Page 165 of The Cradle of Ice
“What can we do?” Jace asked.
“We must go back,” Graylin stated firmly. “I’m sorry, Nyx. Once we return to Iskar, we can try reaching the Mouth once the Sparrowhawk is repaired. Darant is making swift progress. If Bashaliia can hold out until then—”
“He won’t,” she said darkly.
Shiya spoke from the stern. “The path you were shown,” she said with cold authority. “How much farther past this blockage does it continue? Can you see that far?”
Nyx let her eyelids drift closed, shoving aside her anger. The route through the Fangs glowed there. It laid a fiery line from their location all the way through to the Mouth. She could not tell how much of the tunnel had collapsed, but farther along it, she saw where the path widened into a huge void under the ice.
“There is a massive chasm,” she mumbled, still focusing, following that path. “Two, maybe three, leagues away. Even bigger than the one we sailed through before. The blocked tunnel leads there after several switchbacks and turns. Even if the tunnel has collapsed its entire length, that chasm must still be open. Even the quake couldn’t have closed it down.”
Daal nodded. “It’s huge.”
Nyx faced the others. “The mapped trail continues onward from there. If we could reach the chasm, we’d regain that path.”
“But how?” Jace asked. “How do we reach it? You said hundreds of explorers had died wandering blindly through the Fangs. If we leave the known path, we risk meeting the same end.”
Vikas shifted forward and waved at the other tunnels and fissures that remained open. She then gestured in Gynish: “Do you have any idea where these lead? Can you discern a path from here to the chasm?”
To try to answer her, Nyx closed her eyes. The Oshkapeers had burned the route into her skull, but they’d never given her a complete map of the Fangs’ surrounding landscape. They likely didn’t think it was necessary, as they had supplied her with a secure path, one that avoided the worst dangers.
Still, while communing with them, she had experienced the hundreds of tragic deaths of failed explorers. Those stories had faded in detail, but if she could conjure them up again, they might reveal a side route to resecure their path.
It’s our only hope.
She swallowed hard and gathered all the fading threads of those stories and concentrated on the fiery map. She tried to stoke those flames brighter, to push its shine farther to the left and right. She sought to illuminate all the side tunnels, fissures, cracks along the route’s edges, the parts of the maps where previous explorers had wandered to their deaths.
“Anything?” Jace whispered.
She sighed her exasperation. For just a breath, she managed to melt some of the gray ice that obscured the surrounding edges of the fiery path. “I can almost see it, but it’s like trying to grasp mist.”
Daal shifted to her side. “Take my hand.”
She knew what he was offering—not just his strength, but also the pieces of those tragic memories that he still retained.
She took a deep breath and accepted his help. As their palms locked, fire burst into her, more than she intended to take. But her frustration demanded it. Daal gasped next to her. As his fire flowed into her, so did he. She again felt that strange sensation of floating between two bodies, sharing senses and memories.
She tightened her fingers, feeling both his hand in hers and hers in his.
She closed her eyes again. She knew she would have only one chance to flame those fading memories back to life, to reveal more of the surrounding landscape.
She focused on the map, poured Daal’s fire into it. The path ignited blindingly bright. The gray ice to either side melted into mist, then it burned away, too. The tunnels and fissures, hidden before, appeared. She scanned through them as swiftly as she could, working through the many paths, searching for a route from their skiff to that chasm.
Her fingers clutched harder to Daal.
She could almost hear his voice.
I see it, too.
Unable to sustain it any longer, she let the fire collapse. The gray ice refroze along the path again. Breathless with relief, she let go of Daal’s hand, nearly throwing it down to force her grip to release.
She opened her eyes to find everyone staring at her expectantly.
“There’s a way through,” she confirmed, excited and hopeful again.
Daal added a measure of caution, dampening her enthusiasm. “But we don’t know if it’s safe. The path we were shown and conjured briefly to life came from old explorers who died. If we travel that way, we must proceed with great care.”
Graylin looked ready to argue against going.
