Grasping the staff, Donia pressed her mouth to Beira’s still body and inhaled. The rest of the Winter Queen’s cold flowed into her, rolling through her like an icy wave, churning until it suddenly stopped and lay quiet — a fathomless frozen pool surrounded by ice-laden trees and unmarred white fields.<br />The words came to her from the white world, sliding through her lips like a winter wind, "I am the Winter Queen. As those before me, I will carry the wind and ice."<br />And she was healed, stronger than she’d ever been.