Chapter 30
Elianne leapt from her bed, ignoring the slight spinning of her head. Her vision had mostly cleared, but her muscles still cramped periodically. She hadn’t tried to do anything more than lie there for the last day. Lie there and try to feel where her son might be.
Daemon had tried to explain his location, but even though it was relatively close to Harroby and Mt. Radsla—places she’d once known so well with her regular senses—it had been too far away for her to detect anything through the magma.
This, though. It was Nik—and it was big. Big enough to send a shockwave through Helviti.
She obviously wasn’t the only one to notice. A shout went up from the common room, and when she rushed out, she found Ember clutching at Logi, eyes wide with fear. Eldrid was cursing and tumbling down gracelessly from his perch, and Daemon ran in from some other tunnel.
“Dae.” Elianne steadied herself against the wall, though that only made it worse, honestly. Whatever Nik was doing, he was still at it. “What’s going on?”
“Well, he said I’d know.” Daemon dropped to a knee too and pressed his palms to the basalt.
“Who? Know what?” Eldrid asked.
Daemon shook his head and closed his eyes. He stood again with a dazed expression. “Ash and flame. He’s forming new land. Under the ice shelf.”
Ember’s mouth fell open. “Can he do that? Won’t he melt through the ice?”
“He will. But he is.” His eyes snapped into focus, and then his gaze moved to Elianne. “I don’t know why he’s doing this, but we should assume it has something to do with Isidor. In which case, we should also assume he’s going to need our help.”
“But he’s miles away. How will we get to him in time to be useful?” Even as she asked it, Elianne ducked back into her room for her boots.
“Not we—you. I need to try to maintain balance in the rest of the Ring of Flame while he’s working, and I’ll do that best from right here.” He turned as he spoke toward the same lava bath chamber Nik had been in not long ago.
She trailed him. “But how am I supposed to—”
“Just follow the streams to him, Elianne. He’s pulling them far faster than they’d ever go on their own, which is widening them. Ask the magma to propel you even faster and I bet you could get to him in half an hour.”
Half an hour? As far away as he was? She’d never traveled so fast in her life, certainly not through the lava tubes. “But…”
Daemon paused, held her gaze. “Your son needs you. So go.”
“What about the rest of us?” Eldrid asked.
“Here, with me. In a pool, all of you. Pick a volcano and stabilize it.”
Elianne didn’t stick around to see which ones each picked. She gave Ember’s hand a squeeze on her way by but otherwise ran toward the largest flow heading into and under the mountain, toward Nik.
She dove into the flow, which was indeed moving faster than usual. But not fast enough. For a moment she struggled against it, trying to swim in the stream, trying to be like she’d always been, to hold herself separate from it.
But she couldn’t. If she did, she’d be too slow. Too late. She could feel the very heart of Fjordlandi pulsing, pumping its lifeforce toward her son.
She went still in the molten river. How could he be so strong? After barely more than two weeks as an Aflame? How could he call to the magma so unerringly, with such strength, and direct it exactly where he wanted it to go?
He hadn’t gotten that from her—she, who was so weak the Ellesian king had seen it at a glance and rejected her.
And yet he had. It hadn’t come from Tristan. It had come from her. Perhaps it had manifested itself stronger, perhaps the Giver himself had multiplied it, amplified the gift in him. But even so, he was her son. Of her flesh. Of her blood.
Giver, help me. Help me to reach him in time. Help me to lend him whatever aid I can.
“Let yourself go.” The words sounded like Daemon’s voice, but not in her ears. Not even in her memory, though he’d given the advice countless times. This time, it resonated in her soul. In her bones, in the marrow where her blood was formed.
A part of her had always struggled against this, and it wasn’t just because of Isidor. It was because she’d never wanted to be here. Never wanted to be this. Never wanted the curse that had stolen her from her husband and child.
But that curse was the thing that had saved her son’s life. It was the thing that had reunited them. It was the thing he was using now to save them all, and which she needed, too, to help him.
For the first time in her decades down here, she didn’t fight against the flow even as she used it.
Didn’t try to hold herself removed from it.
Didn’t just try to swim the river. She called it up, called it into her, gave herself into it.
And asked it, Will you take me to him? Will you take me to the one calling you so well?
The magma pulsed and roared and rushed like water was usually wont to do but which rock usually resisted. She knew it would be faster in the straighter channels, and so she directed herself and it into them.
Vaguely, she was aware of leaving Helviti behind. Vaguely, she felt the offshoots into various vents or down toward the core or off to Radsla or out to sea. But the main channel kept pumping toward Nik, whose call grew stronger, louder with each minute that passed by.
Usually, she counted each moment spent in the flow, eager to get out again. Now, time passed in a way it never had before, her focus solely on what was ahead of her.
Nikanor.
She would reach her son in time, and she would help him. More, she bade the lava. Faster.
The lava answered the call.
He wasn’t only building land, she realized as she drew nearer. That would have meant cooling everything he pulled up through the sea, letting it all harden. But she could feel the molten core of the mountain he was forming, feel it churning and twisting and pushing its way up.
A volcano—he was making a new volcano, there between Helviti and Radsla. And it was immense. That molten core rose higher and higher.
Nik! He might be strong, but no one man was meant to do such a thing. What would the cost be? Was he even thinking about that?
Of course not. He would be thinking only of one thing—helping others. Kyrja, she didn’t doubt it. But was his love for her alone enough to make him build a mountain?
Elianne followed his song into his new formation, into that new heart, but rather than wait for it to breach the summit, she forged a path out the side, to where she sensed her son on the surface.
He must have sensed her too. She felt his magic join to hers, widen an opening, draw out the flow. She shot out into the air with it, leaping to her feet and spinning to look for him.
There, just a stone’s toss away. He was on his knees, hands pressed to the earth, tortured gaze locked on her.
“Nik!” She ran to his side, collapsing beside him and wrapping her arms around him. He looked an absolute wreck—skin blistered, lips bleeding. Her every maternal instinct wanted her to scream, “Stop! What are you doing? Don’t, nothing is worth this!”
But then he whispered, “Modur,” his voice as cracked and parched as his face.
She scooped up a handful of oozing lava and pressed the healing balm to his cheeks. “Tell me, Niki. Tell me what to do. I’ll help you.”
He looked away, inland, toward the ice flats and…
what was that? Another volcano? But she hadn’t sensed this one.
It was—no. Not a volcano, not a true one.
It was made entirely of ice, there where it sat at the base of this monster mountain her son was still pulling forth. She sucked in a breath. “Isidor?”
“He’s trying to…ice…the dome.”
It made no sense—but even as she thought it, ice chunks spewed from the mouth of the ice cone, hurtling through the air, toward Harroby.
She smoothed another handful of lava over her son’s blisters and then rested her hands over his. “Show me how we stop him.”