Page 134 of The Cradle of Ice

Life fled in all directions with flips of tails and squirts of ink. Even the Oshkapeers leaped off their dinners, swirling away from the intruder. The one holding Nyx drew her to the side, toward Daal, as if trying to protect her.

But that defensive posturing lasted only a heartbeat or two. Responding to some unknown signal, the beasts swarmed back in, ready to defend their reef from this strange trespasser. They struck Shiya from all sides, tangling around her limbs, pulling her off her feet, denying her any traction in the battle. Still, Shiya was incredibly strong. She freed an arm and began ripping other tentacles loose—until a bullock-sized Oshkapeer shot over the edge of the reef and struck her broadside. Its arms were twice as thick as Shiya’s thighs. They wrapped her completely, leaving only her head exposed.

With its prey captured, the giant pulsed its way back over the ridge.

Nyx realized the direction it was headed.

The boiling seas …

According to Shiya’s tale of her trek across the seabed to reach Iskar, even her strong form would succumb to that molten heat.

Panicked, Nyx elbowed an arm free. As she thrust her limb out, she caught sight of the tendrils running from her wrist over to the sucker that had been fixed there. Curls of blood wafted from the penetrating wound. She ignored it and reached to Daal, grabbing his bare shoulder.

On contact, her fingertips ignited with fire. Daal arched back within his embrace of his Oshkapeer. His body glowed. The tentacles briefly loosened their grip, as if sensing the flare of energy inside him. Daal hung there, threads running into his neck, wrists, and thighs—then the tentacles closed back tight.

Daal’s flames filled her, drawn by her fear for Shiya. Though she had no air to sing, she let her body burn in the water, burnishing a glow from her skin. She willed a single word, staring at Shiya being dragged away.

It burst from her in clear command.

No.

The strength of it momentarily unnerved her. Her control tremored. Her glow faded. But she drew more from Daal, trusting he could handle it. She steadied both her will and her power.

Still, she had been heard.

The giant Oshkapeer who clutched Shiya had come to a stop, hovering at the reef’s ridgeline. It turned in a slow circle, staring back at her with its ring of black eyes.

She didn’t know what to do or what to expect.

She simply tightened her grip on Daal, readying herself. But it did no good.

Nothing could prepare her for what came next.

* * *

IF NYX HAD the capacity to hold her breath, she would have, but her lungs were full of water. A long impasse stretched. The giant Oshkapeer still held Shiya trapped atop the reef, but it looked ready to jet away toward those boiling seas at any moment.

Movement, closer at hand, drew her eye.

The ridgeline before her shivered and glowed brighter. From every crevice and pock in the rock, around every shard of bone, small tendrils boiled forth. They wafted long and high, so thick in number that they obscured the reef. They looked like the threads that burrowed into her veins, but these shone with all the colors of the reef.

The storm of glowing tendrils crossed over and fell atop Nyx and Daal, as if trying to smother the fire they shared. She cringed, expecting the threads to dig into her skin, but they only lightly landed, dabbing everywhere, settling like snowflakes across her body. A few drifted up her nostrils, so thin and gentle that she barely felt them.

What she did feel was an overwhelming sense of peace. Her head lolled back. She sensed an inquiry forming like mist inside her head. Her eyes, unbidden, rolled to stare at Shiya. Curiosity piqued through her, but it was not born of her own inquisitiveness. Something wanted to know more about Shiya. A dark undercurrent of dread and fear underlay that interest.

Nyx sought a way to share what she knew. Though her eyelids remained open, she let her mind drift through her experiences with the bronze woman. All of them. From when they first met in the woodland town of Havensfayre—when Shiya had helped Nyx ward off a pair of steel-helmed scythers—to Shiya’s defense of Iskar, rising like a bright sun from the sea. But memory was a fickle master. Nyx also flashed to Shiya snapping the assailant’s neck on Kefta.

Still, Nyx felt sharing this was right, both the good and the bad.

Curiosity dissolved inside her. She felt a gentle probing, a sifting through all of her memories. She pictured the Oshkapeer peeling the leaves of kelp around the dead body to expose the richness within. This felt like that. She wanted to fight such a violation, but the gentleness and tenderness stemmed her apprehension. She let it be done, exposing herself fully.

Her eyes fell upon Daal. He met her gaze.

Is the same happening to him?

With that passing thought, gazing upon each other, enmeshed together in that glowing web of tendrils, she suddenly found herself staring out his eyes. She saw herself in the embrace of the Oshkapeer.

As that happened, Daal’s memories flooded through her. She had experienced a fleeting sense of this before, but now it was a torrent, filling every space and sense. She was Daal, experiencing flashes of his life.