The Cradle of Ice (Moonfall #2)

Chapter 53

53

D AAL STRUGGLED TO anchor himself in his body. Moments ago, he had been washed through Nyx’s life. It came in waves, unfettered by time and jumbled. He experienced her life as a young girl, where the world was just a blur of light and shadows. He joined her as she trekked through dark swamps atop the broad back of a great beast. He climbed the steps of a school alongside her and joined her at the supper table, surrounded by the love of her dah and two brothers.

Yet, two details struck him the hardest.

He flashed again to those school’s steps. He stared up at the endless blue skies and the miracle of a fiery sun. His heart welled at such a bright and sunlit world.

But even that brilliant memory was shadowed by what came next: the deaths, the bloodshed and terror, being driven from her home and all she had ever known.

Even now, Daal grieved for her, but in the salty sea, he could not tell if he shed any tears.

Still, like Nyx, he found one sustaining comfort, a love that was boundless and pure. He again felt the warmth of wings enfolded around him, the gentle nuzzle of a soft nose, the quiet pining of a song shared together, merging two hearts into one.

Daal stared over at Nyx. She was locked in a tight embrace, but he knew that was not who she wished were holding her now.

No wonder you risked so much to come here…

Over the past days, he had repeatedly warned her away from these seas, but now he understood. Not only about her winged brother, but also about his own first journey to the Dreamers.

While they were bonded together, Daal had experienced the wordless communication between Nyx and the Dreamers. While he hadn’t followed everything, he still understood enough to know he had been changed down deep, as if the Oshkapeers had known he would be needed to help Nyx.

And maybe they had.

Like all Pantheans, Daal had been taught the sacred scriptures, which claimed the Oshkapeers were unmoored by time, drifting on the tides between ages past and what was yet to be.

For now, he pushed down his misgivings about his transformation. Especially as Nyx started to pressure the Dreamers for more knowledge about the raash’ke. The pain of her loss still ached his heart and must have reached the Oshkapeers, too.

The Dreamers responded. It felt like a dam breaking, as if they had been waiting to share what they knew. Images flooded into him—into both of them. It came swiftly and in a deluge that could not be stopped. He struggled against that surge. It was too much, filling him to bursting.

He gasped water from his lungs. He writhed in the tentacles. Still, he could not escape the history of the Crèche pouring into him. It was delivered through millions of eyes and as many lives. It was confusing, with no linearity to it.

Nyx struggled the same. Together, they were tossed and rolled wildly across the stormy passage of time. Still, moments struck clearer, images that burned brighter, possibly stoked by Nyx’s yearning, focusing on what she wanted to know.

—Daal flies high through the air, under the icy arch of the Crèche. He stares down at his mount, at the spread of wide wings to either side. He is saddled atop a raash’ke!

Shock threw him back into the tumult of history, until he dropped into another scene.

—he hikes toward a village. Overhead, more raash’ke ply the skies. Others hop along streets or perch on walls. Children play among them, especially with the smallest of the beasts.

Time slipped, falling backward now. Daal sensed the passage of eons. A new image spun into focus.

—he sees his hands, tapping blood from a leathery wing.

Time snapped forward again.

—he stares down at a tentacled beast on a table, its arms writhing, suckers trying to grab at his fingers. He plunges blood through a sharp needle into the creature.

Daal fell briefly back into himself, as if allowed to come up for air. Though he didn’t understand fully, he knew he had been shown the birth of the Oshkapeers. The Dreamers had been forged in the past as surely as they had done to him—transformed by the potent blood of the raash’ke.

Then he was dragged back down into the roiling flood. He became a stone, skipping across water, traveling forward in time again.

—he lies on his back and lifts a broken hand, the same hand as before, only far older and covered in blood. He heaves through his last breaths. A shadow looms behind him. Terror etches through him.

The horror of that moment, of that death, shoved Daal away. The next images flashed through him quickly, only glimpses of a past, jumping ever forward.

—a clutch of raash’ke bursting away in a panic of wings.

—another fighting in the air, as if trapped by an unseen net.

—he’s a girl, fleeing down a street, a winged silhouette pursuing her.

—he’s a Reef Farer, wearing a heavy stone circlet, staring across the ruins of a village, his feet standing in a pool of blood.

Daal returned to his body again, his chest heaving, but only pumping water. He remembered flying atop a raash’ke, full of exhilaration and joy. His fingers curled in the water, as if still trying to reach for those ancient reins again.

With a jolt of recognition, he realized that Neffa’s saddle matched the one mounted atop the raash’ke.

Is that where the gear came from, adapted from a past when the raash’ke were our allies?

Even living through those brief moments, he had trouble imagining such a time. Still, it was clear something had corrupted the raash’ke, turning them into winged monsters. The Dreamers seemed to hint at the source. Throughout the last images, he had sensed a shadow looming over all those glimpses. It was the same shadow—underlaid by the same terror—from earlier, when a man had died on his back.

Daal cringed in the embrace of the tentacles.

Who or what cast that shadow?

The answer didn’t come from the Dreamers. Though Nyx couldn’t speak, he shared her memories. He flashed to when she had fought off the bat that had grabbed Henna. Through her senses, he felt the dark presence lurking behind the greater mind of the raash’ke horde. She had even given it a name.

The spider .

Nyx glowed brighter next to him, fury stoking her fire. Whoever or whatever that spider was, it had stolen Bashaliia from her.

She cast out a single word, a fiery demand.

Who?

The question seemed to quake through the Dreamers. The mesh of glowing threads shivered over his body. For a moment, it felt as if the tendrils were about to withdraw, that the Oshkapeers would refuse to answer.

But the threads settled again.

An image swirled and formed inside his skull. It was the same memory from before, as if the Dreamers were repeating themselves.

—Daal lies on his back again, lifting a bloody hand, knobbed and thinned by age. With his final gasps of life, he senses another’s approach. A shadow looms over him, sparking terror.

Only this time, Daal was not allowed to escape. He was held there for that last breath of the dying man.

—his arm drops as death envelops him. The world darkens to its end—then brightens for just a moment. A blurry torch of reflected light passes over his face, coming from the shadow behind him. It coalesces into five fingers and a hand.

Daal thrashed with recognition, tearing himself out of the past. Still, the last image persisted, burning across his brain, branding it there forever.

The hand was made of shining bronze.