Page 255 of The Cradle of Ice

But neither battle was hers.

The horde-mind filled her with its vengeance, setting her jaw tight. Metyl drove down toward the imbedded Root. The creature had tortured and enslaved the raash’ke for millennia, forced them to commit atrocities and brutalities that scarred them deep, down to their core. It was a wounding that would never heal, an abuse that could never be assuaged, a guilt that would never end. The raash’ke could never return to their innocence, to who they once were. The Root had stripped that from them forever, leaving only one last path open.

Retribution.

As Metyl drove toward the Root, the horde-mind gathered all its pain and fury and guilt. It bound it with bridle-song. But as with Nyx’s mount, it was not one song, but a multitude, all the raash’ke who had ever lived, all those tortured over the millennia.

It finally released it in a raging song of fury. Its power blasted through the channel that Nyx had opened. It filled Nyx and Metyl, but neither had any hope of holding it.

Her mount roared.

She screamed.

The song tore out of both, ripping Nyx with it. The force struck the Root. It must have sensed the torrent coming and hardened its bronze and flared a shield of emerald fire, intent to remain an unbreakable stone in a tide even this powerful.

Nyx feared they would fail, remembering the Root’s adamant claim that only an Axis could unlock him. Moments ago, Nyx had almost succeeded, striking when he left himself momentarily vulnerable, but the Root had learned and forged himself into a bronze fortress around his core.

The flood struck him with such force that it cracked the crystal around him. She cringed as she rode that tide, expecting to crash against the Root’s impregnable fortress.

Instead, his bronze blasted away, torn and ripped by the force of that torrent. Molten metal splattered in all directions, splashing across the floor and up the wall, exposing his blinding heart.

He stood there, pinned to the wall, unable to move.

Nyx saw the confusion and terror in the ruins of his face. She read the question glowing in his eyes. Nyx was just as bewildered.

How? How was this done?

In a heartbeat, the horde-mind told her.

I see him.

In another beat, it showed her. A cascade of ages swept through her, an endless stream of brutality. But through it all, a cold eternal eye had stared back at its tormentor. Nyx had experienced the same after freeing the raash’ke, fixed by the ancient gaze, watched from the fringes. It was no different for the Root.

The horde-mind had bided the turning of ages, silently watching, observing, just as the ancients had forged it to do. To be an eternal sentinel. The horde-mind had focused its discerning eye upon its nemesis. Over the passing millennia, it had studied and analyzed, stripping secrets one grain at a time, made all the easier with the two bonded together by the intimacy of bridle-song—even as corrupted as it was.

Nyx understood.

The horde-mind had watched the Root all this time, gaining knowledge of him, possibly more than even an Axis possessed. Over millennia, the Root’s secrets were laid bare—as surely as his heart was now.

The horde-mind formed a fiery fist of bridle-song, intending to crush the cube of crystal with its pulsing golden glow.

Nyx rushed in ahead, casting out a warning and demand.

No.

It was firm enough to force the horde-mind to pause, but she knew it would only last a moment. She surged ahead of the flood and cast forth a tangle of shining tendrils of song. She had already studied this cube, learned its lock. So, this time, she did not stop—not even for a heartbeat, knowing such hesitation had betrayed her before.

With golden fire, she quickly picked the crystal lock and held her breath.

The cube flicked, flashed brighter—then fell dark.

She waited, hoping, praying.

The glow died in the Root’s eyes, looking almost like relief. The remains of his body slowly sagged down the wall, drawing the emerald fire with it, flushing the corruption off the walls above. Over the crumple of its ruins, a green pyre burned for another breath—then snuffed out.

As it did, a loud crystalline bell rang off to the side. A glance that way revealed Shiya collapsing out of the chrysalis, falling into the arms of Rhaif and the others.

But were we in time?