Sleep boosted Maya and Larry's spirits and they were soon ready to head into the winds whistling through the mountain pass. Though Phoenix hadn't slept, determination drove him onward. You saved me from starving. I don't even know what I'm saving you from, but I'll do the same. I'll save you. He swallowed. Save you for Mia Fey.

Breath steamed as they crested a summit and the rocks around them began to disappear under a soft quilt of snow. That quilt was threadbare at first, but by five miles down the road there was nothing but white. Phoenix glanced over his shoulder at the mountain pass a thousand feet up, then back at the valley floor that looked snowier than the peaks. They kept getting lower, and should have gotten warmer, but fresh flakes fell for the first time when they returned to the flatlands. We're closer to von Karma, Phoenix thought grimly and pulled his cloak tight.

It was beautiful even to someone who hated winter. This was the sort of winter that he'd been able to recognize after they were in their new house on the hill, with food in their cellar and livestock warm in their barn. He would never love the season, not after the memories of staring at the tiny fire they could barely afford to light, but the midwinter holidays felt far different with a meal in his belly.

Thick firs bowed under their covers. A fox bounded after some prey, its ghostly form trailing a black-tipped tail. Snow glittered like diamonds under the slightest brush of sunlight and the very air sparkled as the next beam moved across it. "I love winter," Maya said happily as she brushed her hand through the air. "It's so powdery here."

For an answer, Phoenix tugged his scarf higher. The previous summer he'd been assigned to guard the king during his visit to a southern port. All this snow might appeal to people who liked that sort of thing, but he'd rather be looking at turquoise waters and wondering if dolphins really existed. "So where to next?"

"We can't hear you with that scarf in your mouth, Nick," Larry said. He added, "Don't bundle up too much right away, or you won't have any more left to put on! It's gotta get even colder as we come near von Karma, right?"

"Thanks for the advice," Phoenix said dryly and tugged his scarf back down. Worse? He didn't know whether dealing with the snow and wind was worse, or what it said about his ridiculous feelings that he never once considered leaving Prince Miles to his fate. He must be freezing.

Maya had gone quiet as she focused on her scrying crystals. Their pace slowed as she worked, and slowed more as they left the road to follow the only directions she could give. That road had been of little use for guiding them, anyway; it was only a slightly smoother stretch of snow, but at least they didn't have to wind around trees or fear some hidden crevasse. "The light is stronger, now," she said as she tucked them away in her belt pouch. "We're getting closer."

"So what's the plan once we're in there?" Larry asked. They walked a quarter mile in silence and he added, "We... we have a plan, right?"

"Well." Phoenix swallowed. "I. Ah. I'll improvise."

"We're going up one of the strongest sorcerers in the world and your plan is 'I'll improvise?'" Maya asked dubiously.

"I'm good on my feet."

"Having no plan isn't a plan!" Maya fumbled open another pouch and dug through the charms and herbs inside. "Let me see what I can do."

"You're lucky I'm such a good friend," Larry said, riding up even with Phoenix, "or I wouldn't come with you on this crazy ride."

"You know," Phoenix said, "I never asked you to come."

"Duh, that's why I'm such a good friend." When Phoenix couldn't help but chuckle, Larry's smile grew. "Now, since I am your best friend and all, promise your best friend that you'll come up with a really great plan to help us get in and out again."

"I'll do my best."

"Great!" Larry adjusted the lead rope of his backup horse, hummed a few notes, and turned back to Phoenix. "So I gave you a minute, what's the plan?"

As he rolled his eyes, Maya looked up from her work and grinned. "I think I can do something to help. Come here, Nick." After he dropped back even with the girl, she took his hand in hers and, much to his dismay, stripped it of its glove. "This will feel strange, but I think it might work."

"Feel strange?" he repeated as she poured a thick golden oil into his palm. It glimmered like summer sunlight, then sank into his skin as she began to recite words in some unfamiliar language. Blessed warmth spread up his forearm. Gasping as much from relief as surprise, Phoenix tugged back his sleeve enough to watch the glowing heat swim up the veins at his wrist. Stiffness in his elbow faded as the warmth reached it; he hadn't even realized how poorly he'd dealt with the cold until that joint loosened. It felt like sinking into a warm bath and he sighed with relief. "Thanks."

"Give it a second," Maya said ominously.

"...Give it a second?" Phoenix repeated. His sighs turned into short gasps as the heat built. The warm bath became a hot one, and then so close to scalding that he would have leapt free of the water if only he could. For one agonizing second he was standing in a blazing fire, in too much pain to even scream. Then it was gone. All that remained was a quiet warmth that burned steadily inside him. Panting, Phoenix said, "Warn me, next time!"

Maya smirked and returned his glove. He was glad to have it back; the cold no longer felt ready to kill him, but he could still feel it harsh against his skin. "Do you wish I hadn't done that?"

Phoenix didn't say anything as they walked past a few trees. It felt like he was sitting by a fire back home, even as the unnatural snow fell. "Well. No."

"See? Trust me!" They rode another mile in relative silence, broken only by Maya's apologies to Larry for not being able to replicate the spell with her scanty supplies. "Your name should be lucky for us up there, Nick."

Phoenix blinked, then grinned. "Why, because no matter what I do, it'll be Wright?"

Maya glared. "No. And that's horrible. Don't say it again." As his head drooped, she said, "I'm talking about Phoenix, duh. We're heading into a land of ice and you're named after a mythical bird of fire." At his blank reaction, Maya smirked and asked, "You did know what your name meant, right?"

"No, but I did always think it was a little weird," he admitted.

Excitedly, Larry leaned in and asked, "So what's a Larry?"

"Um. Huh?"

"If a Phoenix is a firebird, then what's a Larry?"

Maya stared at him for a long, silent beat. "That's. You don't... fine. A dragon. A Larry is a dragon. It's a big, scary dragon with claws made of solid... uh..."

"Sapphires?" Larry asked, his hands clutched to his chest in excitement.

"Sure, why not?" Maya said, shrugging.

"Sapphires are my birthstone," Larry said with satisfaction and rode on ahead.

From the look on Maya's face as she watched him go, Phoenix couldn't tell whether she found his friend endearing or obnoxious. It was a common problem when faced with Larry Butz, but his loyalty had always kept Phoenix mostly on the endearing side of the scale. He felt like he had little to offer the world, not compared to brilliant princes or talented mages, but he could at least be brave and true.

Turning to Phoenix as he mused on his friend and their places in the world, Maya asked, "Did you see a lot of sapphires in your old town?"

No, we saw a lot of cows and what they left in the fields. "Hardly. And it's not like we got paid in them at the palace, either." Phoenix grinned. "But he likes to flirt with girls by comparing them to things, and so he had to look up flowers and gemstones in a lot of different colors."

"Oh," Maya said, giggling. "He's not very good at coming up with comparisons for brown eyes, but at least I know that he was trying. So what—"

With a roar of cracking ice, Larry vanished from sight. His scream cut off in an instant. That awful silence drove Phoenix forward at a run, his heart thudding. Larry's backup horse stood there, its lead limp against the snow, but Larry himself and his mount had vanished below.

"Larry!" Phoenix screamed, throwing himself off his horse and toward the jagged hole. He expected to find churning grey water that had swallowed his friend, but instead saw Larry at the bottom of a rocky gorge twenty feet down. His horse's leg turned at an unnatural angle as it rested on top of her motionless rider. When Phoenix closed his eyes, trying to convince himself that this wasn't happening, he saw the dead king with a spear through his heart. Opening his eyes with a gasp showed his best friend's body. He staggered backward, sick and dizzy.

"Ow," he heard on the wind. Phoenix forced himself back to the edge as Maya joined him and they both saw Larry moving in obvious pain. "My horse," Larry whimpered. Trying to move his obviously broken leg earned a scream from his agonized mount.

"Lower me down," Maya demanded, retrieving a length of rope from her saddlebags. "I think I have enough oil of sunthorn to heal his leg."

"No!" Larry shouted as he saw her approach him with magic building between her outstretched hands. "Take care of Buttercup!"

He named the horse? It's not even his. "Larry," Phoenix shouted, though it made him feel like a heel, "we... we have other horses. Let her heal your leg."

"Heal. Buttercup," Larry insisted when Maya approached him again.

She looked between the two, torn, and then up at Phoenix. He couldn't find it in him to argue with Larry's wishes, even though he wanted a second sword in that castle. Some part of him insisted that anything less would mean Prince Miles' doom. Yet... Larry, at least, understood what had happened when he fell. Buttercup's wild eyes knew nothing but pain and fear, and Phoenix had never been good with dealing with any sort of suffering right in front of him. When Maya hesitated, then reached out to the horse instead of its rider, Phoenix couldn't argue with her choice.

"Good," Larry panted as his horse scrambled back to her hooves. "Good. Now get me up into the saddle, Maya."

She moved to help, but Phoenix shouted down at them, "No, Maya. Larry... you need to stay down there." He looked along the small canyon and saw a tumble of rocks that led up to more ice, which they could presumably break. "The riding's going to get harder, the weather's going to get colder, and you need to stay out of the wind."

"Nick?" Larry asked as Phoenix's meaning sunk in. "You don't mean..."

"Maya, see if you can open up that trail. Get all of the horses down there and stay safe. I want you to look after Larry."

"You can't go on alone, Nick!" Maya shouted. "You don't even know where to go!"

He squinted into the howling wind. At first it looked like they'd been heading toward a lone peak separated from its kin in the ranges, but by now he could make out rocks that looked too sharp and regular to be anything made by nature. "Yes, I do!" Cold tore at him and he staggered back a few steps before he met the wind with determination. It had come from the direction he was looking at, and so his destination seemed even more certain. "If I don't come back... get him home."

"Nick, no!" Larry shouted.

"Get the horses down into the canyon!" Phoenix shouted back. "Don't let them freeze!" Maya and Larry pleaded with him to wait, to let them help, to not go on alone. He ignored them. He'd always been prepared to do this alone and he wasn't about to let others kill themselves on his behalf. With a click of his tongue, he guided his horse around the canyon. Soon their screams faded into the wind.

Now that he knew it was ice below the snow, his trek seemed worse than before. The beautiful soft quilt over the trees had turned into something slick and hard and twisted, broken by harsh grey stone instead of proud firs. The gusts of wind against his face became regular, then constant. Tears froze on his cheeks as his eyes began to water. His scarf went up again as much for that as the cold; Maya's spell still burned inside him. This looks more like the winters I remember, Phoenix thought grimly when he'd pushed on for another hour, or maybe three, or five. This is the sort of winter that kills you. The light never seemed to change here. It was always thin and unnatural, like weak grey daylight under starry black. He'd heard tales of the dancing northern skies, but these lights weren't dancing; they were writhing in agony.

His horse faltered and Phoenix's heart lurched.

"Come on, boy," he whispered into the horse's ear, and rubbed the gelding's neck where he'd leaned flat against it. "Come on, you can do it, you can make it." Please, he begged. Please, please. The snow was too deep. He needed a horse's long legs, not his own. He could see von Karma's castle clearly, now, but he'd never make it walking. Not up that hill. Not in this snow.

Warmth flowed from his body and his horse plunged forward.

Shivering as he adjusted to temperatures that felt ten degrees colder, Phoenix sighed in relief. Thank you, Maya. He didn't know how much more of the spell he could let leech out of him, but he could at least spare that much. And some things were more important than shivering.

The gates, tall and spiked, weren't guarded by anything but the wind. After a moment to gather his courage, Phoenix dismounted and found a gatehouse for his mount. "Stay here," he murmured and rubbed the gelding's nose. There were enough oats in its bags for another meal, and so he put on the feedbag before he left. "Stay out of the cold."

Once inside the courtyard, the sentry wind vanished. It was a small palace, suitable for a local lord by the size, but unlike anything he'd seen on his tours of the kingdom. Shards of rock topped towers made of solid ice. Thick, rune-covered silver bands circled each one, and Phoenix swallowed as he remembered Maya's lecture about how the metal enhanced northern magic. Gathering his courage, he inched toward the muddy shadows under one wall and, in that comparative safety, snuck toward the main door.

If not for Maya's spell his feet would be numb, but he could feel the joints between every thick block of ice, the runes carved under his soles, the decorative line of snowflakes that looked so out of place in a castle built for war. As well, there was a silver pedestal in the middle of the courtyard, topped with an enormous jewel. An oddly-shaped ruby inside a diamond floated a foot above the pedestal's crown, turning slowly. He frowned, then put it out of his mind and focused again on not being seen. Perhaps Manfred was out somewhere plotting his revenge. Perhaps he could find Prince Miles and vanish.

Perhaps Prince Miles would be standing there when he opened the door.

"Prince!" Phoenix gasped, delighted, and fell to one knee. "I'm here to rescue you!"

The prince said nothing.

"I'm... Phoenix Wright," Phoenix said uncertainly into the silence. He returned to his feet and only then really looked at who stood before him.

Prince Miles was no longer in the bright colors of court, but in a silver-trimmed outfit of northern cut. Save for that thin trim, it was flawless white from collar to boots. His hair was even lighter than before, as was his skin, and his eyes—

Phoenix took a step backward before he could help himself. "Prince?" he asked in a wavering voice. "Miles?"

Those eyes like a gentle rainstorm flashed unearthly white, then to the blue of a glacier's heart. "Take Wright to a cell," the prince ordered.

Something cold grabbed Phoenix's wrists. He had a second to struggle before more footsteps sounded. After one sharp cry of pain, the world turned as dark as the night sky and the floor slammed up to greet him.