I am standing in the palace throne room on the empty dais. Sunlight streams through the enormous windows behind the thrones. A hushed beauty fills the hall and for a moment I feel at peace.

I turn slowly wondering how I got here. Where is the Prince? As though my questions summon the darkness, the room turns cold and gray. Ice crystals form in the dampness I now notice trickling down the walls. Water drips from the domed ceiling and freezes. Stalactites form at an unnatural speed, their icy points resembling the teeth of a huge beast, its mouth widening, teeth extending to bite me. I stretch out my hands to fumble through the murk. Voices whisper. Wailing, crying, begging me to help them.

I wake gasping and trembling. My face is freezing. I am lying in a pool of water. Shirt, hair, trousers, every inch of me is soaked through.

"That's enough," a voice says. A man with a scar stands over me. Fingers clenched around a jug. Huge pitchers line up across an uneven floor. I struggle to assemble the fragments of what I see into a whole picture.

Energy thunders in the mind-world, as though I am standing behind the torrential curtain of a waterfall.

The harder I try to grasp what is going on, the worse the thundering energy becomes, pulling me to the edge of the waterfall, dragging me down the crashing flow into the vortex.

Pain slices through me as the soldier with the scar drags me by one arm over metal bumps. Commander Linx. His name is Commander Linx. In an instant I regain my senses.

The commander releases me and I fall into a wet heap at his feet. He steps out of the cage.

"Leave it open," Strik says. The agony in my ribs and arm relents and I am spinning, losing balance. Falling.

He strides into a great shimmering hall, walls of ice, floor of ice, thrones of ice. Eight thrones set in a circle, seats facing outwards. Silver carpets like the rays of an argent sun extend from each one. A middle-aged woman with long white-blonde hair sits opposite the door he has entered by.

"Every ten moons," she says, her voice raised to travel the hall, "the children of royal blood are tested and selected to govern the eight kingdoms of Rudeash. Every test is designed to draw out the candidate's strengths and weaknesses. When you are in the test, you will forget everything else. Your mind will believe what you see and hear is real. From this moment on, everything I tell you will become your reality without question." The woman's face softens. "The decision of those present here today is final. Good luck, my son."

He gazes at her, confident, back straight, head high. My sense of my own life starts slipping away. As though her words condition my thoughts as well as his.

The ice cracks and melts, the kings and queens shimmer, growing translucent until they are a mirage of color, until they are gone.

In the place of the ice hall is a frozen white ocean and on the horizon an army. The army wears the Carucan uniform, and bears the Carucan ruby red flags. They ride enormous horses covered in long, thick hair.

The woman, his mother, stands beside him, her shimmering silver and blue dress dancing in the wind. He hands her the looking glass that magnifies his vision. She takes a moment, then says,

"There are too many of them. The shrouders are not strong enough." She glances over her shoulder and he follows her gaze. Behind them, in the sun's low rays stands a magnificent ice-city, towers sculpted into spiral points, domes of misty blue and green swirls, enormous bridges that resemble wet glass. "They have broken the veil. They see everything."

"It's not possible," he says, shocked.

A gust of wind whips up the ice, cutting it into shards and throwing them in my face. I cry out. Blood drips where I've been cut.

I raise my hand and shudder as I regain my wits. I'm lying on my back in the cage. It is not blood oozing down my cheeks, but water. Blue eyes in a deeply lined face watch me. I am not him. This is not Rudeash. I am not Strik.

I pant gasping for air. A part of me is still trapped in his mind. On my inner-eye the Carucan army approaches, demanding my attention. I mentally wrestle against the drag of his inner-world.

"You will answer my question," he says. The energy emanating from him surges. He is using the voice, and it strengthens his force, pushing me back towards the edge of the waterfall—the black rush. "Why were you travelling with the Prince?" A deafening noise drowns his words.

I'm suddenly surrounded by a deep mist. A snowstorm blankets the world. And then a crack opens in the haze revealing an icy spire.

"The veil," I murmur.

"You are in command," the young Strik's mother says. "The army will reach the edge of the city in less than two hours. It is up to you to decide how we will stop them and protect our home and our people."

"Send for the shrouders. I will give them my orders as soon as I return."

"Where are you going?"

"I will take the fastest sleigh and be back in an hour."

"If you go out there to speak with them alone, you could be killed."

"It is my decision. I have been elected for this. And now I will do what must be done."

Time jumps.

He is on a sleigh, travelling at high speeds across an endless white landscape. Wolves the color of nuts and ashes pull him along, their bodies large and underfed. Frost forms on the lines of his cheeks. The ground rolls and bumps. The specks of black and red on the horizon take the form of figures on horseback. A wolf at the back of the train starts yapping and gnashing his teeth. I lean forward to see if the harness is caught. His giant head turns and snaps at my hand. Teeth like metal skewers plunge through my flesh.

I howl in agony. Instinct makes me try to draw my injured hand to my chest, but my wrist catches on metal. I kick my legs. The chains around them rattle. My hands and feet are locked down.

"The bones of your little finger have been smashed to pieces," Strik says. I flail around, shaking with fear, wondering where in the name of the Gods I am. "Which leaves nine more fingers and ten toes. Enough, I hope, to hold your attention. Are you listening now?"

"Yes!" I scream. The crashing energy of his mind is muffled. He is right. Physical pain will keep my spirit clinging to my body rather than getting sucked into the black hole. I must tell him why I was travelling with Prince Jakut. I must tell him because... I pillage the corners of my muddled brain, throwing everything out as I search for the reason.

"Tell me why you travelled with the Prince and Duke Roarhil."

"The Prince needed my sight." The sounds from my mouth seem broken. When I stop to catch my breath, I hear myself moaning.

"Go on," he says. A compulsion writhes in me to spill everything. Every single minutest detail from the last three weeks. I struggle to tame the desire.

"A mercenary took me from Blackfoot Forest to the Hybourg. The Prince had woken from the long-sleep without his memories. He needed an Uru Ana to find out why he was in the north and why someone tried to kill him. He paid gold for me and brought me here to discover his assassin."

Energy gushes and swells. "A shadow weaver," Strik says. "If you are a slave, why did he risk his life to save you?"

I try to sit up. The chains rattle and keep me tethered. The stabbing agony dims enough for the dark energy of Strik's mind to roar in my head again, pulling me over the edge.

From out of the blizzard rides a man dressed in heavy bear furs, sword dazzling with jewels, lumps of ice in the curls of his shoulder-length hair. His highest-ranked commanders flank his sides.

"Why have you come?" Strik says, voice booming in the emptiness.

"We come in peace to explore new lands."

I am back inside the test the Rudeashan elders gave Strik as a young man.

"An army does not explore, it conquers. But you cannot conquer," he continues using the voice, "when the men riding at your side wait for the first opportunity to take your place."

Distrust clouds the king's expression. He looks at his second-in-command. Confusion and fear sweep over the young commander's face.

A smile pulls at Strik's mouth. His gamble has paid off.

"Brother, he lies to divide us. Why listen to a man whom you have never met before?"

An eruption of pain severs me from Strik's mind. I am screaming, thrashing, biting at the air. The agony in my foot holds me on the cusp of blackness, the twilight of consciousness. I yank against my chains. Through strands of tangled hair and watering eyes, I glimpse Commander Linx at the foot of the metal platform, a hammer in his rigid arm, shock and horror twisting his face. Strik's voice cuts through my wailing, the chains clanging, Commander Linx retching.

"It seems we've reached this young commander's threshold for violence," he muses. He stands near the head of the platform, almost close enough for me to spit in his face. "He could not watch the blow he administered and by the looks of it has smashed up most of your foot. So we had better move this along swiftly. Why did Prince Jakut save you during the bird-men attack?"

"I don't know." Pain shapes my words, disfiguring them, making them barely recognisable.

"Tell me the truth."

"He needed me," I sob.

"And?"

The agony has me trembling and crying. The terror of more unbearable pain is overwhelming. But Strik no longer uses the voice. No longer drives deep inside me where I cannot resist.

"Arrogant!" I hiss. "The Prince's arrogance makes him think he's invincible."

"Is he in love with you?"

"No." I stop straining against my chains, close my eyes, drift in the sea of agony.

"Have you won the Prince's special favour?" Strik asks, leaning over. Waxy cold fingers caress my neck. Suddenly they pinch together, squeezing my windpipe. "Answer me!"

"I don't know," I sob. "I don't know."

"Then we will have to find out."

Hello! I'm back. I was at a campsite with no internet. There was even reception for making phone calls. Back home and will carry on updating as usual. Hope you're all well. xox