Chapter 8 – A Dead Man's Kiss

It was the darkest hour of the night when Harry was roused from his fitful sleep by loud horn blasts. He knew immediately what was happening. The Norwegians were attacking! A week had passed since Servant Rupert had warned him of just that. And now he would do what he should have done a long time ago!

In a matter of seconds, Harry had jumped up, got dressed, and stormed out of his room, his wand ready for battle in his hand.

Harry knew where he had to go. He raced down the castle corridor, past windows through which he could see the star-filled night sky. It was a peaceful sight. But the screams and explosions that rang out to Harry from the distance, making the walls tremble, made it all too clear to him that the castle was in the stranglehold of a cruel, greed-driven act of violence.

Harry whirled around a corner and came upon two kitchen maids who were running away in panic from the noise of battle. Harry started shouting, "Flee! Flee the castle! Tell everyone you meet too!"

He didn't know if they understood him, because they just ran past him, but he couldn't afford to linger. He ran on, up one flight of stairs, then down another and into another corridor. Damn castle with its labyrinthine layout. Hopefully it would at least help them against their attackers.

Harry was chasing down a corridor when the wall to his right suddenly collapsed. Several figures climbed in through the hole thus created. Harry didn't hesitate for a second and hurled several stunners at the attackers. He kept running without waiting to see if he had hit them. Curses whizzed past his head, so close that he felt their force blowing through his hair.

And he also heard a familiar voice – Ole, one of his Norwegian guards. "There's Potter! Kill him, kill him!"

Harry just kept running. Onwards, onwards. Saving Daphne, that was the only thing that mattered!

He hurried down the next flight of stairs and entered a sudden flurry of fighting. Lightning shot from wands. Metal and antlers and horns pierced human bodies. Shards of stone whizzed through the air like shrapnel. It was one cruel chaos, but Harry quickly realised that the defenders were outnumbered.

Harry fought his way through the corridor. He dodged the attackers' curses as best he could and hurled stunners at them whenever the opportunity arose.

Shouts pierced the air:

"There are too many!"

"The west gate has fallen!"

"We're being overrun!"

But above it all echoed the booming voice of Rudolphus.

"Fight! Fight for your country and the Queen! FIGHT AND DIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

With that, the captain of the guard galloped off at a group of foes, his head and antlers lowered in attack. Harry did not see what was happening, only heard the screams of fear from the Norwegian wizards as he ran on.

As the castle walls shook again in an explosion, he ran down the grand staircase to the castle courtyard and from there out to the outside, where a dark figure suddenly loomed before him. Harry jerked his wand upwards and stopped just in time to recognise the figure. Both relief and anger gripped him.

"What are you doing here?" he shouted. "Your people are dying in there!"

Servant Rupert only pursed his lips, revealing his yellow, pointed fangs. "They're not my people." Harry felt as if the beast was piercing him with his eyes. "Are you on your way to save the Queen?"

Harry nodded, heart pounding.

"Then go! Save her and destroy all this! I have waited a long time for this moment."

Servant Rupert gestured towards the archway that led to the small courtyard with the secret cave. No guards were standing there anymore.

Harry didn't need to be told twice. He ran past Servant Rupert without giving him a second glance. With quick steps he crossed the courtyard, ran through the archway, and then he was already standing in front of the cave entrance, where he stopped abruptly.

Harry stared into the darkness as if spellbound. He began to shiver, more than ever before in his life. He stroked his arms, but they already felt numb. An icy breeze came from the depths, which promised terrible things and yet was his only goal.

Harry straightened his shoulders and descended into the darkness.

The stairs were only dimly lit by a few candles. Their flickering glow revealed smooth stone surfaces and a vaulted roof. At the foot of the stairs, a chamber opened, its floor made of dark, dark ice. With a pounding heart, Harry stepped forward and – he had not wanted to believe it possible – the cold became even more horrifying. His breath poured out of his mouth like frozen water.

The ground shook under Harry's feet. It seemed to him that it might burst open at any moment like a frozen lake under the rays of the spring sun. But Harry did not care. For in the middle of the dark ice crouched a white-robed figure with silvery blond hair. She held both hands firmly pressed to the ice and had her head lowered. Although Harry could not see the face, his heart told him that he had found Daphne.

Her body was trembling and Harry had no idea what would happen if she abruptly snapped out of her spell. But they were running out of time. From outside, the roar of a beast and horrible screams of pain reached them.

Harry knelt down in front of Daphne. His heart skipped a beat when he saw her face. It was as white as a dead person's face; the only colours were tears of blood rolling down her cheek.

He grabbed Daphne by the shoulders and shook her. "Daphne! Do you hear me, Daphne?"

Daphne's face showed no emotion. Her eyes stared motionless through him.

"Daphne!" cried Harry desperately. "You have to wake up, Daphne! We have to get out of here! Do you hear me? Do you hear me?"

But still Daphne did not respond, she seemed too deeply caught up in her struggle against an ancient and incomprehensible magic. A struggle that would cost her life if Harry did nothing.

And so he did the only thing that seemed right at that moment. An action out of affect, without ulterior motive or intention. Carried only by the voice of his heart, which had never betrayed him before.

He kissed Daphne on her blue lips.

The next moment Harry's consciousness burst into cold and ice. His legs failed him. He fell to his knees. His guts felt as if a carapace of ice was closing around them. He gasped, in vain. He could no longer breathe.

It felt like he was falling. A last desperate cry reached him. Then his eyes went black and all pain left him.


The girl was surrounded by abysmal blackness. A soul-consuming darkness. It had not always been like this. The girl remembered that she had once seen light. But what that light had been and what it had felt like, she no longer knew.

There was so much she no longer knew. So much she had forgotten. What her name was, who she was, how she had come here. She had forgotten why she was fighting the cold that threatened to swallow everything, herself and even the abysmal blackness around her. All she knew now was that she had to do it. It was her duty.

Duty?

What was that?

The girl did not know. But it didn't matter, because at that very moment the cold made a new attack on her. Wave after wave of pain pierced her body. And wave after wave the girl threw herself against the pain, as she had always done. But she grew weaker. The pain, the cold, they became worse and worse. She cried without knowing what it meant to cry. She feared she would break under the pain. But then it stopped abruptly. She had done it, one more time.

One last time?

Even without a sense of time, and even without understanding the meaning of her own existence, the girl knew that she would not be able to hold back the cold another time.

Would everything be over then? Would everything finally end then? The pain and the tears and the despair?

Could she ... look forward to it?

The thought sparked a feeling of betrayal in the girl, without her knowing what or whom she could betray.

She was alone, after all. There was only her. Her and the cold. And the nothingness that might await her afterwards.

But the girl simply could not rid herself of the feeling that this was wrong.

But why?

Why did she feel this way?

And then, out of nowhere, the girl suddenly felt something else. Something she had never felt before, or at least not in a long, long time. It felt so different from anything she could remember feeling. Somehow pleasant and comforting and ... warm.

The girl didn't know where she suddenly knew that word from, but it felt right. What did it mean?

Warm was pleasant. Warm was not pain, unlike cold. Warm had to be something different from the cold. Its opposite even?

Friendship. Trust. Love.

More and more concepts formed in the girl's consciousness, and they were all connected to this warm. Had she learned them once? But where?

The warm feeling began to fade. An unprecedented desperation gripped the girl. She didn't want to lose the feeling. She wanted to keep feeling it.

The sensation seemed strangely familiar to the girl, as if she had felt it before. But when? When had she feared losing the warmth?

A colour pierced the darkness around her. Green it was, and beautiful. She had seen this green and felt warmth, the girl realised. A comforting warmth that had given her hope...

Kiss.

She had kissed someone and felt that warmth. The warmth that seemed to be moving further and further away from her, and that she pursued more and more determinedly. But who? Who had she kissed? Who had made her so happy?

And then suddenly it all became clear to the girl...

Harry!


"Harry!" cried Daphne as she tore her eyes open.

She felt the excruciating cold take hold of her body, cutting deep into her, but she didn't care. She had to find Harry, that was the only thing that mattered.

Daphne didn't have to look far. Beside her she caught sight of him, sunk to his knees and frozen to ice.

"Harry!" she cried, falling around the ice sculpture's neck. "Oh, Harry! You stupid, stupid, naïve, wonderful idiot! Why did you come here? Why?"

Daphne began to cry, and this time the tears were not of blood, but silvery shimmering like raindrops in the moonlight.

"Idiot! Idiot! Idiot! How am I supposed to live without you? Oh, Harry. Please come back to me! Your queen commands it!"

More and more hot tears fell from Daphne's eyes. And some of her tears also fell on Harry's frozen body, and there something quite miraculous happened. Later, Daphne would not be able to say whether it was the might of her tears, her command, something as corny as the power of love, or simply fate that had guided the course of the magic. Everywhere her tears fell, the ice began to melt. Slowly at first, then faster and faster, and then suddenly a jolt went through the body in Daphne's arms.

She recoiled, only to look into warm, green eyes the next moment. They were the same eyes that had pulled her out of her dark dream. The same eyes that Daphne had fallen hopelessly in love with.

"Harry!" she cried, falling around his neck again. His body was shaking like crazy, which only made her hug him all the more fiercely.


Harry felt as if he was waking up from a deep dream. Dark it had been and filled with fear and worry. He couldn't tell how much time had passed, but it couldn't have been much, for the sole reason that they were still alive. They – meaning Daphne and him. Daphne, who had thrown her arms around him and was pressing herself so tightly against him, as if she wanted to fuse their two bodies together.

"Daphne," he whispered. His voice was so low that he barely heard it himself under Daphne's sobs. He forced himself to speak louder. "Daphne! We have to get out of here!"

Daphne broke away from him a little. The traces of her tears, red and silvery, shone on her pale skin. However, he could not allow himself to be distracted by her beauty. This and the reason for his salvation and what all this might mean for them, for their future, all that had to wait.

Just at that moment, the ground beneath them began to shake. One second. Two seconds. Three seconds. Then it stopped. Harry exhaled the breath he had been holding without realising it.

"The wound!" cried Daphne. "Harry, I mustn't go. I –"

Harry grabbed her by the arms. "Daph, it's over! If you keep trying, you'll die."

"But if I don't at least try, they all die. My people –"

"They die anyway!"

Daphne froze. "Wh-what do you mean?"

"Daphne, we're under attack. The Norwegians didn't take it well that you won't send them any more crystal. Now they want to take it by force."

Daphne's eyes widened. In a trembling voice she said, "They, they are attacking?! My people –"

"I've already ordered the evacuation," Harry said. "And I'm sure Rudolphus has made plans too. But now we must get out of here! Before it's too late."

As they spoke, Harry's body heat was mercilessly fading away. His lungs burned with every breath. He wouldn't last much longer in the cold that was growing stronger by the second.

Daphne let her gaze wander. One last time she looked at the icy ground, then at her hands, before looking back at him. In her blue sparkling eyes, he recognised not only the power of her ancestors but also a deep wistfulness.

"Then save us, my knight."

Harry jumped up and pulled Daphne with him. His muscles protested at the abrupt movement, after having been frozen before, but within seconds they were burning with the fire of determination that filled him now that he had found Daphne. Now they just had to get away from this godforsaken place as quickly as possible.

Hand in hand, they ran up the stairs. At the top, they were greeted by a ghastly sight. In the distance, several of the castle towers were on fire. The embers drove great flakes of ash before them. Like black butterflies, they danced a wild roundel and mingled with the softly falling snow.

Right in front of the cave entrance lay at least a dozen corpses. In the middle of them knelt the bloodied figure of Servant Rupert, and when he looked up, his face was trembling. Several of his claws had been cut off and now lay smoking in the snow. A deep hole gaped in his chest. It smelled of a mixture of fire, blood, and the sweet fragrance of roses. Gone was the rancid stench that had surrounded Santa Claus' minion until then.

Daphne released her hand from Harry's and stepped up to Servant Rupert. Then she sank into the blood-soaked snow in front of him. Harry did not want to eavesdrop, but even less did he want to move away from Daphne. And so he took in every word that Daphne spoke in a tender voice.

"No longer must you be bound by the chains of your tortured existence. Your efforts to atone for your sins did not go unnoticed. Now rest, my friend."

As though he was accepting her words, the monster, the slayer of innocent wanderers and shepherd of lost souls, drifted into his eternal slumber. Servant Rupert's clawed hands stopped twitching. His body fell into the snow. With him, the last of the Alben left this world.

Daphne rose. She stepped to Harry, her head bowed, and Harry squeezed his hand in hers. Daphne intertwined her fingers with his. Ever so faintly, her hand was trembling.

Neither of them said a word.

It was silent around them until suddenly they heard loud clattering hooves. The next moment Rudolphus galloped into the yard. Behind him ran the warrior woman who had previously guarded the cave and with whom Harry had clashed several times as a consequence – he didn't even know her name – and another reindeer warrior. The woman was limping and had a makeshift, dripping red bandage tied around her arm. The two reindeer were also marked by the battle. Blood and scraps of skin stuck to their antlers. A bitter taste settled on Harry's tongue.

"Your Majesty! There you are!" shouted Rudolphus as he came to a halt in front of them. His gaze lingered only briefly on the dead Servant Rupert and the corpses of the attackers around him before he hurriedly continued. "The enemies are storming through the castle. They will be here in a moment too. We must get you out of here."

Harry sensed that Daphne was not yet ready to speak. So he said, "What about the others? Were they all able to escape?"

Rudolphus glanced at Daphne, but she continued to keep her head down. Then he turned to Harry. "Aye. My warriors have backed up the evacuation. We must now move into counterattack to –"

Daphne raised her head. Her grip on Harry's hand tightened and her voice, as she spoke, was filled with a new determination. "Captain, order your warriors to retreat immediately. We give up Everfrost."

"But, Your Majesty! We –"

Just at that moment, a mighty rumble sounded from the cave behind them. The earth shook, much more violently and for longer than the previous times.

"The battle is lost," Daphne said. "And I will not allow even one more life to be extinguished for my sake."

It was obvious how difficult it was for Rudolphus to obey her order, for this was his home and the home of his ancestors. Finally, however, as yet another violent tremor gripped the ground and shook the castle towers, he nodded.

"As you command, my queen." Then Rudolphus turned to the warrior. "Diana, sound the retreat."

Diana raised her wand and blew gently on it with her mouth. A long, loud sound then rang out from the wand, as if a thousand birds began to sing at once. The sound spread throughout the castle. It was the sound of their defeat, but Harry still felt relieved. Now they could finally escape.

"Now we must get out of here as quickly as possible," he said. "Captain, can you carry us?"

"We are not mounts. But for our queen and her friend, we'll make an exception. Mount up."

Harry helped Daphne climb onto Rudolphus' back before sitting behind her. Diana got on the other reindeer warrior's back.

The reindeer pushed off from the ground, and not a second too soon. Again the ground began to shake, and this time the shaking did not stop. The next moment, the earth cracked beneath them. Where the cave entrance had been before, there was now a huge hole in the earth's floor, from which a deep rumble and a sparkling icy breeze rose up to them.

"Away! Away!" cried Daphne. "As fast as you can!"

Harry understood. It was the wound that the Alben had inflicted. The Great Cold. The certain death.

Rudolphus galloped through the air as if running up a steep mountain. Higher and higher they climbed into the night sky. Relieved, Harry saw more figures on reindeer, sleighs, and brooms in the moonlit darkness, rising like them. So Rudolphus' warriors had made it too, at least those who had survived the battle.

Below them, the horror took its course. The icy breath from the depths spread like a flash flood over the land. The Norwegian wizards and witches tried to run away from it, in vain. When the breath caught them, their bodies instantly turned to ice. All living things perished. Even the flames extinguished.

A dead silence fell over the Castle of the Eternal Frost, which had become an Eternal Graveyard.

In Harry's arms, Daphne began to cry and he could do no more than hold her, comforting her, as they flew further and further away.