Iseult reached Owl and Leopold in seconds. They waited ahead beside two piles of boulders, and at the sound of Iseult’s feet, Leopold whirled about. Then his Threads ignited with such pure relief, it hurt Iseult’s eyes. Meanwhile, Owl’s Threads tinged pink with delight, while the girl herself, filthy with dirt, grinned ear to ear in a way Iseult had never seen before. Such happiness. Such warmth.
Iseult almost wept at the sight of her.
No, she did weep. Tears flecked from her eyes, and she realized she had been wrong before. Back at the sky-ferry. The warmth in her chest was love, for this strange child who was not a child at all.
“You were slow,” Owl said, and before Iseult could process what that even meant, Leopold reached Iseult. Without warning and with one arm in a sling, he pulled her into an embrace. She was so startled, she did not resist it—and his Threads, such icy relief, such sunset happiness and mossy concern, briefly veiled the world around them. “I lost you on the river,” he said. “I could not find you, and I thought it was all over.”
No, Iseult thought, pulling back. I left you. She would confess that to him later, though.
“We have to go,” she told him in Cartorran. “Raiders and monks are coming this way…” She trailed off as the meaning of the scene suddenly sifted into place. Owl. Leopold. Together with two heaps of stones behind them.
“What are you doing?” She put the question to Leopold first, then in Nomatsi for Owl.
And Owl was the one to answer. “Leaving,” she said simply. “I know the way.” Then she turned to the smaller stone pile and levitated a boulder. It crashed onto the other pile with such force, the ground shook. Snow fell from the trees.
“The bat found me,” Leopold explained. “I was surrounded on all sides, and he scared them off. Then Owl was there, and I followed her.” He shook his head, incredulity in his Threads and on his face. As if he still did not understand what had happened or why.
Crash, crash. Rocks gathered. Owl’s Threads shone. The wind blew on and on.
“What is she, Iseult?” Leopold asked, watching the girl. “She is no mere child.”
“No,” Iseult agreed, but she had no answer beyond that. Owl was special, and that was all she knew.
“This way,” Owl interrupted, and in a burst of stone and speed, she launched the final boulder away, revealing a hole in the earth like a bear’s den that emanated blue light.
Before Iseult could stop her, Owl smiled again—a flash of pink amusement in her Threads—and crawled into the hole. The blue light swallowed her.
And Iseult, with Leopold just behind, pitched in after her.
FIFTY-NINE
Lightning dominated the darkness. Safi’s eyes sizzled. Her heart fried, and each breath tasted of burning death. But she and the Hell-Bards did not stop running.
It didn’t matter that Safi couldn’t spy the path beneath her feet, it didn’t matter that all she saw was a storm-spun galaxy far below—and it didn’t matter that this unnatural storm clashed harder and harder by the second. The Hell-Bards ran true, and not once did Caden let go of Safi’s hand.
Until suddenly he did. Until suddenly he had no choice because the earth was shaking and tearing Safi from his grip. A great sideways crunch that sent the bridge lurching.
And sent Safi flying headfirst into the darkness.
She screamed, a sound lost to the winds. A sound swallowed by the eternal crack! of lightning. Or maybe it was the mountain still breaking that stole her voice. There was no telling what crashed around her, no telling what death might hit her—or when or where or how.
Then her body slammed against something solid. Something frozen. Except she wasn’t dying and her life wasn’t sapping from her veins. Instead, strong arms were flinging around her and a man was bellowing, “HANG ON.”
So Safi hung on, even as her mind fought to catch up. Even as her eyes fought to see and her fingers fought to hold true. She had no idea who she was pressed against. All she knew was that he held her tight and that he soared.
Winds charged beneath them. They rocketed up, up while the storm pressed down. The squall tried to squash them and boil them and keep them from rising.
Then lightning slashed. A mere arm’s length away, so bright that the world turned to day. And so bright that, even as her eyes winced shut, Safi glimpsed the face before her.
Impossible, she thought at the same instant that her magic screamed, True!
And he must have glimpsed her face too, because his magic skipped a beat. Their flight faltered. The world dragged, and in that space between frenzied, storm-swept breaths, Safi saw everything she needed to see.
For the first time in a month, she saw Merik Nihar. She saw the man she had believed to be dead.
Angry red scars webbed up the side of his face, crawling above the hairline. Eating into his shorn, dark hair. Half an eyebrow was missing, and he’d lost weight. Gaunt bones poked against scorched cheeks, while strange shadows undulated beneath his skin.
But it was him. Safi would know Merik’s face anywhere. She would know his eyes anywhere. True, true, true.
Then time and storm plowed into them. Safi lost all sight, all sound. Static expanded inside her, scratched against her skin. Merik’s flight resumed.
Higher they hurtled, while the storm thrashed against them. Frozen, relentless, alive. And the earth trembled too—a bass vibration that chattered in Safi’s lungs and sent rocks coursing by.
When at last their ascent slowed, Merik’s winds dumped them roughly onto a crude staircase carved into the mountain wall. The storm still raged, and the stones still quaked. Safi could barely keep her knees steady beneath her as she clutched for a handhold against the side of the cavern.
Merik braced himself on the step below hers, one arm against the rock. The other still looped around her waist. He gazed up at her, his eyes as brown as she remembered, even in this lightning-lit world. He was alive. He was right here.
“How?” she tried to say at the same instant he said, “You died.”
She shook her head, a frantic movement that matched the wildness in his own shaking head. Yet before she could ask, could move, could do anything but stare, a voice carved through the storm. Made of ice and nightmares, it sang, “You cannot run forever, Merik. Wherever you go, I will find you.”
Then wind pushed against Safi. It kicked at the snow and weaseled beneath her clothes, like hands fumbling, searching—
“Go,” Merik said. He released her and pulled away, and new winds—strong and true—gusted. “Go,” he repeated, louder now. Eyes wide and pleading. “Safi, please. Go.” And before she could stop him, before she could beg him to stay or explain or at least tell her how to find him again, he launched into the darkness.
She watched Merik leave. Watched him shrink until he was nothing more than a shadow. She watched lightning and cyclones steal him away. And she watched until falling rocks forced her feet to move.
The staircase was collapsing beneath her. Booming eruptions of noise and dust that punched upward, punched nearer. Soon, she would be standing on thin air.
So Safi spun on her heel and ran. Her hands grabbed at the higher steps, the only thing she could do for balance. The only thing she could do to hang on while hell-storm and earthquakes pummeled against her.
Boulders fell. Scree shattered. Safi’s knees rolled and her ankles popped. Until abruptly, the stairs ended. Her hands met empty air, and a ledge stretched before her.
“SAFI!” roared a voice she knew. Then a second voice, “Safi, faster! Safi, this way!” So that way Safi charged, dead ahead to where two figures materialized in the shadows and a blue light glowed.
She reached Caden, who grabbed one arm. Then Zander, who grabbed her other. Together, they heaved her toward the doorway.
Safi had just enough time before tumbling through to look back. Just enough time to search for one final glimpse of Merik.
It wasn’t Merik she saw sweeping by, though. It was an old crow, black and s
leek, winging through the storm.
Then blue light frizzed over her, time stopped, and Safi and the Hell-Bards were transported far, far away.
* * *
Merik did not watch Safi leave. He couldn’t. The Fury was almost to her; Merik had to keep him away.
And now Merik also had a plan.
It was neither cohesive, nor perhaps even possible—but it was the only option before him. The only thing he could do that might calm the Fury once and for all.
“Do you want these?” Merik bellowed, pumping all his magic into that sound. “You’ll have to come and get them.” Then he lifted two jagged rocks, remnants of the mountain that he hoped, from afar, might look like the Fury’s missing tools.
Like a razor in one hand, and broken glass in the other.
A screech ripped across the cavern, borne on lightning. Swollen by the storm. It slashed over a mountain that would not stop its quaking. Then the Fury himself appeared within the squall.
Merik moved. He zoomed toward the ice-bridge, fueled by starlight and a need to protect Nubrevna, no matter the cost.
And also fueled by the lure of a mother’s call and by a sleeping ice Esme had said would suck you in.
As Merik had hoped, the Fury followed him.
Merik reached the ice-bridge. His feet touched down, and instantly, the song bombarded him, sentient and hungry.
Come, come, and find release. Come, come, the ice will hold you.
Good. Merik hoped it would do exactly that.
He ran. His heels hammered, ice crunched, and all around him, thunder clapped and crazed.
Then the Fury landed. “Where are you going?” he bellowed. “That way will not free you!”
Merik sped faster, legs careening and arms swinging. The door was near enough for him to see details in the wood, to spot a key-slot with ice spindling through.
“Stop!” Panic laced Kullen’s voice now. Static too, that crackled in the air and stabbed at Merik’s skin. “Stop!” Kullen pleaded. “Do not go that way!”
Merik reached the door. He reached the ice, and, twisting sideways, he flung himself through. Instantly, the song magnified. Tenfold louder, it throbbed in his lungs, compelling him instead of crooning. Tenfold stronger, it jittered in his teeth and rooted in his heart.
As Merik wiggled and squirmed, straining to squeeze through a narrow passage that glowed blue with an inner light all its own, ice crunched outward. It poked. It grasped, fingers that wanted to hold him still.
Come, come, and find release. Come, come, the ice will hold you.
“Not … yet,” he gritted out, and with a final shove, he toppled into an open space.
But like everywhere else in this mountain, the ground shook—though instead of rocks to tumble down, it was ice. Boulders and debris that shattered on impact and filled the air with crystal mist.
He stumbled forward, arms blocking his face while he squinted into this frozen room. Shaped like a seashell, it spiraled upward with hundreds of doors branching off, each one clogged with ice.
All except for a single door high above.
Come, come, and find release. Come, come, the ice will hold you.
Merik inhaled. Ice razored his throat and lungs, but with it came a wind. With it came power. Like the starlight from the cavern, but stronger—and tinged with something sharp. Something savage.
“Stop,” Kullen commanded, pushing into the room. And it was the strangest thing, seeing the Fury afraid. The shadows pulsed inward and blue flickered around his eyes.
Then Merik moved. Before Kullen could see he held nothing but two stones. Before more ice could fall and stop him from fleeing forever.
His winds vaulted him high. Up three spirals, he zipped and swirled. Ice meteored down. Lightning scorched upward. But Kullen and his magic were not fast enough. Merik reached the open door and soared in.
What he found was a tomb—he knew that truth as soon as he burst inside, for already two shadows hovered inside the ice wall. Small, child-sized figures sucked into this eternal, sleeping ice. Between the two shapes were two empty holes, man-sized and waiting.
Merik strode toward the one on the right. Three long paces, and the closer he came, the more the ice crackled outward. Clawing and hungry. Come, come, and find release. Come, come, the ice will hold you.
But Merik did not step into the hole. Not yet.
His blood roared in his ears. His muscles shook and his belly spun—and it was not because of the mountain. It was because Merik knew what he had to do.
Then the room darkened, as he’d known it would, and shadows skated across the trembling floor. Even though Merik was ready, even though he was waiting, nothing could prepare him for the Fury’s attack.
It railed against him, a battering ram of winds that crunched Merik’s spine before slinging him around to face the entrance. To face Kullen stalking just outside.
“Give me my blade,” the Fury ordered through the tomb’s entrance. “Give me my glass.”
Merik opened his hands. Empty now, for he’d left the rocks in the collapsing spiral. And as he’d hoped—as he’d expected—the Fury’s temper took hold. He charged into the tomb, a berserking streak of winds and shadows and raging, blackened snow. He slammed Merik against the ice, first with magic.
Then with touch, with a grip that cut off Merik’s air and silenced the magic in his veins. “What,” he hissed, “have you done with them?”
All Merik could do was laugh at that question. At the beast before him. A breathless wheeze that rattled in his chest because Kullen was gone. Merik saw that now, and it made the next step—the final step—so much easier.
For at least in all his mistakes, Merik had gotten one thing right: one for the sake of many.
Kullen’s grip tightened. Sparks flickered over Merik’s eyes. No breath, no thought, and that was all right; he didn’t need them anymore. All he needed were his muscles and a few more seconds …
Merik flung both his arms backward, into the nearest tomb. Into the waiting ice. His hands pressed against it, instantly numbing. And instantly singing, singing that song that never ceased.
Come, come, and find release.
Then the ice erupted. It raced up Merik’s arms, a climbing, heaving, frantic thing that hit his shoulders, then leaped across to Kullen. Shadows froze in midair.
Come, come, the ice will hold you.
Kullen gasped, as if plunged into a winter sea. Still the ice groped and expanded. It glazed over his chest before raking down his legs. Then it sliced over Merik’s back, and down Kullen’s too.
When it reached their throats, Merik finally looked into Kullen’s eyes. His real eyes, no longer black. No longer lost, but merely blue and sad and true. His Threadbrother’s eyes.
“I’m sorry,” Kullen croaked.
And Merik wanted to say the same thing. Never had he wanted anything more. Kullen was here. He was alive. And there was so much Merik needed to apologize for.
But the ice had covered Merik’s mouth now, and all he could do in that moment was blink—again and again, fluttering away thick tears building on his cheeks.
“I’m sorry,” Kullen said once more. “The raiders made it into the mountain.”
Then the ice covered Merik’s tears. The ice covered Merik’s eyes.
Come, come and face the end.
Merik and Kullen slept.
SIXTY
It all happened so fast. Safi’s mind and body were pulled apart, then reassembled. And before her thoughts could catch up to her muscles, she was plunged out the other side.
She toppled into Lev’s waiting arms. Cold, damp night brushed against her.
A heartbeat later, Caden and Zander toppled out too. Zander, though, wasn’t well. His right hand and wrist were bloodied and smashed. Knuckle bones glistened in the moonlight.
“Oh gods,” Lev breathed, moving for him. “That needs tending.”
For several seconds, while the Hell-Bards moved to a fallen oak, Safi spun and s
pun … And kept on spinning, searching every beech and pine and shadow for a fifth person. A river churned nearby, more sound and vibration than anything she could see. And then there was the doorway, glowing and glaring beside a pile of rocks as tall as she.
Somewhere within all this fog and mist coiling from the trees—somewhere in that craggy rise of earth beyond, there had to be a fifth person.
But there wasn’t. No matter how hard Safi stared, she couldn’t find Empress Vaness.
“Where is she?” Safi rounded on the Hell-Bards. “Where is Vaness?”
No one looked Safi’s way. Lev’s grip was strong at Zander’s back. “Hang on,” she kept murmuring. “Hang on, Zan.”
Meanwhile, Caden hastily bound the ruined hand in a shredded shirt sleeve, completely oblivious to Safi’s panic. “This wound needs water,” he told Zander. “And a healer. All the bones are broken, and with this much exposed—”
“Where is Vaness?” Safi’s voice slapped across the forest. Petulant. Terrified.
Lev finally looked away from Zander. She bit her lip and shook her head. “The Empress fell, Domna. Right before we got through. Zander tried to reach her, but he…”
“Too late,” Zander finished, and the pain flinching across his face was not just from his wound. Tears squeezed from his eyes. “I tried. I swear, I tried.”
Safi’s magic told her the man spoke true. She also knew that he needed help—soon. But right now, Vaness was trapped inside a collapsing cavern, and until Safi found her, all other concerns were meaningless.
She dove back toward the door. The blue light wavered. Caden and Lev screamed at her to wait. She didn’t. She shoved into the doorway.
And Safi slammed against solid stone. The force of the impact flung her back. She crashed to the earth ten paces away. It punched the breath from her lungs. The world darkened and spun, and power buzzed in her chest, throbbed along her skin.
“No,” she groaned, blinking at the moonlit sky. “No, no, no.” She pushed upright, determined to try again.
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