Page 195 of The Cradle of Ice

She dove down to Bashaliia, into his fading glow. Once there, she opened her heart and let her fury explode. The emerald threads imbedded in Bashaliia were burned away. The malignant storm in the cavern got crushed against the rock wall.

Still, she was not sated.

She followed those threads to their sources, to the five raash’ke. She did not stop there. She traced those tendrils even deeper. She burned her way through fur, skin, bone. She reached stony hearts and fiery skulls.

She repeated her command again, scolding and warning.

No.

She branded that threat in place, burning five hearts, five skulls, upon the pyre of her being. Only then did she relinquish the fire inside her.

Far away, her knees struck stone.

The tide receded, taking her with it.

Before it did, she called to Bashaliia, clawing to hold her place.

Run, Bashaliia. Fly. With me.

He heard her and scrabbed up to his legs. His wings spread wide.

Forever with me, she sang to him, urging him to follow.

She flowed backward with the ebbing surge, out tunnels, through a cavern mouth, and into the open air. As the tide receded across the Mouth, she stared back, anxious.

Then Bashaliia burst out of a cave and swept high.

Always and forever, she promised him.

He chased her across the sky as she flew backward, guiding him home.

Unfortunately, that was not all that she had drawn out of the fiery Mouth.

Behind Bashaliia, rising from chasms all around, great wings unfolded, spreading wider and wider with each terrified breath. Seven in all. The monstrous bats dwarfed Bashaliia. He was a gnat before eagles.

Nyx flashed to the Oshkapeer queen stirring an entire reef, a creature of untold age and power. Here was the same, only sevenfold. Each must be centuries, if not millennia, in age. She knew what came, what she had stirred forth by her trespass. Here was the horde-mind of the raash’ke, manifested in ancient flesh and bone. They were the seven massive roots from which the entire colony grew.

With each beat of those mighty wings, a dark storm of power grew around them. With every league crossed, the thunderhead stacked higher. Energy built in the air, burning the sulfur brighter. Crackles of energy—shining a malignant emerald—speared jagged bolts through those black clouds.

Storm and beast rolled toward them.

All lured by the tiny flight of a determined bat.

Hurry, Nyx urged Bashaliia.

Once her essence reached the boulder, she crashed back into her own body. Already on her knees, she fell to her hands. She pushed higher, staring across the Mouth.

Bashaliia struggled to reach her, his small wings beating hard.

Behind him, a dark wave crested, climbing higher and higher, propelled by the tempest of those massive wings. As she stared into the abyss of dark power and green fire, she felt another’s gaze staring out, through seven pairs of eyes.

But only one source.

The spider in the shadows.

76

RHAIF CROUCHED UNDER the heavy wing of the dead raash’ke. His bag lay open on the sand. He worked swiftly, picturing Glace’s darkly sneering face and Darant’s terror at his daughter’s demise. A sharp cry of pain goaded him to work more quickly.