Page 277 of The Cradle of Ice

“Bashaliia,” he said with shock.

The bat shivered away from that name, hissing in confusion and fear.

Daal wouldn’t let him go, stepping forward. “You’re Bashaliia. Remember. You are Nyx’s little brother.”

The mauled head turned away, as if trying to deny his words.

Daal took another step. “Let me help you. Let me help Nyx.”

The bat drew back from him, but then bent down and nudged the limp body toward him, rolling Nyx closer, but not out of its shadow. As the muzzle rose, fiery eyes glared at him, challenging him to prove himself. A glint of poisonous fangs firmed the cost of failure.

Daal crossed low to reach Nyx, dropping to his knees. Her face was pale, her hair frosted with ice. She had been out in the cold for too long. He reached to her hand, expecting the snap of fire that always merged them. But there was nothing. Just the ice of pending death. He rubbed her hands between his palms. He pushed all his fiery energy down his arms and into his fingers.

“Nyx, please wake up.”

He pushed his fire into her, forcing her to take it. As he did this, like with Bashaliia, he sensed the madness deep inside her, roiling with emerald fury, trying to burn Nyx away.

He saw her thrashing inside there, ripped and burned at her edges.

No …

He flashed back to the Mouth, when the horde-mind had torn itself apart after being freed of the spider’s control. Unfettered and rudderless, it had needed a new anchor. Nyx had raised a maelstrom as a beacon to draw its pieces together, to preserve its sanity. She had offered herself as a new anchor.

I must be that for her now.

Daal closed his eyes and cast his fire into that fiery storm of emerald madness. He gathered his flame and burnished it brighter, a golden beacon in the center of that gale.

See me.

He felt her struggling toward him, but the tides had too firm a hold of her. She was still too weak to fight its pull. He dug deeper, emptying more of himself into that flame.

She drew closer, gathering what was left of her own song. Still, at the outer edges, she frayed. The fiery emerald current tore at her, a breath away from ripping her forever into its tide.

He refused to accept this, to lose her to that madness. He poured everything into her. With every breath, with every pump of his heart.

Take it, he urged her. Take all of it.

Still, Daal sensed that fire alone wasn’t enough. She needed more than just power. She needed an anchor that was more substantial than any flame.

Let me be that.

Daal opened himself fully, offering her not just his power, but all of him. He burned himself atop the pyre he created—until only his heart remained, shining in that flame. With each beat, he cast himself out to her, over and over again.

We need you.

I need you.

* * *

DEEP INSIDE, NYX heard a faint refrain calling to her. She drew closer. It guided her lost ship, a lighthouse in the storm. Its lamp was a flame of pure gold, shining through emerald fires. Its horn was a promise of safe harbor, of the strength of warm arms.

As she closed upon that distant shore, she found clarity coalescing out of madness, a calmness out of chaos. Memory formed out of oblivion, allowing her to remember herself more fully. A word formed inside her, a promise to herself and another.

Never.

With this purpose clutched close to her, she swept faster, gathering light to her. But much of it was corrupted, etched deep with emerald. It weighed her down, tried to slow her. But the shine of the lamp ahead burned that sickness away, leaving something even purer afterward.

She rolled like a wave, growing taller, unstoppable, dousing and drowning away the emerald fires around her.