by Julie Kagawa
“Uh, guys?” he asked, looking around the cave. “Where’s Keirran?”
“Master!” wailed Razor, making Kenzie flinch. “Master gone! Find Master!”
I struggled to my feet, shaking the last of the fog from my brain. “Keirran took off,” I said, nodding down the tunnel. “Did the whole faery sleep thing to put us out, said he didn’t want to drag us in anymore.” I glanced at Puck, who looked resigned and annoyed all at once. “How long have we been out?”
“Not long,” Puck said. “Just a few minutes. I had just gotten all nice and comfortable, too, when I heard Buzz Saw screeching and came racing back. Sleepy spells don’t work well on gremlins, I’ve found.” He shook his head and gave the back of the cave a dark look. “So, I guess we know where our impatient princeling is off to, don’t we?”
“Yeah.” I raked a hand through my hair, careful not to touch my ear. “He’s going to face whatever lives down there alone.”
“Oh, that idiot.” Kenzie huffed, surging to her feet. “No, he’s not! Come on, we have to find him.”
She turned and marched determinedly toward the back of the cave, Razor gibbering and bouncing on her shoulder, buzzing encouragements. I wanted to stop her, but she was right; we couldn’t let our idiot friend fight whatever was down there alone, no matter what he said.
Making sure my swords were in place, I followed, silently cursing the prince as we approached the looming mouth of the tunnel, icicles dangling from the edge like giant teeth. It was pitch-black through the gaping hole, and Puck sighed.
“You know, this reminds me of a time,” he remarked, tossing a ball of faery fire in front of us, revealing a narrow corridor that plunged into shadow, “when ice-boy and I were trapped in an underground crypt together, and he decided to go down another passageway without me. Ran into a horde of tomb guardians and had to play hit-and-run until I could catch up.” He scrunched up his face. “Oh, wait. No, that was me. Stupid tomb guardians and their scorpions. Regardless, does that remind you of anyone?” He snorted and continued before we could answer. “Also, does anyone ever consider the consequences of their actions? For instance, what will ice-boy do to me if his kid gets himself eaten by a giant frost worm or something? He’ll probably try to hunt me down, war will break out between Winter and Iron, and everyone will put the blame on me. But noooooo, no one ever thinks of that.”
The tunnel continued deep into the earth. Sometimes it leveled out; sometimes it was so steep we were almost sliding down the ice-covered floor. The faery light threw strange, flickering shadows over the wall, sparkling off crystals and translucent blue-and-green icicles. My breath writhed in front of me, but I wasn’t as cold as I knew I should be, thanks to the lingering effects of the flamefruit, I supposed. I was still plenty cold, but it wasn’t unbearable. I just hoped we could get out of here before it wore off.
The tunnel finally opened into a massive ice cavern, huge pillars extending up into the darkness. The whole place had a frozen blue-white tint, and it was so frigid I could actually see my breath crystallize into hair-thin shards and drift to the floor.
Puck sent more balls of faery fire into the huge cavern, where they bobbed spastically overhead and gave off a strobe-light effect, making my head hurt. The cavern was a maze of pillars, stalactites and ice boulders, and the dancing shadows made it hard to see what was open space and what was a wall.
“Well,” Puck said, his voice echoing into the vastness, “if I was a big nasty giant ice monster, this is where I’d live.”
“Yeah,” I muttered, squinting into the wheeling lights and darkness. “Let’s just hope we can find Keirran before he finds it.”
Somewhere in the distance, there was a splintering crash, like a hundred glasses smashing at once.
Puck grimaced. “Too late.”
We hurried into the shadows, following the noise, which was hard as it echoed off everything around us. But as we went farther into the cave, we could hear more shattering noises against the rocks and pillars. Puck took the lead, and we sprinted after him, doing our best not to slip, until we turned a bend and came to the edge of an open arena. Crystal stalagmites were scattered about the floor, especially in the middle, but everything else was smooth, glittering ice. Like this was a perfectly flat lake that had frozen over.
In the center, a black-cloaked figure danced and spun amid a flurry of other things that swirled around him. They looked like whirlwinds that had picked up bits of ice and stone and were spinning them in a tight circle. A pair of glowing blue eyes shone from the center of the whirlwinds as they darted around the figure in the middle of the lake.
“Master!” Razor shrieked, his voice ringing through the chamber.
Instantly, several of the whirlwind things broke off, turned and came spinning toward us, making Razor yelp and dive into Kenzie’s hair. I cursed and drew my weapons.
“Kenzie, get back,” I called, hoping she wouldn’t argue this time. She ducked behind a boulder without a sound. The whirlwind things came closer, moving swiftly across the ice, the sound of shrieking wind echoing through the chamber. I narrowed my eyes as it hissed around me, yanking at my hair and clothes. We stood between a cluster of pillars and stalagmites, caging us in on either side, so the only way to Kenzie was through me and Puck. And that was not going to happen.
I brought up my swords as Puck stepped forward and flourished his daggers.
“Well, here they come.” The Summer faery shot me a glance and grinned. “Know anything about ice eddies, kid?”
“No.”
“Probably for the best. Aim for the middle, watch out for flying rocks and don’t drop your swords.”
The ice eddies swirled in, whipping the air into a frenzy. One came at me, a cyclone of rocks, pebbles and razor bits of ice. Something struck my arm, tearing a stinging gash across my skin. I smacked down a rock with one blade and lashed out with the other, slicing through the middle of the whirlwind. There was a rush of wind, and the debris spinning around it clattered to the ground. More pressed forward, surrounding me, until I was trapped in the eye of a deadly hurricane. Ice and rock careened around me as I kept moving, kept my weapons spinning in a circle of my own. Rubble clanged off the blades, making my hair stand up, but more stuff hit the swords than me. Most of the time. A pebble struck me in the head once, and I felt a warm trickle creep down my face, stinging one eye. Angrily, I ripped the sword through the offending whirlwind, and the eddy collapsed like a stack of dominoes.
“Whoops! Crap.” Puck leaped away, holding a single dagger before him. “Head’s up, kid!” he called as the eddy he’d been fighting now turned on me, a dagger whipping through the air in deadly circles. I ducked Puck’s blade, scrambling back before it sliced my head open, wincing as a shard of ice stabbed me in the arm.
“Ow! Dammit, Puck!” I raised my sword, knocking the dagger away as it came at my face again. The screech of metal on metal sent a chill up my spine. “Can you not make things worse sometimes?”
“What? I never make things worse,” Puck replied, stepping forward to deal with another eddy swooshing in from the side. “I make things more interesting.”
“Yeah, my foot is about to have an interesting encounter with your ass.”
Puck laughed. “Ice-boy’s been saying the same thing for years, kid. Good luck.”
The dagger sliced down, narrowly missing me. As it spun for my head again, I swung my sword at it, putting all my strength into the blow. The two blades met in a screech of sparks as I knocked the dagger free of the whirlwind and lashed out with my second sword, cutting through the middle of the chaos.
As the wind disintegrated, I turned to help Puck, only to see him do a weird, crazy dance that took him through the swirling eddy and out the other side. As he did, his dagger flashed, and the thing collapsed into a scattered pile of rock and ice.
“Well, that was fun,” Puck announced. Kenzie came out from behind the boulder, holding Puck’s wayward dagger. He took it with a wink. “Appreciate
it, human. Nothing more embarrassing than being skewered with your own weapon, right? Well, shall we go help the prince?”
By the time we reached the center of the lake, however, the eddies surrounding Keirran were nothing more than chunks of stone and ice. The Iron Prince stood with his sword out, the last eddy disintegrating at his feet. His eyes were hard, the glowing blue-white of the cold stranger I was beginning to hate. As we came up, his gaze flicked to mine, and that eerie glow vanished, though his face remained blank.
But Kenzie marched right up to the motionless prince and, shocking both of us, shoved him in the chest, knocking him off balance. He stumbled back, barely catching himself, his blank, cold expression shifting to astonishment.
“That was stupid, Keirran,” Kenzie said, glaring at the prince, while Razor buzzed and nodded from her shoulder. “What were you thinking? You think you can do this alone? You think we would let you just walk out on us? After everything we did to get here? And don’t start with that crap about wanting to keep us safe. You should know by now that excuse isn’t going to fly.” She stepped closer, the tiny form bristling with rage. “And if you ever use glamour on me again the way you did my parents, I’m going to kick you so hard Annwyl will feel it through that necklace, I swear.”
“Bad!” Razor spoke up, watching Keirran from the curtain of Kenzie’s hair. “Bad Master! No leave! Bad.”
Wow, even the gremlin was pissed at Keirran. I was going to say something as well, but Kenzie and Razor seemed to be handling it, so I just stood back and watched the show. Keirran grimaced, holding up his hands and taking a step back from the onslaught.
“All right, all right,” he said, his expression caught between annoyance and resignation. “I understand. You’ve made your point, Mackenzie.” He sighed, shaking his head. “It seems I’m stuck with all of you, whether I want it or not.”
“Damn right you are,” Kenzie snapped, Razor buzzing in agreement. “Don’t forget it again.”
Keirran blinked, giving me a knowing look. I just shrugged. Yep, that’s my girlfriend. And I’m not going to step in front of her for you, either. You’re on your own.
“Well,” Puck said cheerfully, lacing his hands behind his head. “Now that we’ve all kissed and made up, maybe we should focus on what we came for. Namely, the big nasty you all are supposed to fight.”
I looked around the cavern. “Where?” I asked, my voice echoing through the vast open space. “This is a dead end. It looks like something might’ve lived here once, but it’s empty now.”
“Yes,” Keirran agreed, his voice hard again. “There aren’t any more tunnels. This is the lowest level of the cave, and those eddies are the only things I’ve seen. This was a waste of time. Whatever lived here is long gone.”
“Au contraire,” Puck said, lifting a finger. “You’re just not looking in the right direction.”
And he pointed straight down, into the frozen lake.
Below our feet, cracked, blurred and distorted by the ice, an enormous shadow lay stretched out on the bottom of the lake. It was probably close to fifty feet long, and though it was hard to see from this distance, I thought I could make out thick stumpy legs, massive shoulders and a broad, armored head. I couldn’t tell if it was dead, frozen or just sleeping, but I did know one thing: it was huge.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I muttered. Puck shook his head.
“Nope. There’s your spirit of the Frozen Wood, right there. So, can we go home now? I was going to say how impossible this task was, but I figured it would be better to let you see it for yourself. Obviously, waking that big guy up would be a bad... Uh, Prince, what are you doing?”
I looked at Keirran. He stood with his eyes half-closed, his hand raised in front of his face. And he was glowing. Like the night in Mr. Dust’s office, only this time, instead of the cold, frozen aura of Winter, he flickered and pulsed with light. Like Annwyl, shedding fragments of sunlight, it melted the ice at his feet and turned the air around him to steam. His eyes opened, glowing amber, and his voice was calm and matter-of-fact.
“Waking it up.”
He knelt, driving his fist into the ice. There was a flash as he flared painfully bright for a second, cracks spreading out from his hand, and a spear of light shot toward the thing under our feet.
“Well, that’s torn it.” Puck sighed.
A rumble went through the ice around us, and the ground started to shake. The cracks Keirran had put into the ice widened, spread out, sprouted new ones that raced over the lake. Icicles and stalactites fell from the ceiling, smashing to the ground in ringing cacophonies, and I struggled to keep my balance.
“Right, I vote we do not stand here anymore,” Puck offered, and we scrambled away, fleeing to the edge of the lake as sounds of cracking ice grew deafening and the ground began to heave.
The ice exploded, surging up like a frozen geyser, before raining sharp bits of icy shrapnel down on us. A huge, stony foot emerged from the hole, smashing down onto the ice. Another followed, and a monstrous creature of ice and stone lurched onto the surface of the lake, shook an enormous blocky head and roared.
Okay, so it was even bigger than I’d first thought, probably stretching close to eighty feet from snout to hindquarters, looming up to an impossible height. It was shaped, vaguely, like some huge bear, with a little porcupine thrown in. Its head, back, shoulders, legs and sides were covered in stone, like a bulky suit of armor, and huge icicles jutted out from its shoulders and down its back, sharp and lethal. Beneath the stony hide, a frozen blue light pulsed through the joints in its armor, and two giant glowing eyes shone beneath its helmeted head.
“Oh, good,” Puck remarked as the colossal beast turned toward us, shaking the ground. “We get to fight a mountain.”
“Kenzie, take Razor and get back!” I called as the giant creature spotted us and lurched forward with a roar. Its mouth opened, glowing blue light spilling from its jaws, as it breathed a blast of frigid air toward us. We ducked behind a stalagmite as a jagged line of icicles surged up where the creature’s breath passed, stabbing into the air. I yelped as a cold, frozen tip jabbed into my arm, ripping my sleeve and drawing blood.
Puck grimaced, peeking out from behind the stone, watching the monster through a cage of ice spears. “Right,” he muttered. “So, I’ll be the distraction again, while you two decide how we’re actually supposed to hurt that thing. Sound like a plan?”
Without waiting for an answer, he darted out from behind the stalagmite, sprinted a few feet away and blew out a piercing whistle.
“Oy, Rocky! Over here! Turn your big stony ass this way!”
The thing roared and blasted Puck with icicle wind, which ripped him apart in seconds. But a flock of screaming ravens emerged from the chaos, spiraling into the air and circling the creature like a dark cloud. It bellowed and shook its head, looking more annoyed than anything, but its attention was not on us anymore.
I drew my swords and took a deep breath. “Let’s go.”
“Ethan, wait!” Kenzie grabbed my hand while Razor gibbered terrified nonsense from her shoulder. “Don’t,” she whispered, sounding terrified, while I stared in disbelief. Something had finally given her pause. “You can’t fight that thing. It’s huge—you’ll be killed!”
I glanced at Keirran, who watched us with impassive eyes. He had already made up his mind. He was going to battle that massive, moving fortress, with or without my help.
I sighed and squeezed her hand. “Remember what I said about me standing in front of the dragon for you?” I told her softly, trying to smile. “I wasn’t kidding about that.” She took a breath to argue, and I quickly overrode her. “I’m doing this, Kenzie,” I said, making her slump. “I have to. We can’t turn back now.”
“Here, then.” Bowing her head, she reached around her neck and pulled out Guro’s amulet, spinning from its cord. I stared at the disk in surprise; I’d almost forgotten she had it. The metal flashed in the hazy light as Kenzie reached up and d
raped it around my neck. Her fingers trembled as they brushed my skin. “You need this more than me.”
I tucked the amulet into my shirt, wondering if it would really protect me like it did her. Ghostly shadows springing up to deflect lethal sword blows still seemed too good to be true. But right now, I’d take all the help I could get. “Thanks,” I told her. “I’ll get this back to you later.” If I’m still alive.
She blew out a shaky breath and leaned forward, hugging me around the neck. “Be careful, tough guy,” she whispered in my ear. “Don’t get killed. We haven’t even had our second date yet.”
I held her tightly for a moment, memorizing the feel of her body pressed against mine, three little words dancing on the tip of my brain. I wanted to tell her right now...in case I never got another chance...
No. Not here. I wasn’t going to die here. I was going to kill that big ugly bastard and take Kenzie home. When we were safe, back in the real world with no life-threatening faeries surrounding us, I’d tell her exactly how I felt.
After we killed this thing.
Gently pulling back, I met Kenzie’s eyes and jerked my head toward the edge of the lake. “Go,” I told her softly, and she gave me a desperate look and fled, slipping into the shadows with the gremlin on her shoulder. I swallowed, then looked at Keirran.
“Ready?” he asked calmly.
“If we survive this,” I told him, “I’m going to kill you.”
One corner of his mouth turned up. “You’ll have to get in line, I’m sure.”
We charged. Dodging rocks and giant icicles spearing up from the ground, we sprinted across the lake toward the massive creature in the center. The swarm of birds around its head had vanished, and I could just make out a red-haired figure on the thing’s enormous skull, a speck of color atop a mountain.
As we approached, the creature spotted us. With a roar, it lowered its head and opened its jaws, bathing us in blue light. “Split up!” Keirran yelled, and we veered apart, just as the blast of frigid air sent a line of jagged spikes down the center of the lake. I dived behind a boulder as the creature blasted me again, nearly impaling me as the huge spines curled around the rock. Peeking around the edge, I saw Puck leap from the blocky head, land on the enormous muzzle and drive his dagger into one glowing blue eye.