Janel didn’t laugh, but she did take her turn.

Janel’s Turn. Outside the Ice Demesne, Yor, Quur.

“This is my place!” Aeyan’arric screamed as she flew toward me. “You aren’t welcome here, trespasser!”

She loomed even larger than she had in my memories. White and bright with eyes so very blue, a color echoed by her serpentine belly’s aquas and greens, flickering pastel hues like overlapping ice blocks. Aeyan’arric blinded in her brilliance, and yet cast a dark shadow all around her. The waning storm revealed the castle above, glimmering. When Cherthog had built his palace, he had lopped off a mountaintop, building a giant crystal and marble pyramid to sparkle in the sunlight.

Somewhere up there, Veixizhau had tossed me out a balcony, to slide down the side like so much unwanted garbage, to die in the frozen cold.

And somehow, I had survived the fall and the cold, although I suspected I now knew exactly how.

But a tolerance for cold didn’t mean I would survive being ripped apart by claws half my size.

“I’m sorry!” I shouted, because I didn’t know what else to say. “Is there a path back up to the castle? I’ll leave right now.”

She looked at me with those mad azure eyes, her lips pulling back as she opened her mouth. In mere moments, she’d do something I would deeply regret.

I dove to the side, scrambling to find cover. Even as I did, cold air and snow blasted from her direction. I shuddered as I barely escaped being encased in ice. I felt cold. For the first time since waking, I actually felt cold, a trembling I felt down to my bones.

The ice before me shuddered and cracked as her claws slammed into it, ripping huge grooves into the glacier.

Fire, I thought. I needed fire.

Unfortunately, I had nothing to burn except a soaking-wet dress. Veixizhau had taken all my jewelry, from my belt to my jeweled hairpins. We stood on a mountain of frozen water, useless as fuel.

So I’d have one chance, and even then, I could only hope to distract her.

I pulled the dress off my body and tossed it up into the air. It froze solid the moment it left contact with my skin, but that mattered not at all; I made it burn.

The dragon jerked back in surprise, startled.

And during her shocked blink, I ran.

Really, I tripped and slid as the glacier rolled down beneath me in a rather sharp slope. I’m sure I made a ridiculous sight, naked and without weapons. I couldn’t have been more vulnerable.

Which is why running seemed like such a fine idea.

Arasgon would have been proud. Dorna too.