Marin gritted her teeth as she watched floor after floor fall into ruin. The things she had seen when she had first spied the Capital had been the same. There's not even a slight change in the security. It was the same flimsy guards whose necks she could snap in a heartbeat that stood on the eastern entrance.

Eventually, she did snap their necks as she led her faction inside the Capital.

Her heart quivered in her chest. She didn't know why but she woke up this morning with dread in her stomach. That didn't normally happen, especially when she was out on a mission for the Heiress. Her past missions had brought her no emotions except fulfillment.

Because every mission successfully completed was one step into making her dream real. This shouldn't be any different. This was just one of her missions. She shouldn't have felt the things she's feeling now. Was it because, deep down, she wanted all of this to stop?

She shook her head, glaring at her second in command for staring at her weirdly. Was that...concern? Nonsense. As if the soldiers in her faction cared about each other. No, they're all in this for the money or for a wish they wanted granted.

Marin bit the inside of her cheek, wincing when she drew blood. Ugh. What had gotten her so worked up that she resorted to her old habits? Distress. Or maybe she was thinking too much. Either way, it looked like she was still caged by the things she thought she was already free of.

Huh, how much of her life could be summarized by that?

Why did she feel like throwing up? This wasn't her first major battle either. She was present at the siege on the Temple of Souls for the Soul Spells. She had fought for her life and for her mission while she's there. She failed but at least she could pin the blame on the Virtakios.

But this...

This was different in some other ways. First, the Virtakios wasn't here to stop her this time. She could take her time with these mongrels until they grovel at her feet for mercy. There's no one powerful enough to stop Cardovia. Second, probably, was the fact that the Heiress trusted Marin enough to let her lead an entire Cardovic faction on a mission that would not only get them at least three thrones but an entire race of fairy allies too.

The Heiress had been delighted when she and Kymalin had brought back news of the sprawling City made of ice. She had stopped listening when Kymalin began proposing the course of action. "Oh, yes, take whatever you want," the Heiress had said, waving her hands in a dismissal. Perhaps, Marin thought back then, the Heiress couldn't wait to play with her fancy metallic toys that Marin had once glimpsed lying around on the Heiress' desk.

The Heiress didn't even react when Kymalin mentioned teaming up with Synketros to carry out this mission. She just pushed them to hurry along.

Now, Marin, Kymalin, and April, after days of camping out in Diven, stormed the Capital with their respective factions. It hadn't taken long before they cleared the first five floors. Marin herself had dealt five killing blows with her dagger, not minding the fact that she just murdered five innocent ice sprites who exploded in showers of ice at her feet.

Marin had never been reviled by the sight of blood on her dagger. Time and again, she caught herself struggling to push her disgust down her gut. She had a dream to fulfill. That's why she was doing this. The Heiress could help Marin in her pursuit. It's only natural that Marin would follow the Heiress's orders. This just happened to be one of them.

"Are you sure you're alright?" Almira, her second in command, said. "Your hands are shaking."

Marin regarded the banshee, noting the cleanly-braided bluish hair that was starting to turn gray. She's not that old but not that young either. Strange, lamp-like yellow eyes reflected Marin's blue ones.

"I'm alright, Almira," Marin waved the banshee away. Why was Marin surrounded by annoying banshees anyway? She felt like a banshee magnet at times especially that...thing with Rascat. Marin pushed past Almira, walking five steps faster than she used to walk. It's not due to the fact that the banshee asked how she's doing but to the fact that her face started burning when Rascat's face popped into her head.

Nothing happened that night with him as far as Marin could tell. But she felt something shift in her chest when he...

Marin shook her head again. Focus. She couldn't afford to get distracted, especially not this time. They had to hurry and rejoin Kymalin's faction. The Carleon heir's faction was the main penetrating force in this mission. Marin shouldn't fail anyone.

"Let's just hurry," Marin said to Almira without turning or stopping. Her mind pictured the banshee nodding in earnest like Almira always did.

Footsteps against ice echoed in the silent hallway. What's going on? There were no guards or random citizens in sight. Now that Marin noticed it, the guards posted at the entrance died too easily. Were they simply bait? A distraction?

It's too quiet.

Did the ice sprites know of the attack? How?

"There you are! I was beginning to wonder what held you up," Kymalin's voice echoed along the ice walls. Somehow, it was thick with worry. It confused Marin.

"Priestess," Almira ducked her head, crossed her legs, and dipped a little. The traditional formal greeting for the High Priestess.

"Nonsense, girl," Kymalin waved her hand in the young banshee's face. "We are not in Carleon. Today, we are nothing but comrades."

"As you wish, priestess," Almira said

Kymalin just clicked her tongue and grabbed Marin's arm. The banshee hauled Marin away, glancing once at the horde of black-clad soldiers they just left. "Please stop calling me by that hideous name," Kymalin called. "My name is Kymalin and nothing else. Got it?"

Marin imagined Almira doing the nod again.

Marin's amusement died at her throat when Kymalin shoved her against forward as they rounded a dark corridor. "What are you doing?" Kymalin narrowed her slitted eyes at Marin. "You're late."

Marin felt a bead of sweat slide down her temples. It's cold here so why was she sweating? This wasn't good. "I-I got held up by the guards," Marin's fingers found comfort in playing with the pommel of the dagger sheathed by her waist.

"Those are nothing but illusions," Kymalin said.

Marin looked around her like those creeps could pop up behind them. "What?"

Kymalin smiled, her crooked teeth reminding Marin of fangs. Almira's, even though they're as wretched as the rest of the banshees, weren't like that.

"They have no soul," Kymalin crossed her arms and shifted her weight to her other leg. "It's a wonder a prodigy like you hasn't seen that."

Marin didn't say anything in her defense. It's true. Kymalin exhaled through her mouth when she realized Marin wasn't going to put up much of a fight. The banshee turned away and began walking back towards their factions.

"From here, we advance as one," Kymalin tucked her hands inside her fur-lined, leather coat. Damn, why hadn't Marin thought of that? Her long coat made of ymil cloth was useless in this cold. "Get a grip and make sure you won't hesitate to draw blood when they're no longer mere illusions."

Marin clenched her jaw. Of course. She couldn't afford to hesitate. Not now. She was so close. There's no way she's going to let this chance slip away.

Or has it been already decided for her?

They descended farther and farther down. The halls, rooms, and even indoor parks lay abandoned. There's not a single soul in sight and by the time they reached the forty-ninth level, it had become dim enough to need to light a torch.

The fire flickered and waved at its reflection from the ice walls. Marin kept her eyes forward, kept her feet sure. They rounded a corner and came across a set of stairs made of ice. Again? Marin pursed her lips despite the growing numbness in her shin. Well, it's not like she had a choice.

Marin signalled to her faction to continue. As one, their combined factions tackled the stairs. The darkness swallowed what light was shining from their torches. Dread forced Marin's throat closed. Trap. They're walking straight through a trap.

Her foot stepped off the stairs. Light exploded into the room. Something cracked. She started falling. Did they...?

Marin saw the ice floor shift and crack before her eyes. Weightless. She was weightless.The wind that wasn't there before pushed her hood from her head and her hair off her face. It's a good thing she tied it for today. Something was happening around them. The walls crunched and cracked. Something was definitely going on.

The question was...what?

Marin thought of the spell by instinct as she neared the ground. She let the shadows and the darkness swallow her. The next thing she knew was that she was stepping off a pool of shadows and into a stable floor.

"Regroup!" Kymalin's shout was clear across the room. Wait, did the space become bigger? Marin, in the darkness, squinted past scuffling bodies, rustling clothes, and clinking weapons, tracing the walls and following where the landscape shifted. Her faction fell into line behind her and Almira's hard muscles pressed into Marin's arm. She's alive, then.

Marin took five deep breaths. Calm. Focus. That's when she saw a flicker of movement by the wall. Something that looked like a hole shutting off. Hole...

"Take cover!" Marin yelled just as light flooded the room blinding the heavens out of her. Numerous holes opened by the walls and out came icicles shaped like spears, poised to not only wound but kill.

Marin threw up a shield atop her as she winced. Her eyes stung with dark blobs of light dancing in her vision. Damn it. Why hadn't she seen this coming? The ice sprites knew the attack was going to happen. How? How have they seen it coming? Was there a traitor among the Heiress's ranks?

Someone gave out an unholy shriek to Marin's left. She turned and she saw one of the soldiers in her faction, a half-blood named Briane, lying on the floor with a fairy-long icicle sticking out of her stomach. Blood sprouted, sprayed, and flowed. The ice had never looked so slick with red snaking on the surface.

Marin crept closer, keeping her shield up as more icicles slammed into it. She forced herself to look at her comrade who lay on the cold floor, gasping for breaths that could any time be her last.

"M-Marin, it hurts..." Briane moaned, the light in her eyes flickering on and off. This was...

"Shh, it's going to be over soon," Marin said as softly as she could. They were soldiers. Soldiers die all the time. This was what normally happens. Snap out of it. "Just close your eyes. It will be over soon."

Like a tamed dagrine, the girl obeyed. Briane was a few years older than Marin but still a child. Both of them had never been on a real war, just regular diplomatic missions the Heiress sends them to. No one ever told them that death hurt or that it could come suddenly.

Another icicle slammed into Marin's shield, the pointed tip cracking her magic. Marin laid her dagger beside Briane's neck in time for the icicle to slam into the floor. She slit the girl's throat in one slick move as the last of the icicle's shards clinked against the floor as they ricocheted.

Blood had never felt so warm in Marin's hands in this winter wonderland. Briane stared unseeing into the high ceiling above them that formed without any of them noticing. Marin gritted her teeth. She may not know Briane's story and her reason for joining Cardovia but like Marin, she probably wanted something out of this war too.

She's unfortunate to die this early in the battle. That's all of them were at this point. Lucky. Fortunate. Those who died were just mere pawns. Marin clenched her jaw so hard her temples throbbed. They all came here with a mission to fulfill. Dying meant failing.

"Soldiers!" Marin raised her voice to the unfathomable ceiling of ice. "To me! Raise your shields! Don't die!"

The rallying cry behind her as her faction fell behind her was enough to tell her that she probably lost two to three men including Briane. That's not much. They could still push through. Marin kept an eye at one of the holes, waiting for it to spew out an icicle. She swept her hand in a wide arc, sending a slashing spell straight at the charging icicles when they shot out of the holes singing of their thirst for blood.

Well, if it's blood they want, Marin was more than happy to paint the walls with it. "Soldiers, draw weapons," Marin ordered. "Don't hesitate to ram them through."

The soldiers screamed their war cries. The darkened doorway shimmered with light and the real ice sprites stepped into the light. Marin grinned. Yes, she should get a grip on herself. There's no way she couldn't kill these vermin after they murdered one of her comrades.

Let the real battle begin.

Marin ducked, swung, and stabbed. Blood and sweat mixed in her face, her back long ago drenched with them. Her arm ached yet she screamed and rammed her dagger through chests, arms, legs, and even necks.

She felt nothing—not sympathy and certainly not pity. These people were determined to end her just as she was eager to do the same to them. If there was someone who would make it to the end, it's Marin.

She leaped back as she swept her arm with an absorbing spell. Ice crunched as her spell sucked the life out of it. She grinned. A little spell she learned from the Cardovic library somehow proved useful. Her opponent was an ice sprite clad in ice-blue armor. Marin was so going to steal that when she's finished with this place. She adored the greaves, especially with their hand-carved pattern. Too bad if it's going to be soaked with blood after Marin's done.

The ice sprite charged, a full, frontal attack made up of ice heading towards Marin. She sidestepped, right into the waiting sword point of the ice sprite. She gasped as she twisted mid-motion to slam her foot into the ice sprite's hard-plated stomach. She concentrated her magic to her foot and hurled the ice sprite at least five meters away with an amplification spell.

A neat trick she learned from Kymalin. Banshees fight the dirtiest way possible, every damned time. It's time Marin learned how to apply that to the battlefield. The ice sprite she had thrown crashed into five more. Like a proud mother, Marin watched some men from her faction deal with the fallen soldier. It wasn't long before Marin heard the sound of ice shattering into a million shards. Good.

Something whizzed at her ear.

She turned too late.

She squeezed her eyes shut, picturing Briane's bleeding form. Perhaps this was her fate.

"I can't believe it," an eerily familiar voice bled in Marin's ear. She couldn't place where she heard it last. "They even let a child into the battlefield."

Marin wrenched her eyes open to come face to face with an ice sprite dressed in the same ice-blue armor but with a mask covering her face. The ice sprite had her sword out—a sleek, long blade that tapered too early. Marin had seen these models at the sprites' smiths and they're especially wicked at cutting fairies in the middle.

"Go home, kid," the masked ice sprite turned to Marin. It's clearly female from the gentle hum that came along with it. Why...was it so familiar? "This is no place for a child. Where are your parents?"

Marin sneered. "Dead."

She shouldn't have answered that. Before the ice sprite could react, Marin moved and struck. She gasped when the ice sprite lashed out and grabbed her dagger hand as if they were in the water. That fast...

"You should have taken my warning, kid," the ice sprite's visible mouth curved into a dry smile.

"General! Order a retreat!" one ice sprite yelled from another side of the room. "We have secured the rest of them."

Where was Kymalin? Why weren't any of the men putting up a fight?

The ice sprite holding Marin's wrist, the General, hummed. She then twisted Marin's hand. Pain erupted in her wrist, driving a gasp out of her lips. Her fingers betrayed her by letting go of the dagger. "You were quite clever with your absorbing spell," the General's smile was now sure to haunt Marin's dreams later. "Run along. I don't wish to kill a child today."

The General brandished her sword and pointed it at Marin. "One."

Marin turned. For the first time, she wished her legs would carry her faster.