Water roared. The ice shelf on which they were walking groaned, cracked. Waves crashed onto it, rushing over it, a tsunami of frozen slush that was eating up the distance toward them far too quickly.
“Frost and flame!” Kyrja dropped his hand and lifted both of hers toward the oncoming rush, freezing it, pushing it back. She was clearly trying to mend the cracks too, but even so, the surface under them tilted, wobbled, groaned more as the mountain of ice kept rising. Five hundred feet, a thousand, two thousand.
Fissures formed as the mountain ate up more and more of the space where the ice flat had been. Nik grabbed Kyrja by the arm. “Kyrja—we need to move!”
She ran with him, toward the east, inland, but he could tell that her attention wasn’t on what was before them. She was continuing to work, to try to undo what her father was doing. “He’s…it’s not just him. It’s all his allies. Not the twelve from the prison, so they must still be secure, but there are at least two dozen others. They’re pulling up so much water.” She choked on a sob.
The ice cracked ahead of them, the surface beneath their feet tilting down. Or perhaps what was ahead tilted up. Either way, they didn’t have enough time to react before they crashed into it.
Kyrja screamed, though he couldn’t think it was from the pain of impact. She spun back to the sea, eyes wide and chest heaving.
The mountain stopped growing. Given the strain in her neck muscles, he knew it was from her efforts and not her father’s decision.
“No.” It came out garbled, her face contorting. “He’s…no! He’s pulling hot water from a vent on the sea floor. Bringing it up the center of the mountain. Like a—”
“Volcano. Of ice.” Nick spun, though the ice shelf above him obscured his view. “Does he mean to smother us?”
“Let him try.” She dropped to a knee, hand pressed to the ice. Their berg leveled out, the wall behind them just a step now.
The world rumbled. Shook. Shouted in agony. Then the ice volcano shot water and ice from its cone.
Nik pulled all his heat from his core into his hand, ready to send it upward. Kyrja swept a protective sheen of ice around them, like she’d done that first day he’d met her, in the streets of Reykstoll, when it was Pab’s ash and debris raining down.
But aside from a few chunks that clattered and splattered, nothing came their way. Instead, the ice flew up and arced out. Toward the southeast.
They both turned, watched the largest chunk go, though it vanished from sight.
“He’s aiding it. Propelling it,” she said.
It was far worse than that. “Kyrja—it’s headed for the dome.”
“What?” But she must have realized it even as he did. Horror replaced the disbelief, and she shot out her arms, clearly straining toward it. “No, no, no. Back here, ice!Down!”
He couldn’t see whether or not she succeeded, but he had to trust she would. Did trust. But her father would only send another, he and his allies. And another, and another.
Nik framed her face with his hands and waited for her eyes to focus on him. “Stop fighting the symptoms, Kyrja. Go fight the source. You know where he is?”
Her eyes glazed over for a second, and then she nodded.
“Good. Go.”
But she frowned. “What about you?”
He looked toward the ice volcano—impressive, yes. But not as impressive as the real things flanking them. “I’ll take care of this source.”
“Nik—”
He met her gaze again, those beautiful silver irises that he wanted the chance to look into daily for the next couple centuries. “Do you trust me?”
She didn’t even hesitate. “With my life.”
“Do you trust me with your people’s lives?Ourpeople’s lives?”
She didn’t even hesitate. “Of course I do.”
“Then get off this ice, back on solid ground, and find your father. Cut him off. Distract him, at the least. I’m going to show him what a real volcano looks like.”
She shook her head. “Radsla and Helviti are both too far away.”
