Allissa

Darren stared out at the fortress. “She has lived in that mountain since before my kingdom had a name,” he said at last. “She knows where her own water goes.”

“She does,” Eira agreed. “And she knows nothing alive would dare enter it. We are not going to beat her watching, Darren. We are going to beat her certainty.”

They tested it on a moonless stretch of that night, Eira and Heath, one dip under the thin layer of ice into the water and back. Heath went down a ...