The Cradle of Ice (Moonfall #2)

Chapter 93

93

N YX TOPPLED THROUGH darkness. As she spun, she saw the sphere falling away above her and the blackness of the abyss rising toward her. The clash of steel and the scream of Kalyx chased her down. Her heart choked her throat. The plummet ripped at her breath.

She had defeated the Root and freed Shiya, only to be rewarded with the arrival of Kalyx, a beast crafted in the dark lair of the Iflelen. It had shredded the horde-mind and ripped the raash’ke out of the skies.

As if lured by this thought, a shadow swept under her, appearing out of the darkness. Wings spread wide, lit from the wan light.

Kalyx had found her.

There was no escaping it.

She hit the body under her, instinctively clutching to it. Her fingers scrabbled into fur, for anything tangible in the plunging darkness. Her chest struck a warm back, earning a panicked keening under her. She knew that song anywhere.

It wasn’t Kalyx.

Bashaliia…

She clutched harder as he fought to slow her fall, his wings striking hard, battering wildly. But he was far too small to carry her weight, let alone fly her out. Still, he slowed her dive, braking slightly, pushing her more firmly into him.

As he trilled his distress, his bridle-song reverberated off the walls and back to her, revealing what the darkness hid. She caught flashes of the rushing walls and understood his intent.

No, Bashaliia, no…

The walls of the pit were covered in a scaffolding of ladders and wider footways. Bashaliia fought her weight and wafted side to side, beating his wings hard to slow her down even more. But he reached his limit, incapable of braking any further.

He angled to the wall and swept toward the only perch.

Together, they struck one of the platforms. The impact tossed her hard, slamming her hip and skull into the wall. She heard bones break. She slid down to the footway, tangled with Bashaliia. He flapped and keened, trilling in pain.

She crawled off him, climbing blindly past his head. Only a trickle of light reached this far. The huge opening far overhead was no larger than her palm. As she cleared him, she sprawled across the platform. Her left leg was a lance of fire. She felt down its length to the jabbing knot and flare of pain in her shinbone.

Broken.

But it wasn’t only her bone that had fractured. Even in the feeble light, she could tell Bashaliia’s wing had crumpled upon impact. It lay crushed under him. His hollow bones were even more fragile than hers.

“Bashaliia, you shouldn’t have come.”

He mewled and nudged her with his nose, burrowing under her hand, needing her comfort. She could never refuse him. She rubbed his ear, softly singing her reassurance, though she could not put much heart into it. Still, slowly, the worst of his crying subsided—due less to her gift and more to her touch.

“Why did you come?” she whispered.

Still, she took comfort from his presence.

At least we’re together.

She left her other question unvoiced.

How did you get here?

She knew he must have fled the Sparrowhawk when it was attacked, coming down with the last of the raash’ke. But she struggled to understand how he was still in the air, able to fly, to even attempt this futile rescue.

She pictured the raash’ke falling out of the sky.

Then she understood.

Because you’re not raash’ke.

Bashaliia had never been part of the horde-mind. Even now, she could feel the remains of that ancient presence at the back of her awareness, as fractured and wounded as they were. Whatever vibration that Kalyx had divined from ripping into the horde-mind had been unique to raash’ke, drawn from their commonality—a commonality not shared with Nyx’s little brother.

Bashaliia was a Myr bat, and in the dome’s storm of wings, Kalyx must have missed his presence within the greater flock.

Still, such providence had proven little good. It left both Nyx and Bashaliia broken and stranded. Even if she had both legs, she could never climb out of this pit, not in time to stop what was coming.

I would need wings myself.

Then she knew the answer.

G RAYLIN FOUGHT TO drag Daal’s body to the shelter of the tunnel.

“Grab his legs,” he urged Jace.

Shouldering his ax, Jace swung around and grabbed Daal’s ankles.

Together, they worked through the smoke, sticking to the densest cover. Daal had struck his head hard, knocking himself limp, but his limbs moved weakly, and he still breathed.

When he should be dead.

There was only one reason he wasn’t.

Graylin stared through the smoke, toward the remains of Daal’s mount. Whether due to the vagaries of the winds—or some protective sense still buried deep in Nyfka—the raash’ke had shoved higher at the last moment, blunting the steep dive and cushioning the impact with her own body. Nyfka had saved Daal’s life.

Graylin would always believe that.

And it wasn’t just her death that helped them.

As the raash’ke had plummeted out of the sky, two had crashed into the party of Hálendiian raiders who had been hounding Graylin’s group. He and the others were close to being overwhelmed. Darant had lost one of his men during the last skirmish. They were all bloodied and could barely lift their weapons. Then death rained out of the sky. Sheltered in the tunnel’s mouth, his group was spared. The Hálendiians—just outside the threshold—were crushed under bone and leather. Those that weren’t killed scattered. A handful had run off into the smoke. The wisest among them—fearing further rain might fall—had fought past Graylin’s group and fled down the tunnel, led by Commander Ghryss.

Darant, Perde, and Vikas had chased after them.

At that same time, Graylin had seen Daal crash, but he had lost sight of Nyx. Dreading the worst, he had grabbed Jace to help rescue Daal and search for any sign of Nyx. He succeeded with the first, but not the latter. He could only pray that Daal knew where she might have fallen.

They reached the tunnel and moved down it, but Graylin refused to go too far, knowing Nyx must be out there somewhere.

Jace knelt next to Daal, who was propped up against the wall. Daal murmured and swiped his arms, slowly coming around.

Jace looked out into the dome. “What about Krysh and Rhaif?”

“I spotted them huddled by Shiya’s cocoon.”

Jace stared with concern, plainly worried, too—and not just for Nyx. “I caught a few glimpses of the huge sphere. It’s still quaking, but not any worse. Maybe Shiya is making headway at reining in the damage.”

Graylin nodded. “We can only hope.”

Daal finally stirred enough to grow panicked. He battered wildly while Jace tried to console and calm him. Finally, he shoved Jace away.

“I’m all right.” His gaze swept between the two of them. “Where’s Nyx?”

“We hoped you knew,” Graylin answered with a sinking sense of defeat.

Daal shook his head, his eyes widening with fear.

Before Graylin could question him further, an agonized scream rose from deeper down the tunnel, rife with pain and terror, echoing louder as it reached them.

They all looked at each other, but they were not the only ones to hear that cry.

It drew down a monster.

Winds slammed into them as a huge shadow swept to the threshold, landing outside the tunnel. With black wings held wide and head low, the bat screamed at the three inside—then stalked toward them.

N YX CLUTCHED HER belt knife in both hands. She leaned her head against the wall and stared up at the distant light. She prayed to all the gods. She squeezed her heart, trying to find the will.

Don’t make me do this.

She closed her eyes and gathered all the strength that was in her. She stared down into the black abyss inside her, trying to hold the gaze of that cold, implacable eye. She would need to be that steely.

Don’t make me do this.

She drew all the fire that Daal had left her, meager though it was. She drew it to her heart, sang it brighter.

Don’t make me do this.

She reached out to the frayed remains of the horde-mind and shared what she knew, what she remembered. It needed to understand. Part of her wished it would not, but it did. The raash’ke and Myr had diverged down different paths, but at their core, they were much the same, communal and eternal. She asked the horde-mind to help her, to show her what she needed to do. She wanted it to refuse. It did not.

Don’t make me do this.

She huddled over Daal’s fire and stirred it with as much song as she could muster. Bashaliia tried to join her, keening in harmony, but she closed him off. This was a song he could not share—not if her efforts had any chance of working.

Don’t make me do this.

The horde-mind watched with the immensity of ages, waiting, ready.

Don’t make me do this.

But she had done it before.

Before she could balk, she swung to the side, rolled Bashaliia’s head over, and plunged her knife deep into his throat. This was not the merciful sting of before, where she had cradled the small spark of Bashaliia and delivered him to the greater Myr.

This was a merciless slaughter.

She dug deep with her blade and tore through tissue. Hot blood washed over her hands. Bashaliia cried and mewled, wings battered weakly, wanting to escape but still not wanting to leave her side. She clung all the harder. His whimpers begged for forgiveness, not understanding.

She could not comfort him with song, to blur her edges with him. For this to work, he must be isolated, to remain his pure self.

She sobbed and rocked but drove her knife deeper. She sought the coldness of bronze that could snap a neck, the stoniness of a warrior that could slay the innocent.

Finally, soaked in his blood, shaking all over, she felt his fighting stop. His wings sank down. His keening for forgiveness faded to a plaintive whisper—then went silent.

She reached a palm over his heart, as pure as it had ever been.

Then it stopped.

She leaned back and screamed her song at the world. She wound a bright net and cast it over Bashaliia’s body. It covered every sweet bit of him. She drew it tighter as she sang her pain, collecting all that was Bashaliia within those golden strands.

She kept tightening and tightening it, gathering all of him: his love, his innocence, his irritability, his hunger, his fears, his habits, his dreams, every mote of his vital essence.

As she did, the spark of Bashaliia grew into the golden blaze of a summer sun. Still, she closed her net tighter, straining with song and fire to hold him close. The sun became a hard star, ageless and perfect. She wanted to gaze upon it forever—but inside, she handed it to another.

An act every bit as hard as the slaughter.

To let him go, to trust in another.

The horde-mind drew that star into its black ancientness, covering him completely, eclipsing his beauty. Being raash’ke, it could not merge its consciousness with Bashaliia. It was why Nyx had to pull Bashaliia out, pure and unadulterated, separate from herself, untouched even by the bridle-song they shared.

But while that ancientness couldn’t absorb Bashaliia, it could hold him.

She whispered to that eternal spirit, knowing what she was asking of it.

It did not deny her.

Take me.

D AAL STRUGGLED TO help, but Jace pushed him back behind his shoulders.

Ahead, the huge bat shoved into the tunnel, screaming in defiant madness. Emerald fire danced and spat through bright copper imbedded in steel and skull. Fangs slashed the air, flinging saliva and poison. It hissed and slavered. Its eyes were pools of fire.

The sight of that emerald fire sickened Daal’s stomach. It was corruption and rot and pestilence. It was depravity and enslavement, too. It was everything vile in the world turned to fire.

Impossibly, Graylin stood against it, perhaps only seeing the beast and not the perversion that fueled it. The knight raised his sword, its length etched in vines that ran with blood. He stabbed and slashed, fighting hard. His blade rang off the beast’s steel helm.

The monster snapped and spat and screamed.

Graylin retreated, but exhaustion tripped his feet. He landed hard, hit his elbow. His hilt knocked from his grip, skittering and bouncing between the wingtips of the monster.

The bat lunged at its stubborn prey.

Then stopped—so close that its huffed breath blew back Graylin’s hair.

The monster looked over its shoulder toward the dome, as if hearing the whistle of its master. The bat turned and screamed out into it.

Under the cover of that cry, Graylin scooted on his bottom, sliding between those wings. He snatched up his blade. The monster’s chest loomed high. Grayling grabbed the hilt with both hands and braced a leg under him, ready to thrust for the bat’s heart.

“Finally,” Jace gasped.

Daal wanted satisfaction, too, picturing the raash’ke plummeting through the air. While he knew the bat was enslaved, it was better to end its misery. Daal glared at the corrupting fire—only to have the helm’s fiery crown flicker, going golden for a breath.

Still, for that moment, he heard a distant chime of song.

But it was enough.

He lunged past Jace and leaped through the air as Graylin thrust for a heart, one that still had hope.

A FTER ABA NDONING HER body in the darkness below, Nyx rode the corona of energy surrounding the raash’ke horde-mind. It was a golden fire around a black sun. And even deeper, hidden in that darkness, a brilliant white star shone.

The horde-mind carried her out of the endless pit and across the dome. Ahead, Kalyx crouched, half tucked into a tunnel. Emerald fire lashed and crackled across its body and wings. Its steel helm shone with a malevolent pyre.

She balked at the sight. It looked far more menacing in this ethereal plane. Still, she urged the horde-mind closer. As they flew toward the bat, Nyx drew that corona of fire to her, lifting it about her body, exposing the ancient blackness below, a lure for a daemon that had not yet been sated.

Kalyx swung his head around, drawn by the rawness of the horde-mind, sensing all that had escaped it before. A savage scream burst from its throat. The power behind it was a menacing gale.

Before, Nyx had used her bridle-song to protect the horde-mind. But she did not now. Instead, she held that corona of fire to herself, a power that was not even her own. It came from the ancient darkness under her. The horde-mind had left itself defenseless, offering one last sacrifice, to atone for the millennia of horror and terror it had afflicted.

Kalyx’s scream struck the horde-mind hard, peeling it away, burning memory and guilt and joy into nothingness. Nyx pictured the Root being stripped of its bronze, revealing its shining heart.

This was the same.

As the horde-mind let itself be consumed, a white star was revealed. Focused fully on destruction, enslaved to one purpose, Kalyx failed to react to something so pure—or perhaps some buried part of it remembered this shining piece of itself, a brother from the Myr.

Either way, Nyx only needed this moment of distraction.

She gathered all the power given to her by the horde-mind and dove upon that white star. She lifted it and carried it along with her tide. She used every scintillation of strength to push under Kalyx’s steel helm. She drove hard into a skull full of madness and emerald fire and planted a white star at its heart.

Once there, she sang a single small thread, as thin as a hope, and touched that star.

Her song was a simple plea.

Come back to me.

The star exploded, releasing Bashaliia in all his beauty and purity. Nyx was thrown back in a wash of golden fire. Emerald flames were snuffed against bone. As she fell away, she watched Kalyx be burned out of his skull, released at last from his torture, leaving an empty shell behind for Bashaliia to fill.

Nyx dropped again into a bottomless well of blackness.

But she felt no despair this time.

Only hope.

Come back to me.

G RAYLIN STABBED UPWARD with all the force of his legs. The steel of Heartsthorn sliced high. Its tip pierced through the fur and skin—then Graylin was struck from behind. He sprawled flat, striking his chin hard. His sword flew even farther.

He elbowed hard and rolled upon his attacker.

Daal gasped under him. “Don’t.”

Jace came running up, his Guld’guhlian ax raised high, a bellow on his lips. He swung for the neck of the monster.

Graylin saw something in Daal’s eyes, an urgency, a hope.

With a curse, Graylin shoved up and tackled Jace in the midsection, driving them both back. Jace gasped, the wind knocked out of him. Graylin held him by the shoulders. He stared back, praying he hadn’t misplaced his trust.

Daal still lay under the beast.

Drops of blood from the sword wound spattered Daal’s face in a macabre baptism. Then the monster leaped with a great beat of its wings and sailed low across the dome. They all followed it out.

“Why?” Graylin asked Daal, with many questions buried in that one word.

Daal didn’t answer.

The bat flew high, turned on a wing, and dove down. It looked like it was going to smash into the huge sphere, but it skirted to the side and vanished down the hole under it.

Graylin turned to Daal and repeated the question silently.

Daal answered this time.

“Hope.”

N YX FELL BACK into her own body and hugged herself. She was soaked in blood. Her broken shin throbbed with every inhale. She stared over at Bashaliia’s body, still warm but silent forever.

She reached to him anyway. She ran a fingertip down the bristly pinna of his ear, remembering all the whispers she had shared. She rubbed the velvet around his nose, fixing all the soft comfort it had given her. She slid a palm over his heart and rested it there.

Though Bashaliia was not here, this body was a map of her memories. She wanted to read it for as long as she could.

But another demanded her attention.

She still retained a small pyre of golden fire, all that was left of the life and verve of the raash’ke past. Yet, that was not all. Over that fire, a shred of blackness fluttered, the smoke from the ancient past—but it was fading fast.

She sang to it, sensing it fought to remain for a moment longer. She wove golden strands and brushed them gently against that shred of ancientness. She expressed her thanks. The mind answered with a gratefulness of its own. For this release. For allowing some measure of atonement and grace.

She also sensed a promise. That this wasn’t truly the end.

For the past, yes.

But not the future.

The ancientness stirred a memory out of her, one given to her by the Oshkapeers.

—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.

She understood. The raash’ke could build a new horde-mind, one free of stain and guilt, to be pure again. To return to what they once were, what they were always meant to be.

She hoped that would come to pass, but she feared it would not. How could it? As always, that awful vision of a mountaintop rose up. She tried to force it away. She didn’t mean to taint this last moment, this final farewell.

The smoke of ancientness—just a haze now—heard her fear of what was to come. From that smoke, she felt pity and sorrow, yet still an underlying gratefulness. Then just as the smoke dissolved to nothingness—a final surge passed through her. She gasped, recognizing the bright burn of it. From her time with the Dreamers. It was a branding, an ingraining into her as firmly as the fiery map of the Fangs.

It was also a terror.

She recognized what had been burned into her.

As that ancientness released fully, it left behind a single word, a correction, firm and assured.

Gift.

Then it was gone forever.

Nyx sat quietly, trembling in the darkness, still fearful of that final gift.

Before she could find some peace with it, an urgent keening reached her.

Hope surged through her.

With her good leg, she pushed her back up the wall and balanced there. Above, a huge shadow swept back and forth across the distant moon of the crystal orb. Wings swept wide, slightly unsteady as Bashaliia struggled with his new form. He trilled his confusion and disorientation.

She lifted her arms and cast out ribbons of golden song, reassuring and welcoming. She repeated her last words to him, both in melody and voice.

“Come back to me.”

He swept to her level, overshot, then with a single beat of his wings pulled abreast of her. He tried to join her on the footpath, but there was barely room. She hopped to the side, buffeted by his wings. She grabbed the rung of a ladder to hold herself steady.

Bashaliia fought to perch next to her, but he struggled to get his claws in place. Then a talon reached, snagged his old body, and rolled it off the footway to make room. She gasped and reached for it, but then pulled back. She had said as much of a good-bye as she could.

She stared up at Bashaliia as he finally landed and folded his wings. He rocked in place, like he always did when happy or nervous or both. It was still Bashaliia in there. She suspected she would have to keep reminding herself of that.

Before, the top of his head had barely reached her nose. Now that steel-helmed crown was so high. She would have to reach her arm up to scratch his chin. He cocked his head, as if testing the weight of that steel. He keened in distress.

She reached a hand to his heart, then shifted her palm higher.

He is so much taller.

She sang a promise, adding words to cement it. “We’ll get that off you.”

And those copper needles out of you.

He rocked on his legs, this time clearly nervous. He stared with one eye, then the other, down at the blood, at the knife still on the platform. He whined in his throat, a note of apology, asking even now for forgiveness, believing he had done something wrong.

“No, my sweet boy.” She reached to him, still balancing on one leg, hiding the wince of pain so as not to scare him. “You are perfect.”

He leaned his head down. She hooked her arms around his neck and pressed into him. He smelled rank from his abuse, a reek of excrement from a poorly kept pen, the burn of punishment. She felt the scars around his neck from chains and steel collars. She felt the reflexive tremor from a body that had seen too much torture.

I’m sorry this is the body I had to give you.

He pushed into her, needing more reassurance, nearly knocking her off the platform with his strength. She clung tighter. She closed her eyes and sang to him. She used the fire left inside her to warm a glow. She let it suffuse into his frightened heart, to let him know he was loved. He slowly joined her, a soft keening, rocking again, but more with contentment. She layered on harmonies that were both memories and promises. She infused her sorrow and shame for what she had done to him, asking for his forgiveness.

He keened back his trust.

She pressed her brow to his chest.

“Thank you…”

She straightened and rubbed ears that were too tall. She felt the snuffle of velvet at her neck. Such touches, more than their shared glow, drew them closer. They sang together until his heart lost its panic, allowing him to start to find his center again in this new body.

Then lightning struck them both.

Bonded in that moment, she felt the rip of emerald fire. Flames burned the inside of his skull, seeking to dominate and enslave. Madness frilled the edges, ready to rip away sanity, leaving only mindless control.

Nyx gasped and stared up.

No.

Jagged bolts of energy chased down the pit, striking walls and ricocheting off them. They struck the steel helm and frazzled across the top, demanding submission.

Bashaliia screamed, toppling off the platform.

She leaped out and onto his back. She snagged fistfuls of scruff at the base of his neck and clung there as he fluttered and fought to regain himself. She never let her song drop, protecting Bashaliia, refusing to let him go.

She drove her fire into his skull. He remained too fragile to fight on his own, to resist the torture that demanded obedience. Instead, she siphoned that pain and madness into herself, stripping it from her winged brother.

Bashaliia recovered enough to draw level, to catch her under him.

She stared up, full of rage, edged by madness, rife with fire both golden and emerald. She took a breath and screamed one word, one command, one promise.

Never.

D AAL CRINGED AS a new storm erupted inside the dome. It came from the enemy barge above. Lightning cascaded through the dome’s door, dazzling with its malignancy. It chained and laddered across the crystal walls. It sparked with furious emerald flashes. It balled into malevolent shimmering fogs that shot wildly.

Still, Daal could read the pattern.

“It’s searching,” he whispered.

A scatter of bolts spun and danced over the sphere, then chased down the hole.

Where the beast had vanished.

Graylin stood next to him, Jace on his other side.

“Searching for what?” Jace asked. “For Nyx?”

Daal shook his head. “I think for the winged monster.”

As if called forth by his words, a huge shadow burst from beyond the orb. Black wings tipped and swept a wide arc through the dome. Drawn by its passage through the air, fire and lightning lashed out at the bat, striking from every direction. The fires became so fierce that the beast was lost in those flames.

Then it burst free again, trailing fire.

Daal squinted, expecting that energy to be focused on the bat’s steel helm, forming a fiery crown. While a few sparks still danced there, most of the bolts glanced off the helm and hit the figure clinging on its back, ducked close. It was as if the rider were drawing that inimical energy, bearing the brunt of the assault.

In all the dazzle and distance, Daal could not discern who rode that monster, but he knew who it was. The slight golden glow about her shoulders left no doubt.

Terror and worry flared through him.

No one could withstand such an attack.

Not even Nyx.

R IDING ON A column of fire, Nyx clawed her fingers into Bashaliia’s fur. She twisted both wrists, wrapping harder. She clung with her knees as best she could. Her broken shin shot lances of pain into her hip, but she burned away the worst of the pain.

As she shot across the dome, emerald energies filled the air, swelled her lungs, and traveled over her skin. The dark abyss inside her howled at that power. She denied it, refusing its demand, intending to hold out for as long as possible.

Instead, she focused on the two golden reins of bridle-song, shimmering cords that ran from her shoulders to the steel helm. She tied the ends to the copper needles, securing them there.

With each strike to that steel, she siphoned fire away from Bashaliia. While she could not keep all that dread energy from him, hopefully it was enough. Ducked low into his warmth, merged into his glow, she willed him confidence and infused into him the memory of ancient raash’ke riders to help him carry her, but mostly she just kept him protected.

All the while, a scream built silently inside her.

It, too, was a song.

She built that new melody, a darker, scathing ballad of madness and power. She fed it that emerald fire, to keep it from the dark abyss, to keep her sanity.

She rode up that fiery green tide, higher and higher, the scream of madness building with every beat of Bashaliia’s wings. They reached the top and shot out of the dome’s door. Bashaliia banked away from the keel of the barge and swung wide. They left the warm chimney of air and sped out into the frigid, endless night.

The air was ice, each breath a labor, but she burned with inner fire. She rode out until frost and ice coated her and the emerald flames could no longer reach her. Only then did she swing around. High above the barge, she hung with Bashaliia in the air, free and raging with power.

The barge faced them, its windows glinting. Its forges burned in the darkness but drew no closer.

Nyx gathered that scream of madness, scintillating with emerald fire. She used the cold and ice to help her temper those flames. But it was like taming a wildfire. She felt those corrupting flames burning her edges, eating into her.

Bashaliia was also not unscathed or untouched. Bonded with her brother, she felt a savagery that was never a part of him. He shivered with rage under her.

She knew she could not hold this scream in any longer or she would risk them both. She tightened her knees and shifted her weight forward. Bashaliia responded and tipped into a steep dive. She let him fly, not guiding any longer, only riding.

She needed all her concentration to bind that scream, to forge it into a weapon. The sigil of a bright brand burned in the back of her mind, gifted to her by the horde-mind. It was as much a map as the path through the icy Fangs—but this chart was one of ancient fire and control. She wanted to deny it, to will it away, knowing what it portended.

She flashed to a mountaintop with a red moon falling.

So be it.

She reached a tendril of golden fire, frosted with emerald corruption and fueled by the last energies of an ancient mind—and touched the burning sigil.

It ignited as she reached the barge.

She gave herself fully to the map of that brand, letting her body follow the code written inside her. The method, the words, a flow of power beyond her understanding.

Bashaliia dove below the height of the barge, then streaked high again in front of it. He heaved to a sudden stop with a swoop of his huge wings. Ice broke from their tips in a glittering cascade. The sudden halt threw her high off his back into the air, lifting her before the windows of the barge.

Ancient words, written in fire, burst from her lips. She swung her arms high, breaking ice from her body. Her hands clapped above her—the first note of a dreadful song.

She opened herself and screamed into the frigid night. A song of hatred and fury and madness. She had already hardened her power into a weapon, but the ancient sigil inside her turned power into purpose.

She stated it loudly, repeating her earlier promise, giving it form and substance.

Never.

Her scream struck the barge—and crashed into it. Boards exploded. Draft-iron cables ripped from tethers. The entire barge split in half before her, shattered by her scream, by her power, by the gift of an ancientness that sought redemption.

Below her, Bashaliia screamed, too, lunging higher, neck extended. While they were still bridled together, a fraction of her force blasted out of him. As it did, the steel helm ripped from his skull, spinning and glinting under the starlight into the night.

She smiled coldly, refining her promise.

Never again.

She gazed with lowered brows at the ruins of the barge and gave one last surge as she began to fall, casting the last of the fire out of her.

Even empty, she wanted this to never stop.

At the back of her mind, a black abyss wailed the same desire.

She drove her madness through to the barge’s forges and ignited their potency with her fury. The explosion was a flaming sun in the dark night.

She savored the destruction.

Then she felt the heat of the blast washing over her. With it came a backlash of fiery madness, striking her at her weakest. She could not stop the storm from filling her, blinding her, spreading to all her now empty places—even down into her dark abyss.

Her head lolled backward as she fell through the night, limp and lost, plummeting into darkness.

Somewhere over the ice, Bashaliia keened and screamed.

She recognized that wail of despair.

The madness had found him, too.