Deep in her mothers' glacial fortress in Siberia, Svena the White Witch plotted.

She plotted for the survival of her clan, her ten surviving sisters and five unhatched eggs, in the face of Algonquin's looming threat. She plotted vengeance against that same enemy—true, Algonquin seemed invincible now, but Svena's daughter would be a seer, and perhaps a seer could make even the Lady of the Lakes pay in blood for the Three Sisters' deaths.

Mostly, she plotted against Brohomir, Great Seer of the Heartstrikers, for the death of his sister and her enemy. Amelia the Planeswalker, Svena's last and greatest rival, who should have died in battle against her, not been struck down by the one dragon she'd trusted.

It galled her all the more because she'd played into the seer's hands. Amelia had persuaded her to help with an ill-advised bit of magical experimentation, dividing Amelia's vast flame in half and placing half—for safekeeping, the Planeswalker had claimed—within a mortal mage. A mortal who wasn't even hers, either of theirs, but who served Amelia's weakling of a youngest brother. A mortal who'd been dead days later, before Amelia herself, turning that protection into a greater weakness, draining Amelia until she'd been as vulnerable as an old and powerful dragon could be.

Had she refused to help Amelia in her foolishness, Svena was certain that her rival would still be alive. There was no way that the second greatest dragon mage could have met such an ignominious death if she'd been at full strength; even Brohomir was no match for the Planeswalker, either as a mage or as a fighter. Had been no match for her.

Svena swore that she would make him pay for using her. She and her daughter would turn all his plans against him, for that. And they'd make his life a misery, because he'd taken Amelia from her.

Rage made a fine distraction from her grief.

My best and greatest enemy...