I'd Give Up The World For You

Daisy sighed and tried her best to push all of these conflicting thoughts out of her head. She needed to focus on doing some damage control with Ira and his friends. She entered the library and saw them all leaning over the same book, smiling slightly. 

Their enthusiasm was endearing. She was glad they could still be excited about something after the day they'd had. 

"Hi, guys! What are you reading?" she asked. 

"The most fascinating book about alchemy—" Ira began but was cut off when Ciara suddenly grabbed them all and cast some sort of darkness spell. Was this what they had used to sneak into the castle earlier?

Daisy understood what was happening as soon as she turned around. Somehow Juliet and the remainder of her entourage had escaped the dungeon and come looking for them. Her heart raced in fear as the man called for someone to block the door but it only grew worse when she saw the look on Demetria's face as she taunted them.

"You can't hide forever, Ciara! We're going to find you sooner or later."

That was the look of someone who had nothing left to lose. It wasn't the slightest bit comforting. What were they planning by bursting in here? What did they want? Was she going to be used as a hostage to threaten Rukelion? 

Daisy knew she had a lot of people following her and there was an impressive wall of ice blocking the door. Demetria had been a mage all along! That must have been how they ditched their captors. How had she forgotten that? Ira mentioned it in one of his letters.

Through her panic, she tried to calm herself down with the reminder that Rukelion had been on his way to interrogate them. He would find they were missing and knew where she had gone. Her only hope was that he got here fast enough to deal with it. 

"What do we do?" Sarabeth whispered as they all ducked to avoid a ball of light the man threw at them. 

"Wait until Rukelion gets here," Daisy whispered back. "All we have to do in the meantime is keep hiding. He'll be coming soon and he can handle this."

"But Professor Lucien is a powerful light mage. I'm powerful as well but if he manages to hit us my shadows will be ripped apart and they'll be able to see us again," Ciara said grimly in a voice even quieter than the ones they had been using. 

"Duck!" 

Ira pulled Daisy and Ciara, who were closest to him, down. He had only spoken for the benefit of Sarabeth, who also dropped to the ground to avoid another ball of light. This wasn't going very well and they had only been at it for a minute or two. How long would it take for Rukelion to get here?

That thought was immediately derailed as Daisy felt something wet seeping through her clothes. Oh no. She had read about this. Why did her water have to break now? The middle of fighting for her life was the worst possible time for the baby to be coming!

"Ira," she panted. "I think the baby is coming."

"Now?!"

"Yeah."

He let out an unfamiliar curse word—likely Aveleenian—under his breath before addressing Sarabeth. "Do you have anything useful on you? Sleeping powder would be really helpful about now!" 

"Yes but I'll have to get close enough to them to use it and we'll all have to hold our breaths and quickly back away unless we want it to affect the whole room," she said quietly. 

Unfortunately for them, this plan backfired. Ira and Ciara stayed back protectively with Daisy while Sarabeth snuck forward but she didn't manage to duck in time and the light guy managed to shatter the shadow she was wrapped in. Since it was connected to the main shadow they were all exposed.

Demetria's wild eyes suddenly turned toward them and Ira and Ciara both stood in front of Daisy. He shouted, "Can you show a little mercy? She's about to have her baby and she hasn't done anything to you!" 

Juliet and the man looked concerned but didn't say anything. To Daisy's surprise, Nico did. With a troubled expression, he stepped forward and walked over to stand between Demetria and the others. "You can't take someone about to give birth hostage. It might hurt the baby and it's innocent."

"Its father isn't!" Demetria said icily. "Get out of the way, Nico, or I'll freeze you too."

Juliet finally dared to speak. "Demetria, we can't hurt Daisy's baby. Nico is right. We can still negotiate when Rukelion arrives because we have the upper hand. There's no need to do anything rash."

"I beg to differ."

Before anyone could register what was happening Demetria had created an additional wall of ice so they were all incased in a box that felt like the inside of a freezer. Daisy thought her very bones might freeze and it was a struggle to stay conscious. The air burned her lungs with every breath.

All of the other kids began huddling around her trying to conserve warmth but it wasn't very effective. Her brain was getting foggy and she noticed the others were having just as hard a time as she was. Sarabeth kept closing her eyes only to desperately snap them open again a moment later. 

"Deme…tria. What…are you…doing?" the man got out with much difficulty. 

"What I have to," the girl replied in a hard voice. 

It didn't take long for people to begin passing out from the intense cold. Nico and Sarabeth went first. Ciara, Juliet, and the man not long after. Daisy and Ira were the last ones holding on. 

She wanted to desperately tell him not to shut his eyes but she couldn't get the words out. Her lungs were freezing and couldn't use enough air to speak. 

His hand, which had been holding onto hers as tightly as possible, suddenly went slack. He was out too and she was all alone with the ice mage. Why was she going to such extremes? She didn't know the truth about what happened to Veese. 

Daisy couldn't think straight. She had to pour what little focus she had left into staying awake!

Demetria walked over to where she was lying in agony on the ground and heaved her frozen body painfully to its feet. She said something Daisy couldn't process because of how cold she was and how much everything hurt. 

A moment later her blurry vision processed a door slamming open and a familiar head of bright red hair appearing in the doorway. Everything got much warmer but that didn't prevent her from finally losing consciousness. Her last thought was that she was glad her husband had come. He would save them. 

===

By the time Rukelion made it to the library he felt a chill emanating from it. He blasted the door open and made all of the ice evaporate instantly as he took in the room. Everyone was passed out but the ice mage, who was holding Daisy hostage with one hand pressing a knife to her throat. 

His heart nearly stopped. It had been very clever of the ice mage to grab a weapon that couldn't be melted so easily but he couldn't commend her for it. 

What was he supposed to do? If he tried to attack her he might hit Daisy!

"What do you want?" Rukelion demanded, managing to keep his voice from shaking despite his panic. "If it's within my power I'll give you anything you ask. Let her go. She isn't involved in anything I've done."

"I know," the ice mage said with a cold light in her eyes. 

"If you know then why—"

"Ever heard of the old adage 'an eye for an eye'? You killed the one I loved most so all I'm doing is returning the favor. Don't deny it! I heard you tell your wife you killed Eliot! You took him away from me!

"Everyone always gave me a hard time for being so pale and being more interested in my magic than playing with people my own age but not Eliot. He thought I was special and was always interested in what I had to say. 

"I was devastated when he joined the royal army with his friend Paul Bridger but no matter how much I pleaded I couldn't stop him. He told me he would come back rich and famous but I didn't care about that. I only wanted him to come back at all.

"While he was gone I focused on my studies so I could make something of myself as well. I had hoped he would be proud of me and finally see me as something other than a little girl who needed to be protected when he came back. 

"But he never did because of you! I knew foul play had to be involved. He was just as strong as Paul and he made captain early. There was no way some non-magical soldier would kill him after all the battles he had fought. I couldn't believe it. 

"I threw myself more deeply into my studies and my magic as I grieved, trying to distract myself.. I never would have imagined hearing that there had been a fire mage on the path of revenge involved in the Aveleenian War but suddenly everything made sense. You had a grudge to fulfil and so do I!"