Cold air hit my face as the ice cave came back into focus… the jagged walls, frozen blood, the two dead trolls sprawled across the floor.

  I was on my knees panting. My hands pressed against the cold ground, fingers splayed wide like I'd been trying to stop myself from falling.

  "Fish?" Zo's voice, close and worried. "You back?"

  I pushed myself upright and turned. Zo crouched a few feet away, one hand extended like she'd been about to grab me. Behind her, Sadie leaned against the cave wall, holding her side where she’d been injured earlier.

  "Yeah," I said. My voice came out rough. "I'm back."

  "You just... went vacant." Zo lowered her hand but didn't move away. "Your eyes rolled back, and you stopped breathing for a minute."

  "I was pulled into my Sacred Soul," I said.

  Sadie straightened slightly, wincing from the movement. "What did you find?"

  I looked at the troll I'd killed. The one that had given me the Regalia. Its body lay twisted, arms bent and broken, its blood freezing from where I'd driven my worm-sword through it.

  "A gift," I said. "And maybe a solution."

  Mabel emerged from my collar, stretching up to eye level. "More like a very large, very violent pet that you can't control yet."

  Zo's eyes widened, but she didn't flinch this time. She'd started getting used to Mabel. "What kind of pet?"

  "The troll gave me a Regalia when I killed it," I said. "A bound summon."

  Sadie pushed off the wall and took two careful steps closer. "You can summon it?"

  I stood and brushed ice from my knees. "Let's find out."

  I reached inside myself, searching for the connection I'd felt in my Sacred Soul. The thread that tied me to the troll, the binding that made it mine.

  I pushed harder, trying to remember the sensation of the glowing sphere, the moment I'd touched it and claimed the Regalia.

  "Fish?" Zo asked.

  "Give me a second."

  I closed my eyes and focused. The worms moved beneath my skin, responding to my frustration. I felt them coil and uncoil, searching for the same thing I was.

  Then Mabel jabbed me in the neck.

  "Ow, what the hell—"

  "You're trying to force it again," she said. "Stop thinking like a human. You're Vermis Incarnate. The Regalia is part of your essence now, stored in your Sacred Soul. You don't summon it like casting a spell. You manifest it."

  "And how do I do that?"

  "The same way you manifest your worms."

  I opened my eyes and looked at her. "You want me to politely ask the troll that just killed one of my fragments to come out and play?"

  "I want you to acknowledge the bond. It's yours, but it's not you. It has its own will, its own purpose. Respect that, and it will respond."

  I took a breath and tried again. This time I didn't push. I just... opened myself up to it. Let the worms flow through me, let them search for the connection without forcing it.

  And there it was. A cold, distant presence at the edge of my awareness. Waiting.

  I reached for it.

  Light flickered in front of me. Small at first, just sparks of pale blue that drifted down from nowhere, but they multiplied fast. Hundreds of them, then thousands, swirling together in a column that reached from floor to ceiling.

  Zo backed up. Sadie's hand went to her spear.

  The light condensed, pulling inward, and a shape formed inside it. Massive shoulders. Long arms. A hunched spine covered in frost.

  A ten foot tall troll materialized. Its skin was the same gray I remembered, mottled with patches of ice that grew from its flesh like armor. The runes carved into its body glowed with that same pale blue light, pulsing in time with my heartbeat.

  Its eyes opened. Two chips of frozen sky that locked onto me.

  It didn't move, it just stood there, breathing slow and heavy, each exhale sending a plume of frost into the already cold air.

  "Holy shit," Zo said.

  Sadie stepped to the side, putting herself in a better position to strike if needed. "Is it under your control?"

  I looked at the troll. It looked back.

  "Let's find out," I said. "Sit."

  "Sit down."

  The troll's eyes didn't blink. Its breathing didn't change. It stood exactly as it had before, waiting.

  Mabel sighed. "It's not a dog, Fish."

  "Then what do I do?"

  "Give it a command it can understand. Something simple and direct."

  I thought about that. The troll was a predator, a fighter. It didn't understand tricks or games. It understood violence and battle.

  "Guard us," I said.

  The troll's head tilted slightly, it was ust a fraction of movement, but enough to show it had heard.

  Then it turned and walked to the cave entrance.

  Each step shook the ground. Ice cracked under its weight. It reached the opening and stopped, positioning itself to block the way in, and went still.

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  "Well," Mabel said. "That worked."

  Zo moved up beside me, staring at the troll's back. "You really own that thing?"

  "Apparently."

  "Can it fight?"

  I remembered the fragment being torn in half. The casual brutality of it. "Yeah. It can fight."

  Sadie approached from the other side, keeping her distance from the troll. "How long can you maintain it?"

  "I have no idea… but I don’t feel a drain on my power at all."

  "And if it decides to stop listening to you?"

  "I don't know that either."

  She studied the troll for a moment longer, then turned to look at me. Her eyes were cold. The same look she gave everything that might be useful or dangerous.

  "Let’s test it, shall we?" she said. "Before we need it in a real fight."

  "How?"

  "Have it carry me."

  I blinked. "What?"

  "I’m pretty banged up… I can walk, but I can't run, and I can't fight properly. If that thing can carry me without crushing me or dropping me, I'll be able to fight from its back.."

  Zo crossed her arms. "That's a terrible idea."

  "We still have no idea how far we are from Horn's Rest, and we'll have to move fast once the Long Dark ends. I'm slowing us down… do you have any better ideas?"

  I looked at the troll. It hadn't moved since I'd given it the command to guard us. It stood like a statue, frost gathering on its shoulders.

  "Fish," Zo said. "Are you sure about this?"

  No. I wasn't sure about anything. But Sadie was right. We needed to know what the troll could do, and we needed to know before it mattered.

  I walked toward it.

  The troll's head turned as I approached. Those pale eyes following my movement, cold and empty.

  "I need you to carry someone," I said. "Don't hurt her. Don't drop her. Just hold her and follow us."

  The troll stared at me.

  I felt the connection between us, that thread of essence that bound it to my will. It was thin, and fragile. Not like the worms, which moved as extensions of my own body. The troll was separate. Distant.

  But it was still

  "Do you understand?" I asked.

  The troll's mouth opened slightly. I saw rows of yellow teeth, each one the size of my thumb. Then it grunted. A low, rumbling sound that came from deep in its chest.

  I took that as a yes.

  "Sadie," I called over my shoulder. "Come here."

  She limped past Zo and approached without hesitation. No fear in her walk, no second-guessing. She just walked up to the ten-foot troll like it was a ride she'd been waiting for.

  The troll turned to face her.

  Sadie stopped an arm's length away and looked up at it. "Pick me up."

  The troll didn't move.

  "Fish," Mabel said from my collar. "It won't respond to her… it's yours."

  Right. I stepped closer. "Lift her. Carefully."

  The troll reached down with both hands. Its fingers were as thick as my forearms, tipped with claws that could punch through armor. It slid one hand under Sadie's legs, the other behind her back, and lifted.

  Sadie went rigid, her jaw clenched against the pain, but she didn't make a sound.

  The troll held her like she weighed nothing. Its arms barely flexed. It stood there, waiting for the next command.

  "Put her on your shoulders," I said. "So she can see and breathe properly."

  The troll adjusted its grip and lifted Sadie higher. It set her across its massive shoulders like a parent carrying a tired child.

  Sadie settled into position, one hand braced against the troll's head, the other holding her spear. She looked down at me and Zo.

  "This works," she said.

  Zo shook her head. "This is insane."

  "How long until the Long Dark ends?" Sadie said.

  I glanced at the cave entrance. The sky outside was still black, but the mist had thinned. I could see shapes moving out there, distant and slow.

  "Maybe an hour," I said.

  "Then we should rest now. Move as soon as the light comes back."

  She was right. Again. We'd been running and fighting since we fell through the tear. Zo was beaten up, Sadie was broken, and I'd just pulled myself out of my own soul after watching a troll kill a piece of me.

  We needed the hour.

  "Alright," I said.

  "I'll watch over us. We move when the Dark lifts." Zo said and moved to the cave entrance, giving the troll a wide berth as she passed.

  She sat down against the wall where she could see outside and pulled her knees up to her chest.

  I walked to the opposite wall and slid down to sit. The stone was cold, but everything here was cold.

  Sadie stayed on the troll's shoulders. She shifted her weight slightly, testing her balance, then went still.

  "Does it bother you?" I asked.

  "What?"

  "Being carried by that thing."

  She looked down at me. "Should it?"

  "Most people wouldn't be comfortable sitting on a ten-foot monster."

  "I'm not most people." She adjusted her grip on her spear.

  No. She wasn't.

  I leaned my head back against the wall and closed my eyes. The worms moved beneath my skin, slower now. Less agitated. They'd burned through a lot of energy in the fight, and they needed time to recover.

  Mabel curled up near my collarbone, clicking softly as she settled in.

  "That went better than expected," she said quietly.

  "The troll didn't eat anyone. I'm calling it a win."

  "It responded to your commands. That's more than I thought you'd get on the first try."

  I opened one eye and looked at her. "You doubted me?"

  "I doubted the bond would hold. From what we can tell from Cedric's memories, regalia are independent entities, Fish. They have their own will."

  "What does it mean?"

  "It means you're stronger than you think." She paused.

  I closed my eye again. "Then let me sleep for forty-five minutes. I'll take over for Zo after that."

  "Fine."

  I thought about Kaz. About the way he'd stood alone against Klaus, giving us time to escape. About the explosion that had taken half the dragon's face and all of Kaz with it.

  He'd been a bastard. Harsh, cold, unyielding. But he'd been ours. And he'd died so we could live.

  I thought about Rell. About the way she'd looked at me the night before Dad killed her. The trust in her eyes. The belief that I'd protect her.

  I'd failed her.

  I wouldn't fail Zo and Sadie.

  The worms pulsed beneath my skin, responding to the thought. A promise made in flesh, blood and essence.

  I slept.

  Zo's hand on my shoulder pulled me back. I opened my eyes and found her crouched next to me, her face close.

  "Your turn," she said. "Nothing's moved outside. It's still dark."

  I nodded and stood. My body ached, but the worms had done their work. The cuts and bruises from earlier were gone, replaced with new skin that looked too pale in the dim light.

  Zo took my spot against the wall and closed her eyes. She was asleep in seconds.

  I walked to the cave entrance and sat down where she'd been. The troll stood a few feet away, still holding Sadie on its shoulders. Neither of them had moved.

  "You should sleep," I said to Sadie.

  "I did."

  "When?"

  "While you were sleeping just now."

  I looked up at her. She looked back down, her face calm.

  "Are you always this efficient?" I asked.

  "I'm alive. That's efficient enough."

  I turned my attention to the darkness outside. The mist had pulled back even further, and I could see the tundra stretching out beyond the cave. The shapes I'd seen earlier were gone, retreated to wherever they went during the last hours of the Long Dark.

  Mabel stirred near my neck. "How are you feeling?"

  "Im tired."

  "Specific."

  "You want something specific? My body hurts, my head hurts, and I've got a ten-foot troll standing three feet away from me that could probably rip me in half if it decided to stop listening to me."

  "So, just a normal day."

  I snorted. "Yeah. Normal."

  We sat in silence for a while. I watched the darkness and listened to Zo's breathing behind me. The troll didn't move. Sadie didn't speak.

  Then the wind changed.

  It came from the north, cold and sharp, carrying a smell I didn't recognize. Not the clean cold of the tundra or the damp cold of the mist.

  I stood.

  "What is it?" Sadie asked.

  "The wind's picking up."

  "That's not unusual."

  "No. But the smell is."

  I sent my worms out, extending them as far as they could go. They searched the darkness, tasting the air, reading the vibrations in the ground.

  And they found something.

  A low murmur, distant but growing closer. A pressure that built at the edges of my awareness.

  The wind picked up again, harder this time. It brought frozen rain that hit my face like needles, stinging my skin.

  I looked up.

  The sky was changing. Dark storm clouds had begun to gather overhead, they were moving faster than any natural weather. They rolled in from the north, black and heavy, blocking out what little light remained.

  "Sadie," I said. "We need to go..."

  "The Dark hasn't lifted yet."

  "I know. But something's coming, and I don't want to be in this cave when it gets here."

  She looked out at the darkness, then down at me. "Can the troll see in the dark?"

  I looked at it. "Can you?"

  The troll's eyes glowed brighter, shifting from pale blue to ice-white. It grunted.

  "I'm taking that as a yes," I said. "Zo, wake up. We're leaving."

  Zo jerked awake, her hand going to her weapon before she'd fully opened her eyes. "What's wrong?"

  "Storm's coming. We need to get ahead of it."

  She stood and moved to the entrance, looking out at the gathering clouds. "That's not a normal storm."

  "No. It's not."

  The frozen rain intensified, coming down in sheets now. The wind howled through the cave, and I heard something else beneath it. That murmur, louder now. Closer.

  "Move," I said. "Now."

  We stepped out into the storm.