PROLOGUE

"If I should die this very moment, I wouldn't fear…"

The jolt as I landed on the ground sent a shock of pain through my hands and forearms. It was cold—freezing, even, and the grunt I gave as I slammed onto the rock floor formed a frozen mist that hung in the air in front of me.

A moan reminded me of the presence of another. Amanda. I pulled myself to my feet and wiped my hands on my pants. Amanda was pulling herself to her feet, too, favoring her damaged leg. By the time I bent to retrieve the sword, she had risen to her feet, her hand glowing where it gripped her pendant.

"So it's back to this, is it?" I asked coolly, my breath rising in front of me as my fingers clenched the sword.

"What?" Amanda spat. "You think we're even?"

I slid the sword onto my back. "Would killing me make us even?"

She didn't say anything, and only looked at me for a moment before turning to limp away. I hesitated, looking around the scene. It was Nepal; I'd been here more than twenty years ago as a child, and more recently as an adult looking for clues about my mother. Now I knew the terrible truth.

I knelt to pick up a few pieces of brown paper and, a moment later, recognized them as the drawings I had made all those years ago on the airplane. A cold fist, more icy than the frigid air in this temple, gripped my heart and for a moment I would have given anything to be back here, as a child. I could have gone with Mother, we could've worked together, survived Helheim…

But no. "Goodbye, Mother," I said as I turned to walk away from the altar. I knew that that would have devastated my father, and I would have likely suffered the same fate as my mother. And though nothing could be worse than the realization that my mother had become a Thrall, I knew that my father would have been tormented even worse if he had no hope of knowing what might have happened to us.

"Rest in peace," I said, and walked away.

* * *

Katmandu was largely unchanged from when I had first wandered into it as a little girl. I strode purposefully up the main road and pushed my way into a bar. The bartender looked up, somewhat surprised because it was early afternoon—too early to be drinking. "Excuse me," I said politely. "May I use your telephone?"

"Local?" he asked, his foreign tongue little more than a grunt.

"I'm afraid not," I replied. "I'll call collect."

"Okay," the bartender said with a smile. He'd lost teeth since I saw him last.

I dialed Zip's cell phone collect and, when he had accepted the charges, I said, "Zip, it's Lara."

"Where are you?" he demanded. "Are you all right?"

"I'm—alive. I'm in Nepal," I said.

"Nepal? How in the hell—you were in the Arctic Sea a few hours ago!"

I grit my teeth and said, "It's a long story, but what I really need now is a ride. How soon can you get a helicopter up here?"

"Give me two hours."

"Thanks, Zip. I'll call you in a few hours."

* * *

"…so when you got there, your mother was just…"

"Yes," I said, staring into the fire. We were at Croft Keep, the castle my family owned in Scotland. It was usually kept up by the National Trust, but since the destruction of Croft Manor we had been able to move in. Zip, Winston and I were sitting in the cold, unfamiliar hall in front of a fire. "She was a thrall. When I was in Mexico, the thralls tried to kill me or, if they could, throw me into the eitr. I can only imagine that's what happened to Mother."

"Lady Croft, I'm terribly sorry," said Winston, his voice trembling with emotion. "Your father always thought…but he was right, wasn't he? The disappearance didn't kill her."

"Yes," I said dully. And the thought that had occurred to me so often in the past day resurfaced. How long had she survived? If Father and I had moved faster, could we have got there before Mother met her fate? I cleared my throat to relieve the lump growing there and looked up at Winston. "Father was right."

"Is there anything I can do for you?" Winston asked.

"Have you found any of Alistair's family?" I stood and went to the sidebar to pour myself a cup of tea. "The funeral arrangements…?"

"There seems to be no living family," said Winston.

Zip interjected: "I've looked all over, Lara. I would've found them by now. The police want to release the body—he listed me as his next of kin."

I glanced over at Zip and offered him what I thought was a comforting smile. "What do you…Winston and I can help with arrangements, if you like."

"Thanks. I found his family crypt in Surrey—not far from the Manor, as a matter of fact."

I nodded and turned to Winston. "You'll make travel and lodging arrangements?" I asked. He nodded deferentially. "Thank you, Winston. I'm going to the library. Let me know when we leave."