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But what if he can’t tear himself away? Or worse, what if he winds up tipping his hand to someone, just because I’m a big, fat baby? I offered to be his cover story, so I can’t chicken out now, because of some howling way off in the distance and a little residual childhood trauma. I decide to keep marching up. Then when Azar does return, I can at least explain myself as doing a little recon in their urgent search for the heart.
I do take a small moment to appreciate that as our bond has strengthened, we can manage being apart again. A week ago, I’d be writhing in agony on the ground because he was so far away. Now I’m just struggling with an existential crisis because I don’t have my dragon-sized security blanket.
Buck up, Liz. Be worthy of the old lady’s awe and admiration.
Stop being an anvil around Azar’s neck.
I increase my speed to a jog, because somehow, a third of the way up the mountain, the snow from the base is now gone. The ground must be warmer here, closer to the opening to the volcano, or who knows why? I make great time, even wheezing for breath in an embarrassing way, as I climb up, up, up.
But that’s when I balk again, because I can hear it.
The chanting’s louder, and it’s not wind-tossed, not anymore. It’s clear. It’s crisp. It’s almost ominous—it feels like the disembodied voices just out of my line of sight are demanding something of me.
Hjartanu. Hjartanu. Hjartanu.
Over and over and over, the same as before. Like drums, the staccato rhythm repeats. Endlessly. Tirelessly. There must be hundreds of them. Thousands, even. Men. Women. Creatures. The voices are ragged and intense, and now that I’m drawing closer, it feels almost as if they’re dragging me forward.
I slip and fall, my hands slamming into the ice-cold, snow-coated rock of the path. I right myself, and I keep on moving. I’m not sure I could stop if I tried, but I don’t want to stop either. Something brought me here years ago, and something’s calling to me now. We’re connected, this volcano and I, and Azar needs me to find out how. The world needs me to find out, because until the dragons get what they want, they can’t ever leave.
No matter how much progress we make, I know deep down that the dragons and the humans are at odds. Quintessentially, fundamentally, our two cultures are opposed. Until they get what they need, until they return to their home, we’re all in danger. As I finally reach the summit, I see the wide opening to the tunnel. The top of the mountain’s a large dome, sunken in the center, but covered in snow, but the tunnel they shoved me into before is still there, its maw gaping wide and dark.
I shove my fear down into a small ball and kick it into the corner of my mind. If I don’t keep it under control, Azar will feel it, and I know he’ll come. As I walk toward the tunnel entrance, I see something I either didn’t notice before, or something that wasn’t yet there. Above the arched entryway, there’s a symbol carved into the rock.
A flame—and next to it, three crudely carved skulls. Fiery death? Is that what it means? That would be close enough to true. Certainly, traveling down the length of this tunnel leads to a place where flame can kill any number of people.
Did the people who lived near Eyjafjallajökull ever sacrifice humans in the hopes of staving off eruptions? Were they willing to kill others in order to preserve their own lives or their own safety? I suppose that’s what I did, years ago, when I shoved the woman who I thought was trying to kill me into the pit of flame.
The real question is whether she actually was.
Because if she wasn’t, then I’m the real villain.
As I enter the tunnel, something inside of my chest flares up, fiery heat flooding my entire body. My foot lands on the ground, the snow that has collected on my boots falling in chunks to the ground. Where it melts immediately.
Like it does around Azar.
Something strange is happening around me here, for sure. But what? I need to know, so I keep walking. Without even the aurora borealis overhead to light my path, I falter. It’s pitch black, and anything at all could be beside me on this path. I turn and look backward, and a dozen paces away, I can still make out the entrance.
But the only thing up ahead is a deep and profound darkness filled only with the chanting voices, calling, calling, calling. I turn around, fear clawing its way up my spine. Creatures are in there. I can hear and feel them. I shouldn’t be here.
Unless it’s all in my head.
I’m frozen for a long moment, unsure whether to forge ahead and face my possible hallucinations, or turn back and wait for Azar to come with me. In the end, the only thing worse than being crazy would be leading Azar in with me too so he could see how insane I am.
So I move alone, deeper, deeper, deeper.
It’s the chanting that’s pulling me along, I know. It must be. And that reminds me of what I still have in my pouch at my side. My mother’s recently charged phone, the one that shows that I’m nuts. The report is quite clear that no other people were present at the end of this tunnel. There are police reports, images, and trial statements that all back up what my mother told Azar.
I’m nuts.
There was no one here.
But in this moment, instead of looking at that report again, I use the phone for the flashlight. I fumble around until I finally free it from the pouch, and I turn it on. Now that I have a light, I shine it all around myself. Bats, startled by the sudden appearance of light in this dark place, explode down and out the entrance of the tunnel, several of them knocking me in the side of the head. I crouch down, nearly dropping the phone, but once the sound of beating wings and panicked bats has stopped, I stand back up. The chanting never slowed, and I stumble forward again, moving inexorably toward it.
The ground becomes hotter with nearly every step, and I move faster, too. The tunnel around me shifts from jagged rock to smooth, black, almost polished looking stone. I don’t recall that change from before, but I was pretty agitated the last time I was here.
And finally, I see the end of the tunnel. It started out large, but it narrows and narrows, until near the end, it’s barely large enough for me to walk through without bowing my head. I can see the very end, thanks to the brilliant red glow coming through the doorway.
I know what I’ll see beyond, when I step through.
