But I needed their help. I was willing to risk Nahli’s wrath for it.
Thirty minutes later, I stared down the mouth of the volcano. The air inside was colder than I anticipated. Something about it tasted old. Forgotten. I shuffled down the slippery throat of the cavern, following a map written by Nori in my memory, until frigid water surrounded my feet. Bathed in liquid black, the cavern walls were so icy and humid the simple act of breathing choked me. My heart thrummed in my chest, my pulse throbbing against my fingertips. I offered a prayer to the volcano Nahli.
Then into the water I dove.
There was no current, and yet, the water pulled me through the tunnel like blood through a vein.
Breath tight, I let it carry me down. The tunnel narrowed, winding into a space so small I had to wiggle through the last fewinches. Arms pressed against my own body, I found the opening and burst through, paddling for the surface.
Mihaunaalive, I wasnotlooking forward to doing that again.
The air tasted stale, damp like mold and dripping crypts. An eerie blue light stretched across the walls. Over my head, a soft twinkling spread across the ceiling. Glow worms.
The interior chamber of the volcano was wider than I’d expected. Somewhere, water echoed as it dripped. Inky liquid surrounded my treading feet. With the blue constellation above, I might’ve been suspended among the stars. It was the kind of beauty that beckoned me into a trance, like a moth to a torch. I could’ve stayed there forever, floating in the chilled water and staring at a night sky—but I wasn't fooled. Nahli might be ethereal, but she was a tomb of hardened magma.
And tombs should not be disturbed.
Light vibrated from deep below. Soft, soothing, cool. I watched it, wondering how deep the well of the volcano lay. It cast a smoldering blue iridescence along the obsidian floor, flickering as it burned.
I could do this.
Dive down, grab the thing, swim up. Dive, grab, swim.
I was a Leihaniian. Diving and swimming were two things I did better than anyone else in the world. I had nothing to fear. Just get in and get out.
The liquid black churned around my feet. I wondered if monsters lay in wait below.
Don’t think about it. Just do it.
My breath puffed from my chest, leaving stunted, foggy clouds. I fisted my fingers, working warmth back into them.Three, two, one, go.
I remained latched to the wall, staring down into the deep water.
GO.
Twisting my long hair away from my face, I gathered my air—as much as I could gulp down—and tilted into the cold.
A vast canyon of wide open nothing, the well seemed to only grow deeper as I descended. The weight of pressure from above fed my strokes. Very quickly, the water turned into icy sludge. Thick, globby,cold.
I wasn’t equipped for this.
I was a girl from the islands. Heat, I could handle. But the cold in the volcano leached into my scalp, freezing my thoughts. With every twitch of my arms and legs, I felt my tendons threaten to snap, like frozen ropes stretched too taut. The water pierced my skin, sharp and brilliant. Slicing.
There were no monsters here. There was only the cold, waiting to drink me alive.
I stretched, lungs tight, and my fingertips brushed a flat plane. Slick, like glass. Transparent. Andfreezing. I ran my hands along the smooth surface, the burning blue light just beyond my reach.
Dimly, I realized it must be ice. A sheet of ice in the heart of a volcano.
It made no sense, but I didn’t have time to puzzle it out.
My toes slid across the plane, and I felt a shift. A pocket of air, hovering on the other side.
Bubbles escaped my nostrils. I stiffened, disregarding the shivers that crawled from my skull and down my arms, clenching my teeth so they wouldn't chatter. On the other side of my feet, below the ice, the pocket of air hummed.
My head became thick with the weight of water above. If I swam back up, I could find a sharp rock on the surface. Something to break the frozen wall.
But when I kicked my legs to ascend, I hardly moved.
