Chapter Twenty Three: Friend to Foe

WISTY

"Where are we?" Pearce inquired.

I had never set foot in this place before but I thought I knew the answer. "Elsa, is this your ice palace?" I asked. We were moving around Hans in a slow orbit, watching him attentively so we could stop him in case he tried to escape.

"Yes," she answered. "Your brother may have used magic to transport us out of Arendelle, but since he's never been here before, there wasn't a destination. I came up with one."

Hans didn't seem shaken up anymore. He was back to being arrogant, important, and cocky. "Is this your mastery plan? By getting me on my own so the four of you could collaborate on bringing about my ruination?" he questioned. "Is this what you call the final showdown?"

Pearce shrugged nonchalantly. "Something like that."

I chimed in, "Your Champion is dead. Your warrior comrades are miles away. No one is here to assist you."

I instantly knew after stating that fact what his next move would be, and judging by the knowing look I shared with Whit, he knew too. The king possessed a range of supernatural powers. Teleportation had to be one of them. Fixing our eyes on Hans, Whit and I began chanting a spell. The world vibrated and flashed blue, purple, and green. The figure of Hans standing before me duplicated, tripled, quadrupled, and then morphed back into one. His feet and irises lit up in a sparkling, shimmering orange. The glow receded when we completed the spell, and Whit and I beamed.

"My sister and I have just taken away your ability of teleportation, which means," Whit explained to Hans, "you're stuck here."

Hans bellowed in rage and, as though a detonator had gone off in front of us, Whit and I shot off our feet into the air. Strands of red hair blew into my face, covering my field of vision. I crashed into something cold and hard. Supernovas of pain exploded in my spine and the back of my skull, and I cried out. So did Whit. Thick blue restraints that were similar to snakes' bodies and octopus's tentacles wrapped around me in a tight coil before I could slide down the wall. Hang on, it wasn't a wall; it was one of those columns supporting the ceiling. Whit was bound twenty feet away at the same height level as me against a neighbouring column.

Ten metres below us, Elsa sprang at Hans. Hans casually tapped the air in front of her with his fingers. She was put to sleep immediately, slumping soporifically onto the floor. Pearce charged at Hans before he could make the next move. They duelled rigorously, cutting, slashing, striking, and parrying, their attacks, defences, and footwork nicely anticipated and well-measured. They were similar in strategy and technique. Each launched vicious and calculated assaults at the other. Fighting to kill. All the witches and wizards had said Pearce was an incredibly quick learner, and this proved it. He may not have spent his whole life training to wield a sword, but heck, he was good. In fact, his prowess in swordsmanship was just as accomplished as Hans's. Or maybe it was fuelled by his resolve to beat him, but either way, Pearce had not failed to hold his own so far.

But if their expertise in sword fighting was equal, how could one win?

One couldn't.

It was down to a matter of how long both could last before one of them got tired. But neither were tired nor their moves sluggish. I had a feeling this would be a long duel.

Pearce looked like he was trying too hard whereas Hans seemed to be almost enjoying the battle. Pearce's cheeks flushed with exercise. Fiery determination danced in his clear pale blue eyes. He didn't appear to need any help, but I wished there was something I could do to help him. I struggled against the restraints coiled around my body, trying my best to wriggle free. To my dismay, the harder I wriggled the tighter its clutches became, until it was so tight I was sure it'd squeeze all the air out of me if I continued struggling. I stopped, panting from the exertion, the muscles in my hip and waist sore and fatigued. I still had an option: erupt in flames. Burning my restraints loose could work, but it'd take ages and I wasn't certain I could maintain the fire for that long. I needed to save my strength. It turned out I didn't have any options after all. I could only watch.

Hans said, "Why are we fighting each other, Pearce, when deep down you and I both know we have more in common than we care to admit?" Hans's shield went up to obstruct a blow. He swiped his blade backhanded in an arc at his rival's legs. Pearce jumped. He counterattacked, and Hans lifted his sword to meet his. "What your heart desires the most is sovereignty," the king persisted. "Your ultimate dream is to become king of the City, with Wisty Allgood as your queen."

His open, subtle implication of our relationship caused colour to rise in my cheeks.

Pearce countered, "That is no longer my aspiration. It belonged to another person, another time." He disengaged, delivered a high strike to Hans's shoulder and, when he bent over from the impact, kneed him under the chin.

"You're in denial," Hans disputed, rubbing the underside of his chin. They ceased battling and resumed circling each other. "I think it still is. You thirst for glory, revel in power, crave domination and control just like I do. When somebody wrongs or betrays you, what's the first reaction that comes to your mind? Negotiation? Ignorance? No. You'd seek revenge. Payback for what he or she did to you, and you will go to any length to get it. I wouldn't have done anything different. I don't believe your outstanding and superb supernatural abilities should be wasted fighting me. Wouldn't it be tons better if they were combined with mine? You and I can be remarkable together, Pearce. If you drop your weapon, bow down, and surrender to me right now, I would not only spare your life but also present you the honour of knighthood. I've seen your excellency in swordsmanship. If you work hard enough with my warriors in training, you might become my next Champion. To The One and the Wizard King, you're a mere teenage weakling with talents no more extraordinary and intimidating than the sorcery that they possess. But when I look at you, Pearce, I see a flinty, charismatic, and formidable wizard capable of achieving great deeds." He added after a short pause, "And terrible ones, should you wish to indulge yourself with them."

Pearce was dismissing Hans's compliments as though they didn't mean anything to him, but I did not fail to detect the corner of his lips curling upwards in a smile. Hans. This man was good with words, but what was rattling me was that he actually seemed to mean what he was saying. Like, truly mean it. And no matter how much Pearce tried not to let it show, I knew he was listening.

I had to step in before things got too far. "Pearce, don't listen to him," I hissed. "He is a master manipulator! He cares nothing for anyone other than himself! If you capitulate, he will kill you."

"I will not," Hans said solemnly to Pearce. "I have no intention to do that. Take up my offer, Pearce. Join me."

Pearce glanced at my brother, at me. Then he turned back to Hans and said one word. "No."

Hans urged, "I promise you will not regret it."

Pearce shook his head defiantly. "I used to be like you, Hans. Everything you said about my ambition for sovereignty was true, but all that is in the past. I'm no longer who you think I am."

"Nonsense. I've watched you peel away the skin from one of my comrades' skull without remorse. You'd be lying to yourself if you claim you didn't enjoy it."

His retort was met by silence. Pearce had no reply to that.

"Hey Hans," Whit gibed, "I incinerated one of your men with these deadly twin beams of blistering green light and reduced him to ashes and bones, and I enjoyed it. Perhaps you should make me a knight too!"

I laughed, more out of the purpose of antagonism rather than sheer delight. Whit's ridicule had already infuriated Hans. My laugh added to that seemed to incense him even more.

Hans warned, "Careful what you say to me, wizard, or I'll blow you up in a mix of guts and viscera just as I did Gerda."

"Ooh, so quick to threaten! Not a very kingly thing to say, is it?" Pearce said in mock rebuke. "Definitely tells me a lot about how well you'll keep your knighthood promise."

Hans shouted, a hint of frustration in his tone, "Look at the two of us! You're fighting to defeat me to show people how bold you are so they could look up to you with importance and respect. I'm fighting to remove you so I have one less opponent to thwart me and could retain my position on the throne. What do you think this is about, huh? It's about power. You endeavouring to make your way to power, me trying not to allow someone to deprive me of power. Don't you realize that it comes down to the same thing for both of us? That we're duelling because of the same thing? You and I are exactly alike, Pearce."

"I will never join you," Pearce asserted.

Hans tittered bitterly. "Is it pride making you say that? Or stubbornness?"

"Neither. I just don't trust you. And I'm not concerned if you're going to kill me for my decision. I'm not afraid of dying."

"Neither am I," Elsa said.

I had been mesmerized by the conversation between Pearce and Hans that I didn't even know she had revived. Elsa snatched an arrow from her quiver, attached it to the bowstring, aimed, and let go. Just before the arrow could bury itself in Hans's face, he stopped its motion using telekinetic power, leaning back, and it froze midair inches away from the space between his eyebrows. Taking hold of the shaft with his fingers, Hans turned the arrow the other way around. With his mind he redirected it at Elsa. Elsa generated an icy heater shield in her upraised hand out of reflex. The arrow impaled the shield a second later.

"Thought you might do that," she commented. She threw the shield at Hans's foot and he lifted it to let it slide under.

Hans raised his sword overhead and swung down at Pearce. Pearce reacted by diving and sidestepping. Before he had time to stand up Hans performed another upper cut. He intercepted the attack again, then head-butted Hans in the stomach, the collision force of his steel helmet causing him to double over. Pearce quickly rose to his full height to deliver a powerful downward swing at Hans's back, but his opponent suddenly vanished. Confusion crossed his face.

I saw Hans reappearing and shouted, "Behind you!"

Pearce started to turn, but Hans had seized him, his forearm on his chest forcing him to tilt back. He brought his sword against Pearce's neck with his other arm, the edge of its sharp blade digging into the leather gorget covering his Adam's apple. Pearce stamped hard on Hans's foot. It did not cause him to lose his grip. The king slashed at his gorget, tearing it open, and a high-pitched squeak escaped my lips. The tender skin of Pearce's neck was now exposed.

"Try anything else and I will slit your throat," threatened Hans. "My blade's right up against your handsome neck."

The icy column in which I was bound to was bone-chilling. My back was beginning to lose feeling and go numb from being up against it for so long. For every second that elapsed I was getting less and less comfortable. I squirmed ineffectually.

"Get on with it then," Pearce spat. "Don't be a craven."

Hans chuckled, not at all offended. "Oh I'll obliterate you eventually. But not until you do as I say. And if I can't get you on my side, I'll just have to achieve it another way. You will obey me. Now…" he pressed his gauntlet harder against Pearce's chest, tilting him further back, spun him to face us, and then whispered in his ear, "Kill the witch and wizard. Kill Wisteria and Whitford Allgood."

The name 'Allgood' echoed in the wide, empty room, as if it was everywhere. It sounded like a hissing snake. Hans gently let go of Pearce, who slowly closed his eyes. From somewhere a breeze blew, ruffling Hans's auburn hair, caressing my cheeks. When Pearce opened his eyes again, I saw that the irises were aglow in a scintillating copper. Then, the colour faded and they returned to their normal clear, pale blue.

"Uh…what just happened?" Whit asked, his gaze darting from Pearce to me and then back to Pearce again.

I was about to respond 'I don't know' when Pearce aligning his fingers and slicing both his open palms downwards shushed me. The thick restraints holding me captive ten metres up split in a line down me and Whit's middle. We slid along the column to the ground, landing hard on our butts.

"What do you think, Your Highness?" Pearce said loudly to Hans, swaggering toward the space between the columns Whit and I were slumped against. "Should I give them the mercy of a quick death or should I play around with them a little bit?" He spun on the heel of his sabatons to face Hans.

My brain wasn't catching up. Did I miss something, or what? "Pearce, what's going on?" I demanded. "Since when do you address him as Your Highness?"

"Hmm…" the king pondered. "I'd prefer the latter, but I really want to get this over with as soon as possible so I can return to the fortress to avenge the death of my Champion, and you might never know what tricks the Allgoods have up their sleeves if you play around with them, so I'm afraid I'll have to go with the former."

Pearce smirked. "Very well."

He lifted his arms in a swift, curving movement and Whit and I were levitating. The enormous snowflake pattern in the ceiling grew as I floated closer to it. The drifting stopped when the ceiling was near arms reach. I now felt myself gliding horizontally, with Pearce guiding us using his telekinetic power, until I was hovering right under the centre of the vast snowflake. Whit hovered beside me, fear evident in his eyes.

Below, I heard Hans instruct Elsa, "Create a bed full of sharp, pointed icicles."

My head automatically swivelled to glance down at them.

"Are you insane?! Let them go!" Elsa yelled.

Hans strode behind her and grabbed her by the wrists, forcing her to extend her arms outward. "Conjure it or you'll die," he ordered through gritted teeth.

Wisps of smoke wafted from the point of contact of Hans's gloved hands on Elsa's skin, and I heard unpleasant hissing sounds. Elsa squealed from the pain. What was he doing to her?

Her cries seemed to tick Hans off even more, because he shook her and exploded, "CONJURE IT!"

A powerful blast of frost and rime shot out of Elsa's hands to form a three feet thick bed of ice topped with extensive, razor-edged icicles arranged in rows. It stretched out like a spreadsheet below us, long and wide enough to take up a third of the room. I was scared as hell. My brother and I were about to be skewered, but unlike marshmallows on a stick, we would be pinned not in one place but many.

Still keeping a firm grip on Elsa, Hans turned to his new ally. "Ready, Pearce?"

"Don't!" I shrieked.

Ignoring me completely, Pearce lowered his arms in a vicious slice, and Whit and I were dragged down with his telekinetic power, faster than the speed of falling.

"No!" Elsa wriggled against Hans's clutches and drove the heel of her sabaton into his shin. The effort of pulling herself free made her stumble. She tumbled to the floor at the same time as she transformed the menacing icicles into a bed of thick, deep snow.

Whit and I slammed into the layers of snow, sending it flying everywhere. The collision was hard enough to hurt my spine and the back of my skull, but not hard enough to kill me. I rolled off the bed and thumped the floor as Whit got off the other side. I wiped verglas from my mouth and face. Whit dusted snowflakes off his armour and readjusted his helm.

Elsa yelled at Hans, "I will not let you harm my friends!" Burn marks were visible on her wrists where the king had touched her.

She threw out her arms and emitted a gust of frost and snow, and Hans was blown backwards at so high a speed he shot through the wall out of the room, leaving a jagged, ugly hole in the ice. I could see nothing outside but the golden rose sky. The Ice Queen bolted after him.

"Elsa!" Whit called. He took off towards her but I held him back.

Elsa showed no sign that she heard him. She darted through the hole left in Hans's wake and leaped off the edge into nothingness.

Whit and I goggled at the blank space where her form had been.

All was quiet.

"And just like that time in the bone forest of Shadowland and that day in the city plaza, I get to end you guys all over again."

We turned around slowly to face Pearce, who was standing there gazing at us with that psychopathic expression I thought I'd never see again.

"This time I swear I will succeed," Pearce finished. His mouth curled in a pearly, patronizing smile.

He blinked out of existence, reappeared behind us, seized us by the collar, and whisked us with superior speed out of the room to a very long flight of crystal blue stairs. Then, using superhuman strength, he tossed—and I literally meant tossed—us off the top level, and Whit and I plummeted out of control down the steps.

I tried to think of something I could do to stop the hurtle, but my mind couldn't focus and all I could feel was the clonk, clonk, clonk, clonk, clonk of my body colliding with cold, solid blocks of ice. Each crash delivered a new painful jolt and intensified the old aches that were spreading through me. I bumped into Whit so many times that I lost count. The plummeting stopped just when I thought it never would. We came to a rest at the bottom, where the square-shaped floor connected to an identical set of crystal blue stairs that was equally long.

That was the direction from which Pearce descended to meet us.

Whit dry-heaved, a hand over his stomach.

"Eek." Pearce scrunched up his face in mock disgust. "That was nauseating, wasn't it? But don't worry. The fun is just beginning."

I was heartbroken. Everything from his demeanour to his tone made me feel like I was being stabbed repeatedly with a knife. "Why are you doing this?" I asked as Whit and I pushed ourselves to our feet. "How could you…?" I was unable to go on.

"He's been brainwashed," my brother deduced. "He's under the influence of Hans's mind control, leading him to despise us like he used to in the New Order days. I don't know how Hans enslaved his mind, but it looks like that whisper might've done it."

That whisper. Yes, it did seem to me that something wasn't quite right there. I hadn't wanted it to be true, but it was. When Hans told Anna in the village he possessed unimaginable powers she couldn't even dream of, I realized that this had to be what he meant. His deadliest magical weapon: indoctrination. The exact same power the Wizard King had. I thought of how Pearl Marie and all those kidnapped kids had been brainwashed by that bald, maniacal old man, and shuddered.

Pearce threw back his head and laughed. "I have never heard of such rubbish in my entire life!" he said, shaking his head. "On the contrary to your farcical theory," he inserted air quotes, "Whitford, my mind is very clear." He descended a couple of steps closer, the amusement he derived in hurting us now gone and replaced by genuine guilt. "After I ran away from the Mountain kingdom that was the Wizard King's domain to the City, I should have tried harder to win my father's love. He appointed me as high-ranking officer of the New Order. I should've been more devoted in serving him and done a better job in carrying out his tasks. I should have made him proud, proud enough to let him know I am worthy to be called his son. And I could've done it…had you two not eliminated him."

I spoke as calmly as I could. "Pearce, your father thought you a disappointment. He never loved you because he couldn't love."

It was a frank statement, but I had to get it out there. I had to remind him of the truth he apparently had forgotten.

"You don't get to say that!" he jabbed a finger at me and bellowed, his explosion of anger startling me. "Not you, who brought about his demise and never gave me a chance with him in the first place! All I wanted was to start a family with The One, to close up the fissure Izbella created when she rejected him, and build a better life in the city for both of us. But you and your brother killed him, and never gave me the chance. So you DON'T get to say that, Wisty! The One can love. Had I done everything he instructed me to do and accomplished his goals successfully, I would've earned his love!"

His harsh accusations made me feel like a leaf about to wither. Pressure built behind my eyes, moisturizing them.

"He thought he could trust me to carry out his bidding," Pearce ranted. "He truly believed he could count on me to destroy the two of you. I hadn't been able enough to do it back then—"

"And because of your delicate sensibilities, we destroyed him instead, in Shadowland," Whit interrupted, "fulfilling the words of the Prophecy: 'A boy and a girl, fated to rule all. Two will rise, and One will fall.'"

Pearce said, "I'm never going to forgive you for defeating him. You and your sister had risen as heroes, yes. But now it is your turn to fall. By exterminating you, I would be doing justice to his death. By exterminating you, The One wouldn't have died in vain. This had been Jonathan's mission too, hadn't it? He also wanted you dead." He shook his head in shame. "I shouldn't have saved you that day. I should've let you die by his hand." He drew his sword. "Now I'm going to finish his work."

He lunged at us. My feet were glued to the floor for some reason and would not move. I was unprepared. Pearce brought his sword down in a vicious diagonal swing, Whit swung his upwards, and their blades collided. Ting! They came at each other again. As they duelled, they exited the arched, tall opening in front of the base of the twin set of stairs out onto the area where another twin flight of stairs met in an arc. Whit was backed up against the railings. Pearce wrapped an arm around his legs and swung them over his head. He disappeared over the edge.

I yelled my brother's name. I rushed toward Pearce, even though I was still processing precisely how I should deal with him. But he was already racing down the curving left staircase.

Whit leaned against the fountain in a sitting position—he must've crashed into it. He aimed his palms at Pearce. Green electricity careened from them straight at him. Pearce called on his own magic. Equally fatal blue electricity streaked out of his hands to meet with Whit's. A pinprick of cyan light illuminated at the point of contact. My brother's eyes shifted upwards, just once, but once was enough to tell me what he was about to do. He lifted his arms, bringing both his and Pearce's electrical energy a little higher, and a spout of cyan energy careered to the ceiling. Big sections of ice came loose. They hurtled downwards. Pearce leaped away from them a second before they thundered the staircase, breaking it. He tripped on the bottom levels of the steps and rolled on the floor.

By the time he came to a halt, Whit had walked over and was glaring at him a short distance away. He raised his hand, palm out. A furnace-hot green beam rocketed towards Pearce's flank, scorching it. I had never known he was capable of that kind of power. Pearce cried out, gritting his teeth, his body convulsing.

I screeched, "Whit, NO!"

Sparks of flame crackled from my hands that clasped the railings as a result of my sudden panic, melting them. I let go and scurried down the undamaged side of the staircase. Whit and Pearce had almost always been on edge with one another—it was only because of me they were getting along. I may not be that willing to hurt Pearce, but Whit was. Especially now that he believed he had good reason to.

But he did not.

"Stop!" I ran to his side, seized his arm with both hands, and jerked it downwards. Pearce's convulsing ceased. "He didn't betray us! That wasn't him. It was Hans!" I spoke in a rush, chest heaving. "Hans caused him to turn on us!"

"It doesn't matter," Whit dismissed. "He's gone."

"He isn't!" I yelled back. I refused to accept that. The wizard I came to love had to be in there somewhere.

The burnt flesh of Pearce's flank was slowly regenerating. When Pearce was fully healed, he laid a hand on the skin of his flank, and the part of his leather armour Whit had burned off was replaced. No longer bearing the sign of the injury, he stood up.

"Pearce," I urged, "resist the binds and clutches Hans has over your mind. Fight it! I know you can."

The way he shook his head implicated he wouldn't allow himself to be dissuaded. "The thing is, Wisty, I don't want to fight it. I don't want to oppose Hans," he said. "His Majesty granted me the opportunity to be one of his knights. It is a gift too splendid to decline. I'm already feeling like I belong with him. I've got a sense I will be deeply respected among his comrades. Obviously, being The One's enforcer is preferable, but since he is dead, I will henceforth serve the King of Arendelle."

This sounded nothing like the Pearce I knew in the past months.

"No, you wouldn't," Whit argued. "Since when're you ever the type who's content with servitude? Your yearning is to rule. You wouldn't want to be a knight, you'd want to be King. And you wouldn't be following Hans's orders, you'd be conspiring to overthrow him." He scowled and shook his head at him disbelievingly. "Don't you know yourself?"

Pearce was so fast I did not see him coming. He punched Whit full in the face. Whit reeled, helmet flying, but managed to keep his balance. He rubbed his throbbing nose and chin and ran his tongue over his split bottom lip, sucking away the blood.

"Quit throwing a bunch of B.S. my way." Pearce barked, "YOU'RE the one who doesn't know me! I'm going to please His Highness and make him happy. I'll start afresh!"

He flounced to the banister of the right curving stairs and wrenched loose a rail. Then he levitated my brother up a couple inches and pulled him closer to him using an unseen force.

"See this?" Pearce asked, twirling the fragment of ice in the air and catching it. Whit was too busy fighting the grip of his nemesis's telekinetic power to answer. "This is your humerus."

He broke the rail.

Bone cracked, and Whit clasped his upper arm and shrieked. Instinct lead me to dash to his side. Just when I was about to reach him, Pearce casually flicked his arm and I was tossed into the air. I crashed into a faraway wall on my side. By the time the dizziness flowing in me was gone, Pearce had already ripped off another rail.

"And this," he waved it in front of my brother's face streaked with torment, "is your femur." He curled his fingers around the rail dramatically, relishing every moment, and snapped it.

Once again I heard the cracking of bone. Whit howled agonizingly.

Pearce turned back to the banister and tore two more rails from it. He held them up, one in each hand, and said, "These, as you'll be delighted to know, are your ribs." Loathing replaced his expression of delightfulness. How deep did his hatred for me and Whit go? Pearce squeezed the icy fragments with superhuman strength and fractured them both with a popping sound.

Whit's wailing grew louder.

Pearce ripped off one long rail. "Your phalanges. In your toes." He split it in two. Whit bellowed as his hand went to his foot. "And in your fingers." Split! Whit's fingers jolted as their bones snapped.

Unable to witness the torture any longer and biting down the throbbing in my side, I stood up. I channelled my magic. My hand pulsed with magnificent yellow energy. Gold sparks circled my fingers and danced around my palms. The spell should be powerful enough to devitalize him. When I felt enough magic had assembled, I raised my arm.

Pearce tugged another rail free. "Aim that at me, Wisty, and it'll be your clavicle I'm breaking next," he warned without glancing at me.

My breath caught. I withdrew my magical energy and carefully lowered my arm.

Pearce smiled, his cold-blooded gaze still fixed on Whit, and fractured the rail he was holding. Whit screamed and rubbed his collarbone. The pain was too acute for him to open his eyes.

At last my brother's struggling ceased. His head drooped forward and his body went limp. He stepped into a world of unconsciousness.

But Pearce wasn't done—he was plucking another rail from the banister. It wasn't hard to bring forth the magic I had channelled not a moment ago. I directed it at him just when he was about to break the fragmented piece of ice. Before it reached him, however, he materialized an ochre ring, and in it formed a dark vortex. The pitch black hole sucked my spiralling golden yellow energy empty. Then it shrank to a dot and disappeared. During the time it took Pearce to materialize the supernatural vortex, he had lost concentration and released his telekinetic clutch on Whit, who had collapsed.

Pearce used magic to alter the form of the rail, changing it into the shape of a human brain. He taunted with a smirk, "Say goodbye to your cranium, Wisty." The moment the words left his lips, I felt the influence of his power on my skull, as though a mammoth claw had its hold on it and wouldn't let go. Pearce threw back his arm to hurl the ice structure, ready to smash it to bits.

I drew the thing into my hand using magic before it could leave his fingertips. I allowed myself a smile despite my fear. "Not my cranium, yours."

I could feel the rapid pounding of my heart in my ears. With the icy object securely rested in my palm, I began to prance back and forth complacently before him. I was half scared to death. Acting complacent in the midst of danger was so not my style. But it amazed me how confidently I did it.

I continued, "I will set this stone ablaze right in front of you and watch your skull dissolve—"

"Go ahead," he interjected, but his daring, penetrating gaze suggested otherwise.

"Unless…" I proceeded as if he hadn't cut me off, "you reverse whatever spell Hans put you under and free yourself from his mind control."

"I told you," Pearce avowed, his tone inferring he thought me dull-witted, "I've no desire to—"

"Resist it!" Fury, or perhaps my desperation to have him back, caused me to yell.

"No," he affirmed. "You can't make me. I am loyal only to King Hans."

But I hardly heard what he said after the 'no,' for I was talking at the same time, my voice increasing in volume with every word, trying to override his. "Defy him. This evil does not belong to you!" I shouted. "BREAK the bind of his indoctrination—"

"I WOULD RATHER DIE!" Pearce bellowed, hushing me.

My eyes turned glassy and my vision blurred to a swirl of indistinct colours. Whatever hope I had that my soul mate could be saved was flickering and near to dying. I blinked away the welling tears. When I spoke again my voice came out as a hoarse whisper, as though there was a constriction around my throat, "You love me." At this, he looked at me, and I gazed into his pale blue, almost clear eyes, which were cool but also, in a bizarre sort of way, alluring. "Can't you recall the power and magnetism that is our love? Don't you remember…anything about us?"

Pearce said, "I remember everything. That kiss we had onstage after our romantic little duet at the concert?"

My heart leaped at the mention of it.

"What the heck was I thinking, kissing you, singing with you?"

Now it plummeted a hundred feet.

"Also," he continued, "the intimacy we shared in the hotel that same night? I shouldn't have allowed you to indulge in it. I should've forced it on you instead."

Heat surged from my inner core to my hand clasping the icy object. Pearce squalled as I ignited the stone, as flames erupted from its base and licked upwards. He clutched the sides of his head. I increased the magnitude of the heat, and the fire cracked and flared up. Pearce's legs buckled and he fell on his knees. I was combusting his cranium. A soft redness flushed the skin of his face. I will reduce his skull into ashes. I will burn him alive. I will.

I won't. A zap of pain echoed in my heart, my bones, shuddering through my veins. I cried out. I tried to keep the flames burning but I could not. They gradually diminished owing to the distraction, sputtered, and went out. I was panting.

The redness faded from Pearce's face, indicating that whatever minuscule amount of damage I'd inflicted had been healed. "You feel it, don't you?" He got up, chuckling. "You and I are connected, Wisty. At least, you're connected to me, because your affection for me is still burning passionately." He gave a brief pause. "But mine for you? It's dead and gone."

I attacked him with high voltage. He flew a few metres back, colliding forcefully on the freezing ground. There it was again: that echo of pain racking my body. Pearce sent a jet of destructive blue light my way. I ducked. My fingers flared bright orange as I brought up the flames. "I've no desire to do this," I said, half sobbing. "Please. Don't make me hurt you, Pearce."

"You'll have to if you want to emerge from the ice palace alive." I was frightened he'd say that. He persisted, "Because if you don't kill me…I'll kill you." He strutted forward.

"Your grandfather, the Wizard King," I blurted, and he stopped in his tracks. "What about him, huh? You told me you longed to start a family with The One and earn his love. If that's your intention, why hadn't you done the same thing with your grandfather beforehand when your mom kept you on the Mountain? Why did you eliminate him?"

"As with what I'd explained to you when I appeared as Heath, the Wizard King was terrible, controlling, and maniacal. It was stifling living with him, and I didn't know The One that well back then, so I ran away to be with him to see if he is the person Izbella claims he is."

"A tyrannical, creativity-abolishing dictator," I filled in the gap he left out. I quirked an eyebrow and flashed a conceited smile. "Now you know she's right."

Pearce uttered a feral snarl and discharged a green sphere of power. It hit me square in the chest and I stumbled. A second ball collided with my flank before I regained my feet, pink this time, and I fell on my back. Pearce ejected sphere after sphere of energy at me from his hands, purple and orange and blue and brown and white. Each time he yelled in bitter rage and struck me with his magic, the energy surrounded me and I was carelessly thrown back a couple metres, farther away from him. Then he'd stalk me and do it again. I knew this sorcery—it required you to strike your foe repeatedly to have a fatal effect. And that's what Pearce was doing: assaulting me over and over, enervating me until I heaved my last dying breath.

But I wasn't letting him enervate me. I was collecting the magic he hurled my way, amassing it, waiting for it to build. With each ball of energy Pearce ejected the supernatural force inside me grew stronger—just a bit more harmful, a little more deadly. It was not easy, absorbing the powers that were debilitating me and sending severe aches through every pore of my body, but circumstance forced me to, because if I did not, I would die, and I wasn't ready to leave this messed up world just yet. The effort of collecting Pearce's magic was taxing as well as painful. I wanted to hurl, to go mad. I wanted to scream.

And when enough energy had amassed within my being and I thought I couldn't take it anymore, I did scream.

I shot several feet into the air, hovered, and opened my arms out wide. I retaliated against my nemesis using his own sorcery. Rainbow auras of energy burst from my chest at Pearce, slamming into and swallowing him. Iridescent and pulsating, they shifted from green and pink and brown and white to orange and purple and blue. All the colours of the spheres Pearce struck me with. They spread out in such a long distance the entire room was filled with their radiance.

Those throbbing echoes were not there this time when I hit him. Instead, striking him felt like a release. I was reaching into the afflictions his betrayal had marked on my soul and letting it all go.

I maintained the auras of energy for as long as I could before I stopped screaming and let it die out. I floated gently back down, touching the ground toes-first. Pearce lay alarmingly still on the floor, his eyes unblinking and unseeing, his flesh pale and ghostly white.

I had never used magic such as this before. For all I knew my soul mate could be dead. I blew out some air, mopped my sweaty brow, and ran a hand through my wavy red hair. Weighing on me were two options. I could either revive Whit and Pearce…or I could go help Elsa get her throne back. As much as I wanted to check on the wizards to see if they were alright, I couldn't. Hans was still at large out there, and nobody else but Elsa was fighting him. If I didn't go to her aid soon he would remove her, return to the village to finish Anna, and most probably win the war. I didn't have the premonition that there was much time left. I knew which choice to make.

Darting out of the grand, narrow, and vaulted main entrance of the palace, I rushed down the frozen stairs spanning a ravine. The temperature was always freezing up on the North Mountain and the land was always draped in thick blankets of white. Hans and Elsa were nowhere in sight. I trekked through the sheets of snow, my breath forming vapours in the air. They could not have gone far.