46. Advanced Volcanology #2
That ever-present pressure in my chest, that magnetic pull that had kept me in its orbit for the last several weeks, suddenly lifted.
A deafening crack! split the atmosphere, then faded into a rumble, which then strengthened into a roar. The dawn sky turned dark as heavy plumes of ash rose in the sky above the mountaintops.
Except the mountain tops were gone, replaced by walls of dirt, mud, and melted snow that ripped into the valleys.
I twisted to look back at the Rift, but the ice had broken. Dark water frothed between us and our escape.
I held Ciarán tighter.
“I’m—I’m sorry, Ciarán. I tried. I tried to help—”
A wave of hot air blew my hair back from my face ahead of the pyroclastic flow barreling towards us. It was as if the mountains had turned liquid, and the ridges and trees and rocks sloughed off the mountain side to join the wave of mud and debris.
The armies on the shore were no longer lined up. The amount of ash in the air had turned the sky back to night, but I could see them by the light of their skalfires as they ran in haphazard directions. Their efforts and their panic were futile. Nothing would survive the oncoming earth.
Hopefully the others would force Mom back through the Rift. I couldn’t imagine she would leave me here, but we were too far and the landslide too quick.
“You were wonderful, Wren. Please don’t apologize.” Ciarán’s hand wrapped around the back of my neck, and he kept his eyes on me instead of the rolling mountains. “You saved the worlds. And you saved me.”
“You’re going to die because of me.”
“I’m going to die with you, which, if you think about it, is what I wanted anyway. To live out the rest of my life by your side, whether that’s a hundred years or only a minute.”
I buried my head in his shoulder, holding him so tight that I was sure my nails were cutting into his skin.
“I love you,” I choked into his hair.
“My Lady, I love you too.”
We would die here, in each other’s arms. Maybe this final embrace would be immortalized forever, like the victims of Mount Vesuvius in Pompeii. Maybe it would destroy us completely.
Whatever happened, I would hold onto Ciarán as long as I could.
“Wren, dear, cheer up, my love,” a familiar voice said overhead.
I jerked my head up.
Gams looked like her old self again—wrinkled smile, gray hair, a paint-stained Keel Watch Harbor sweater.
She knelt beside me and cupped my cheeks in her hands.
“Wren. You’re not dying today, okay? You have so much left to do. So much left to give the world. You’re just getting started.”
“How are you—” I looked back towards the Rift, and then at Gams’s sweater. “You’re a Nightmare?”
“I am.” Her eyes swam with tears, and her thumbs wiped away the tears on my cheeks. “I’m afraid I can’t stay long. You’ve already done so much, my only regret is that I’m going to miss what comes next.”
“I didn’t mean to make the mountains erupt,” I sobbed, not fully understanding what she was saying. “I’m sorry, Gams. I tried—”
“I already told you, you’re not dying today.” Gams smiled and her tears finally spilled over. “And Liam, I trust you to make sure that doesn’t happen for a good long while, alright? You take care of each other. That’s an order, Grimguard.”
She bent down to kiss Ciarán’s brow. I’d always been so jealous of how she treated Liam like a grandchild, but now it struck me with worse panic than the oncoming pyroclastic devastation.
“Where are you going?” I demanded. “Why are you saying goodbye?”
“I don’t have a lot of time, Wren. Ferrin got me good.” She placed a hand over her abdomen where my father had shot her. “But it’s a good thing you pulled all that Skal from Keldori through the Rift so I can do one last thing for you.”
“I can heal you! I can—!” But her body was so far across the water.
She silenced me by pressing her lips against my forehead.
“Wren,” she sighed. “You are the most perfect thing to have ever come from anything I’ve done or created. You won’t be alone. You have Liam. You have your mother. And please be kind to yourself. For someone so talented, you’ve always been absolutely terrible at that.”
She stood up and stepped between us and the churning mountains.
The air around her shimmered, and she raised her hands.
Earth roared as the landslide stopped in its charge and sloshed towards the sky, as if slamming into an invisible wall. The sound was deafening and terrible, and our slab of ice lifted and fell on the waves the shaking earth sent through the bay.
And then the land settled, falling back down on itself rather than pushing forward. Ash continued to spew into the air, but the earth stilled, and silence rang in my ears.
Gams turned to face us, her face glistening with sweat and tears.
“I want to save you,” I croaked. “Please.”
She bent down to take me in her arms over Ciarán and wrapped me in an embrace.
“You’ve done one impossible thing already today. Pace yourself. You have the rest of your life. I love you, Wren. My amazing girl. Tell your mother I love her too.”
She stroked the back of my hair, and then her arm dropped, her embrace loosened, and I was left with a pile of dust and used-up magick where my grandmother had been.
“Gams?” A heavy, choked breath forced its way out of my throat. Ash filtered between my fingers. My voice strained through my impossibly tight throat to whisper, “I love you too.”
The ice rocked, and I stumbled back into Ciarán’s arms, where I hid and cried bitter, ragged sobs.