Page 115 of The Cradle of Ice
Nyx must have read his sincerity. Tears welled in her eyes.
Before she could argue further, Graylin came and pulled Nyx away. “Listen to him. It’s his decision. Leave it to Shiya to at least try.”
Graylin drew her back, allowing room for Shiya to crawl forward. Bronze hands lifted toward Daal’s face.
He closed his eyes.
Let it be over.
* * *
NYX SHOOK FREE of Graylin, but she kept back, respecting Daal’s wishes. Still, fury burned inside her—mostly directed at herself.
I dragged them all here.
Shiya closed on Daal. As she lifted her hands toward his face, her bronze fingers glowed as a humming rose from her chest. Golden strands wended from her fingertips toward Daal’s temples.
All the while, Shiya’s face remained stoic, showing no hint of trepidation about the harm she might commit. Nyx remembered back on the plaza, hearing the crack of breaking bone, a snap of another’s neck. In many respects, Shiya was as coldhearted as Graylin—if not more so. Despite all that the bronze woman had done, the true humanity she had demonstrated, Nyx sensed a core inside Shiya that remained as unmovable and cold as any metal.
Still, Nyx had forgotten one detail. They all had. But she remembered it now.
Daal is impregnable.
As Shiya’s golden strands touched Daal’s skin, they dissolved away. The same had happened when Nyx had attempted to touch him with her bridle-song. She wondered now if it was a fail-safe instilled into Daal by the Oshkapeers, to keep him locked up, to secure their secrets from prying.
Shiya’s brow pinched, and her fingertips settled hard on Daal, plainly determined to try again. Nyx winced, expecting some strong reaction from Shiya, from Daal, like whenever Nyx touched the young man’s skin. But neither reacted. Shiya waxed her song to a stronger glow, but Daal’s body still thwarted her efforts to delve deeper.
“What’s wrong?” Graylin asked.
Shiya lowered her hands and twisted around. “I can’t reach him. But I will try again.”
Another decided that must not happen.
From behind Daal, a flurry of large snakes burst from the water and wrapped around his chest and throat, pinning his arms. They glued to his body with bell-like suckers. Before anyone could move, he was yanked from his seat.
He gasped a breath, screaming out a warning before vanishing beneath the waves. “Oshkapeers!”
Nyx lunged toward the bow to go to his aid, but before her backside could leave the bench, water flooded over her. The air writhed as muscular snakes fell about her shoulders and waist. They latched hard with clinging suckers. She had one last thought as she was jerked away from the skiff, watching Graylin futilely try to grab her.
Not snakes—tentacles.
TEN
THE FUMES OF MALGARD
Prai to Hadyss & Madyss, twinne gods of the Winds. One gusts ici, the other fierie. Neglect nyther in yure worship. For no matter whiches ways thei blow, thei be yure fiercest allies.
—From the Hálendiian war text Lessons of the Air: From Warships to Battle Barges
46
MIKAEN SWEPT THROUGH the fiery skies in a small sailraft, savoring the victory to come. He crouched behind the pilot and gazed out the window. The smoky skies burned in every direction. The flames from a score of Klashean warcraft scorched the Breath of the Urth. Their fires hung in the air or slowly spiraled toward the distant sea.
His heart hammered in his throat at the sight of the destruction. His blood surged, hardening him in all ways. A tight sneer fixed his face, paining the scars hidden under his silver mask.
All around, Hálendiian hunterskiffs and swyftships circled through the dense pall, stirring the smoke and flames as they patrolled the skies.
But the worst was over.
