“You are not my king. You are no one’s king.”
He shot out a wall of ice to encircle them, a miniature arena. “Your son is going to destroy the entire kingdom. We can stop him, if we work together. Save Fjordlandi.”
She sent her lava out over his ice, turning the wall into one of flames. “You don’t care about Fjordlandi—you care about your own power. Nik will not destroy—he’ll build. Something you know nothing about.”
“He’s destabilizing the entire continent—”
“You really think we’d let him rock our foundations?” She called to the flows beneath their feet, brought them up enough to rumble, to shake the ground, to melt the ice. And smirked at how Isidor flailed to maintain his balance. “Here’s the difference you need to understand, Isidor. Nik is part of a family. While he fights you here, Dae and the others are stabilizing the rest of the continent, each volcano. We work together. A unit. Not fighting for supremacy with your stupid Proving. Not trying to earn a title or a rank or a seat with those Challenges—just trying to be better, to grow, to learn, to strengthen each other and ourselves.”
He scoffed. “You are thanes. You will never be better than what you are at birth, with dirt for blood. We are the only way you can lift yourselves up, escape the mire. And our children could do that, could—”
“Enough! I don’t want to hear those words from you ever again.” She slashed a hand through the air, letting fire lick over her arm.
He dropped to a knee, cold rage on his face, and pressed both hands to the ground. Ice formed anew beneath his palms, and then the rumbling began again. Rumbling that she could feel through her feet as well as her lava-sense. The mountains, both ice and volcanic, were alive, erupting. Shaking the ground beneath her feet, the tremors growing, building.
No. Giver? Protect the dome. She had no idea what kind of earthquake Harroby could withstand, but instinct said they’d soon find out if they didn’t stop this elemental battle.
She felt for the volcano behind her, but Nik was awake again, his magic fisted around it.
So then. She would leave one mountain to subdue the other. She would focus on the master of the ice. Stop him, and she’d stop it all. Stop him, and his supporters would cut loose and flee. Stop him, and they’d truly win.
She heard ice breaking free from the mountain, saw its shadow as it soared through the air, but she paid no attention. Lava flowing up over her, dripping down her arms like wings, she set a roar loose from her lips and flew at Isidor.
They were about to see how long his ice could really withstand the Aflame.
33
As much as he loved seeing Kyrja’s face hovering over his the moment he opened his eyes, Nik would prefer doing so someday without a cloud of dread—and in this case, ash and lightning and ice—looming over them. Her hair was a beautiful ruin, lashing her face in the wind from the billowing plumes of fire and cinders, her hands cool on his flaming cheeks. He could still feel the lingering touch of her lips on his, even as he pulled awareness and his hold on the volcano back to him.
“Kyrja.” He pushed up onto his elbows, trying to sort out the last few minutes. There’d been the plunge into the icy sea, the fast-forming rock rising up to meet him, to lift him back out, to shoot upward. Then… “Modur?”
Kyrja motioned down the mountainside. “She went down to face my father.” Her fingers feathered the hair off his forehead. “We need to end this, Nik. Can you feel those tremors?”
He pushed the rest of the way up, hands to the ground. Was it him, causing the disturbance? He’d known it would upset things, to call so much lava to one location. But he’d trusted that Daemon would see in an instant what he was doing and counterbalance.
He was, Nik could feel that. They all were. Every other volcano was stable, if more still than usual, their flows and pools diverting to him. Even as this mountain had risen so quickly, he’d felt Daemon’s stabilizing hand at work around him, keeping things steady.
Isidor wasn’t letting go without a fight, though. Where new land was still forming under the ice, he was pushing back, trying to stop him. That was what was causing some of the tremors, and more were coming from that ice mountain of his, which had its roots deep in the earth, where the springs fed it once Nik had cut off its path to the sea.
“That mountain needs to come down now,” he said.
Kyrja picked up one of his hands and linked hers with it. “Then let’s do it.” She sat beside him, both of them facing the slope, the riven plain, the far-off glint of light on Harroby.
“Giver, help us,” he said on a breath, even as he saw his mother, cloaked in lava, lunge for Isidor.
His fingers tightened around Kyrja’s, and he sang the lava down from the sky where it spurted, down the slopes, aimed fully at the ice mount. When molten rock slammed into the ice, he could feel Kyrja there, widening the gaps, breaking it open. He sent some into its cone, more into the springs that fed it.
“It’s cracking apart!”
Below them, Modur’s scream rent the air, and then Isidor’s. Nik gripped Kyrja’s fingers tighter, prayed harder, kept just a bit of lava in reserve, ready to help his mother if she needed him.
She landed on Isidor, and they both went down. He saw ice flashing, extinguishing flame, then more fire roaring up, lava splashing like water, melted ice and snow sizzling, turning to steam.
A roar. From the man? The mountain? Both, perhaps. Because in the next moment, he felt a heave unlike anything he’dever known, against his magic and his body both, as Isidor flung everything he had into the shattering ice.
The mountain exploded.
For a moment, just one, it felt like victory. The resistance suddenly vanished, his lava flowing free.
