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Before me is a massive hollow space, big enough to fit the entirety of the first ring. A shadow-black lake spans the length of it, red-gold flames licking along its surface.
In the center of the lake is an obsidian pyramid, and at its peak, teetering, is a boulder. A man grips the boulder’s sides, dwarfed by its size, single-handedly keeping it from falling down the pyramid’s side into the lake of fire.
I don’t have to see the man’s face to know it’s Dalca.
I peer over the edge of the tunnel’s mouth. There’s a thirty-foot drop down to a crescent of black sand beach that rims the lake. Izamal claws his way down the stone face.
Casvian takes it all in from beside me. He unclips the cloak from his shoulders and throws it over mine. “You can’t handle Izamal. Notlike this. Pay attention, now. The cloak’s kinnari feathers do the hard work of flying. You merely have to activate it—that’s a ninety-degree turn clockwise—and you’ll have to steer with the dial—that’s another turn. Up, down, left, right, it toggles, see? Usually the ikons sewn into the collar would let you steer with a gauntlet, but I’ll be needing mine. It’s not that hard, anyway.”
I clasp the cloak closed and touch the ikondial. The lake seems suddenly impossibly vast.
“I’m trusting you to save him.” His eyes bore into mine.
“I’m trusting you, too,” I say.
“I know. Ready, apprentice?” He watches me turn the ikondial. The cloak billows out around me, like the feathers can taste the air, like they want to fly.
I take a breath, calming the flutters in my chest. I’ve always wanted this. “Ready.”
Casvian pushes me out of the tunnel, and I scream. The cloak doesn’t let me plummet; it rides the air. I grab the dial at my throat and turn it. It pops out, allowing me to toggle it in all directions. I push it up, and dash into the air.
Below, Casvian draws an ikon on his hands and sidles down the rock face. His hands seem to stick to the wall, and he gains quickly on Izamal. I have to trust Casvian to save him, like he’s trusting me with Dalca.
I steer myself in starts and jumps toward the pyramid. The lake gives off billows of heat, and I’m thrown off course every time I hit one. They come faster the closer I get to the pyramid. One billow pushes me down toward the black lake, and my toes brush a rising flame.
My stomach dives as I shoot back up. I am not exactly getting the hang of this.
The pyramid looms larger and larger, filling my vision with endless black as I close in.
A gust of air shoves me too close; I’m going to smack right into the glossy black surface.
I twist my body in midair, and my feet hit first. The cloak propels me, and I sprint up the side of the pyramid, screaming.
The top hurtles toward me. I twist the ikondial two turns counterclockwise, and the cloak dies, but my own momentum carries me forward. My knees bang into the pyramid first, and I begin to slide down until my nails find purchase in a crack. My toes grab hold, and for a moment I’m still and safe.
Under my hands the pyramid’s surface is both warm and cold, firm as stone and soft as ash. Wishing I knew an ikon to make my hands stick, I climb up inch by inch, until I reach the tiny plateau where the pyramid’s tip flattens out.
A massive boulder, twice as tall as the tallest Wardana, teeters over the edge. Dalca braces it, keeping it from falling—but it dwarfs him so completely that I can’t comprehend how he’s stopping it. I follow his trembling legs down to where he’s dug his feet into precarious footholds.
Bulging veins streak along the shaking muscles of his arms. Somewhere along the way, he’s lost his cloak and outer armor. A vein pulses in his gritted jaw. Sweat drips from his chin, along the ridge of his nose, from a curled lock of hair. He grips the side of the boulder with splayed hands. Streaks of blood paint the stone where his nails have torn away. Blood flows freely from his raw fingertips.
“Dalca,” I whisper in horror.
I drag my gaze from Dalca to the boulder, only to notice it isn’t just a boulder. On the topside is a miniaturized seven-ringed city in sharpdetail, rife with the motion of ant-sized people going about their business, unaware of the giant propping up their world.
The ground is cracked under his reddened feet.
His lower leg shifts, and I see something half hidden by the boulder—a small opening set in the flat top of the pyramid with a narrow set of stairs leading within. It’s child-sized; we’d have to bend and squeeze ourselves in.
I get to my feet, gingerly. The plateau is barely three feet across, and most of that is occupied.
If Dalca lets go of the boulder, he can go inside. He’s holding on so tightly that it’s clear it’s not obvious to him—or perhaps even so, he can’t let go of this miniature version of our city.
But if I had to give up all of me—my memories, my voice, my dreams—the Storm won’t let Dalca hold on to this.
“Dalca!” I shout, inching closer.
He flicks his eyes to me.
