big was barreling straight towards her. The ice was the safer risk, so she sprinted forward at full speed.

  Sigyn was trying to steer the fight away from Jess, but she had her hands busy - or rather, hand - keeping herself alive. Her left arm hung limp at her side while she flung ice in every direction to keep the Vorer at bay. Angrboea worked her way from the outside in, cutting down and knocking out frost jotuns on her way to Sigyn's side. Meanwhile, Kark, in the form of a towering icebear, charged through the snow swiftly as a deer, a formidable distraction to the Vorer. As Kark swatted away the jotun's spears and axes, Sigyn and Angrboea took cover in the treeline to regroup.

  As soon as she caught her breath, Bodi let loose a slew of curse words at Sigyn that were all variations of the word 'fool'. "A fire, Sigyn? Really?"

  "You can call me whatever you want once we get out of here!" Sigyn winced as she grabbed her broken arm and covered her bicep in ice. It would heal on its own soon - if she lived.

  Angrboea glanced at the lake behind them. "If we get them out on the ice, can you flip it?"

  Sigyn could, but when she looked at the lake and saw the tiny figure of Jess running to safety, she shook her head. "New plan."

  She thought for a moment, but she didn't have a new plan, and Angrboda was losing patience.

  "We can't hold them much longer, Sigyn!" She stood up, drawing a fresh knife. "Get them out on the ice."

  The plan had been decided. All Sigyn could do was hope Jess made it off the lake in time.

  The three of them had taken out a handful of the Vorer, but they were still outnumbered. The girls let the jotuns push them onto the lake while Kark herded them like sheep. To the Vorer, it appeared as they were closing in on their target. To Sigyn's disgust - but not surprise - ?sa, the fearless general, was not among her soldiers to get a taste of the same plot. She was probably watching at a safe distance, like some...

  Sigyn could not think of a word sufficient to curse that woman.

  One of the jotuns charged at her with a spear. She dodged, and the spear pierced the ice where her feet had been a second ago. The surface of the lake began breaking apart beneath them, bobbing on top of the swelling waves. Bo wobbled on her feet, caught off guard by the moving pieces while the frost jotuns barely batted an eye. It was said they were more graceful on ice than solid ground.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Cracks in the ice stretched across the lake like spindly white fingers. Jess froze, hearing a crack near her feet. Her body tensed. The smallest wrong move, one extra half-pound of force a few centimeters in the wrong direction, could send her down.

  Sigyn was oblivious to the danger Jess faced as she sent a wall of ice towards the Vorer. They dodged the attack easily, but the point was not to hit them. The weight of the ice flipped the surface, sending them into the dark water of the lake. When the ice rotated back into place, they were trapped. The cold wouldn't kill them, but lack of oxygen would.

  The disturbance created a wave billowing outwards across the lake, breaking the ice from beneath, pushing it towards the sky and sending chunks crashing into each other. Bo was almost lost to the confusing momentum of the waves if not for Sigyn's quick reflexes to hold her steady.

  Trapped beneath the surface, the Vorer send spikes to break through to the surface, which Sigyn quickly re-froze. She set her palm flat against the ice, forming layers that pushed the jotuns deeper down into the bottom of the lake.

  A cry for help pulled her attention across the lake.

  A wide crack had opened where Jess was. Her tiny body clung to the ice, clawing her way out of the water but unable to grasp anything.

  Bo grabbed Sigyn's arm and spun her back to face the fight. "Don't," she warned. If she let her guard down too long, the jotuns would break through.

  Sigyn pressed her hand down harder, trying to form the ice faster, wishing the Vorer would hurry up and drown already. She knew Jess couldn't hold on for long.

  The next time she looked over her shoulder, Jess had fallen beneath the water. Before Bo could stop her she started running, cursing her broken arm, the Vorer, ?sa, and everything that had led to this point.

  Jess never knew a cold so intense.

  The water may as well have been made of needles. Every move she made to push herself to the surface drove them deeper through her skin. It was the burn of fire without the heat. Numbness creeped into her limbs, starting at her fingertips and toes and working its way towards her torso, drowning her in a horrible nothingness.

  Her limbs were noodles, flailing through the water, pulled down deeper by the weight of her winter jacket and ski boots. By the time Sigyn had jumped in and wrapped her arms around her waist to pull her up, she was unconscious.

  With her uninjured arm, Sigyn solidified the ice around them and pulled Jess up by the collar of her jacket. The stillness of her body terrified her.

  "Jess?" Sigyn tapped cheek, harder and harder, trying to force her awake. Her hands grabbed at her face, her clothes, her hands, searching for how to bring her back to life.

  Across the lake, fresh cracks formed in the ice, but there was nothing Kark or Bo could do as the last surviving Jotuns broke through and escaped, fleeing into the woods to return to ?sa.

  At last, after a rough shake of her shoulder, Jess sputtered awake, coughing up water. Sigyn reassured her she was alright, but it felt like her words weren't being registered as her entire body trembled uncontrollably.

  "Can you tell me what's wrong?"

  Fighting the quiver of her lips, Jess barely made out the word "Cold."

  Sigyn wanted her to wrap her arms around her, but she knew her heatless touch would be useless to Jess. Her only hope was to bring her someplace warm. "I'll get you out of here. You're gonna be okay." She scooped Jess into her arms, forgetting about her broken bones, and yelped, quickly setting her back down. Her voice cracked as she screamed for help from the others.

  Bo and Kark - now back to his regular form - hurried over, but not nearly as fast as Sigyn wanted.

  "Of course they had to break my fucking arm," Sigyn growled as Bo lifted Jess into her arms.

  "You know half of them escaped, right?"

  "I know! What do you want me to do?"

  "Start by getting your priorities straight, Sigyn!" Bo shouted back.

  It was a big mistake on her part - Sigyn could admit that, but she held her tongue. She couldn't bring herself to apologize for saving Jess, no matter how stupid it sounded, and she knew Bodi wouldn't enjoy hearing about it.

  Speeding down the road, Elizabeth kept one hand on the wheel and one hand on her phone to dial Jess' number. She had lost count of the number of times she had tried to call her back after the call randomly ended.

  When she spotted Sigyn and the others carrying her sister off the lake, she slapped on the brakes, skidding the car to a stop on the side of the mountain road.

  "She fell in the water," Sigyn told her when she ran closer. "She's breathing but her whole body's shaking. Is...she going to be okay?"

  Elizabeth opened the passenger door for Bo to set her inside and then shoved her out of the way, leaning over Jess to dial the car's heat on full blast. She flung Jess' soaked hat and boots into the backseat, before working her clothes off layer by layer to strip her down to her underwear. "What was she doing out there?" she asked as she worked.

  Sigyn, Kark, and Bodi looked at each other, unsure of how to answer.

  When her sister was out of her wet clothes, Elizabeth slammed the car door shut and turned on Sigyn. "What the hell were you doing out there with her?"

  She moved towards Sigyn until Bodi stepped between them to block her. It didn't break Elizabeth's death glare. "The cops are on their way. You better hope they get you before I do."

  "I just saved her life!" Sigyn shouted at the dumb blonde.

  "Then how did she end up in the lake? Can you answer that?"

  Sigyn could not.

  "I don't know what your deal is, but you need to stay the hell away from my sister," Elizabeth threatened. Once she climbed back into her car, she hit the gas so hard her tires flung snow into Sigyn's face. Not that it bothered her.

  As Sigyn watched Jess disappear down the road, she was unaware of the ravens hidden in the canopy, watching her with fascination and disdain.