The Cradle of Ice (Moonfall #2)

Chapter 45

45

T HE DIM BLUE glow of eventide shrank the seas closer to the skiff. The steamy mists hugged tighter around them, as if trying to hide their efforts as they rolled the last body into the waters. Kelp ropes strangled the corpse’s pale neck, running down to a net full of stones. The weight dragged their shame away.

Nyx sat in the stern of the rocking skiff. She hugged her arms around her. Despite the oppressive heat, her body still shivered. The reek of brimstan, bubbling up from the molten seabed, fouled the air.

It had taken a full bell to reach the boiling seas that edged the deepwater lair of the Dreamers. The two orksos—Neffa and Mattis—had labored through the waters, fighting the overloaded craft, having to contend with the extra dead weight and Shiya’s considerable bulk. Graylin had urged their group to dump the bodies shortly after leaving Kefta’s bay, but Daal had refused. He insisted the men—assailants or not—be returned properly to the sea, to the embrace of the Dreamers.

“That’s the last of them,” Graylin said, wiping his palms on his damp breeches as if that would clean his conscience, too. He looked at their group, his face stern and pitiless.

Still, Nyx had noted his lips moving silently in prayer as the dead were sent to their watery graves. His eyes had looked haunted, while his features remained stoic. It only added to her own guilt. He had committed that coldhearted act to aid her endeavor.

But will it all be for naught?

The seas below the skiff remained dark, lit only by a single firepot stanchioned at the prow. Shiya also sensed nothing, her gaze searching the waters all around. But they had yet to call out to those Dreamers.

“We’d best get about it,” Graylin warned. He glanced to a distant glow through the dark mists. “Our return to Kefta will undoubtedly be quicker, but we dare not linger longer than we must.”

Nyx nodded and shifted over to Shiya. She took hold of the bronze woman’s hand, both their fingers slick with hot droplets. Nyx let her eyelids drift half-closed. She took deep breaths, stoking her bridle-song into a warm glow. Still, she had to struggle for focus. The air filling her lungs was too hot, too foul.

Shiya squeezed her hand, humming softly next to her.

Nyx concentrated as Shiya’s humming slipped into a melody, rising and falling with the rocking boat. Nyx’s chin began to dip and lift the same, riding that harmony. As she found the proper rhythm, she let her own song escape her lips. She added and bolstered Shiya’s refrain. With each breath, the song grew around them, tangled together. It built until there was no restraining it any further.

Without a word, they both cast those golden threads across the dark waters, like a shining net. They continued to sing, driving that glowing tangle deeper, passing through the luminescent waters into the lightless depths. Nyx followed those cords, carried within that net. Schools of speckled fish flashed their scales and dashed away, as if sensing her presence coursing past them.

As they delved deeper, Nyx’s breathing grew harder, her throat straining. Shiya’s earlier words were proven correct. The pressure of the water, its density, muffled their efforts, trying to thwart them. The golden mesh started to fray, dissolving in those black depths.

She sang louder, growing desperate, flashing to Graylin’s blade piercing a chest.

It can’t be for nothing.

Shiya added her strength, but even her well of energy failed to drive those threads any deeper.

No…

Nyx refused to give up. Her throat ached, and her chest labored. For a flicker, she saw a distant glow, far deeper than she imagined these waters to be. It shone more silvery than golden, then it vanished. She gasped in frustration and despair, unsure if it was real or merely her desire manifesting itself.

She and Shiya struggled for several long breaths, but it was to no avail. Strain turned their melody discordant. The golden net tattered and was quickly consumed by the black waters.

With a last gasp, Nyx fell back into her body, into the skiff.

Graylin dropped to a knee beside her. He cradled her shoulders. Shiya sat heavily next to her. The shine of her bronze had dulled with exhaustion.

“Did you sense those Dreamers?” Graylin asked.

“No… maybe… I don’t know…” Nyx stammered, breathless and hoarse. “Certainly not enough to commune with them, to learn what they might know.”

Graylin glanced at Shiya.

Her eyes glowed glassy. “For a moment, I felt… something… a flash, a glint.”

Nyx sat up. “Of what?”

Shiya glanced across them all. “Fury.”

F ROM THE BOW of the boat, Daal had watched it all transpire. The glow of the two had driven away his terror of these waters. Awe had filled him, leaving little else. The surge had warmed through his body, stirring the fire inside him, like raking coals to a hotter scorch.

But as it ended, collapsing away, the hollowness in its wake filled again with dread. Especially upon hearing Shiya’s judgement.

“I warn you before,” Daal called over. “Must not trespass.”

Graylin shifted to face him. “Daal, what exactly is down there? You’ve never told us. At least not clearly. What happened to you?”

Nyx sat straighter. Since this morning, she had struggled to get him to explain, to fully share his story. But for him, to speak it was to relive it. He turned away and searched the waters, his gaze settling on Neffa. He drew strength from her bravery, when she had risked her life to save him.

He started slowly, stutteringly. He told them of that journey half a year ago, when he came to these waters to hunt with his father, of the bloody battle with the kefta, and his hesitation that destroyed their old skiff and cast him into the sea. He shared his terror and the frantic pursuit—then being dragged into the depths, his ankle tangled in leather, of drowning in these waters.

Nyx’s eyes shone with sympathy. Plainly she had known similar terrors. “What happened then?”

“As my chest filled in those black waters, I saw a shine. Far below.”

“A silvery shine?” Nyx asked in a whisper.

He nodded and rubbed his sternum, feeling that cold heaviness of water even now. “I see it, and my body burned.” He fixed Nyx with his gaze. “Like your touch.”

“They must have inflamed your gift,” she said. “Sensed your power, shining like a beacon in that blackness.”

He shook his head. “I know not.”

“Then what happened?” Graylin urged.

Daal faced him. “They came for me.”

“Who?” Graylin pressed. “What?”

He opened his mouth to reveal the horror, but his breath was trapped in his chest. His throat closed. It took all his effort to move his suddenly heavy tongue. “I… I cannot say.”

Graylin shoved closer and took Daal’s shoulders, his strong fingers digging deep. “You must.”

He tried again, gulping to speak. He lifted a hand to his throat. He could not take in air. It was as if his body had forgotten how to breathe.

Nyx leaned forward and knocked Graylin’s arms away. “He truly can’t tell us,” she said.

“He’s just panic-stricken.”

“No! That’s not it. I think he’s been enthralled. By the Oshkapeers. They will not allow him to share what happened.” Nyx gripped Daal, careful not to touch his bare skin. “It’s all right. Stop trying to speak.”

Daal closed his eyes, letting his story roll from his tongue and be swallowed away. As he did, his throat opened. His chest found its rhythm again, though he was still left gasping.

Nyx squeezed her reassurance into him. “It’s all right. Just breathe through it.”

He did as she instructed. After a spell, his wheezing settled into normal breaths, though his heart still pounded in his ears.

Graylin motioned to Shiya and Nyx. “Can you break through that bridling that holds him silent? Free his tongue?”

“Possibly,” Shiya said. “We can try.”

“No,” Nyx warned, shielding Daal’s body with her own. “It could destroy his mind. Even kill him.”

“We don’t know that,” Graylin argued. “And hard choices must be made.”

Daal pictured their group dragging the dead men down the pier. He reached and touched Nyx’s back, laying his palm there. “All right. I try.”

She glanced back to him, her face stricken. “No, Daal. It’s not worth the risk. I… I can’t bear the weight if anything happens to you. It’s too much.”

“Then no carry it. It my choice.”

He had borne this burden for too long, until it was a stone in his chest. He wanted to let this secret go, no matter the danger.

Nyx must have read his sincerity. Tears welled in her eyes.

Before she could argue further, Graylin came and pulled Nyx away. “Listen to him. It’s his decision. Leave it to Shiya to at least try.”

Graylin drew her back, allowing room for Shiya to crawl forward. Bronze hands lifted toward Daal’s face.

He closed his eyes.

Let it be over.

N YX SHOOK FREE of Graylin, but she kept back, respecting Daal’s wishes. Still, fury burned inside her—mostly directed at herself.

I dragged them all here.

Shiya closed on Daal. As she lifted her hands toward his face, her bronze fingers glowed as a humming rose from her chest. Golden strands wended from her fingertips toward Daal’s temples.

All the while, Shiya’s face remained stoic, showing no hint of trepidation about the harm she might commit. Nyx remembered back on the plaza, hearing the crack of breaking bone, a snap of another’s neck. In many respects, Shiya was as coldhearted as Graylin—if not more so. Despite all that the bronze woman had done, the true humanity she had demonstrated, Nyx sensed a core inside Shiya that remained as unmovable and cold as any metal.

Still, Nyx had forgotten one detail. They all had. But she remembered it now.

Daal is impregnable.

As Shiya’s golden strands touched Daal’s skin, they dissolved away. The same had happened when Nyx had attempted to touch him with her bridle-song. She wondered now if it was a fail-safe instilled into Daal by the Oshkapeers, to keep him locked up, to secure their secrets from prying.

Shiya’s brow pinched, and her fingertips settled hard on Daal, plainly determined to try again. Nyx winced, expecting some strong reaction from Shiya, from Daal, like whenever Nyx touched the young man’s skin. But neither reacted. Shiya waxed her song to a stronger glow, but Daal’s body still thwarted her efforts to delve deeper.

“What’s wrong?” Graylin asked.

Shiya lowered her hands and twisted around. “I can’t reach him. But I will try again.”

Another decided that must not happen.

From behind Daal, a flurry of large snakes burst from the water and wrapped around his chest and throat, pinning his arms. They glued to his body with bell-like suckers. Before anyone could move, he was yanked from his seat.

He gasped a breath, screaming out a warning before vanishing beneath the waves. “Oshkapeers!”

Nyx lunged toward the bow to go to his aid, but before her backside could leave the bench, water flooded over her. The air writhed as muscular snakes fell about her shoulders and waist. They latched hard with clinging suckers. She had one last thought as she was jerked away from the skiff, watching Graylin futilely try to grab her.

Not snakes— tentacles.