Page 4 of The Cradle of Ice

“Jace!” she hollered, and dropped to her backside. Maintaining her hold on the door, she shoved out a leg for him to grab, but he was already out of reach.

Bashaliia lunged past her, flying low. He dove at Jace, falling upon him like a hawk on a rabbit. Claws stabbed through the blanket. Jace cried out in pain as those sharp nails found flesh, too. Then with a single beat of wings, Bashaliia wrenched back to Nyx with his captured prize.

“Get inside!” Nyx yelled, and led the way.

With alarm bells echoing throughout the ship, she fell through the door and crawled down into the short passageway. Bashaliia tossed Jace after her, then clambered in behind them, ducking low and squeezing through.

Jace groaned, sat up, and leaned his back against the wall. “What happened?”

Nyx stared past the open door. By now, the Sparrowhawk’s spin had already slowed, the deck leveling again. The flames had sputtered out, but a smoldering glow persisted on the ship’s starboard side.

She faced Jace, swallowing hard before speaking, fearful of even voicing the possibility, knowing the disaster it portended. “One of the ship’s forges must’ve exploded.”

2

IT DIDN’T TAKE long for Nyx’s fears to be confirmed.

She stood beside Jace in the crowded wheelhouse of the Sparrowhawk. Everyone gathered around a pock-faced crewman named Hyck. Time had weathered the old man down to tendon and gristle, but his eyes still shone with a sharp fervor. He was a former alchymist who had been defrocked ages ago and now served as the ship’s engineer.

He rubbed a rag between his hands, trying to erase a residue of greasy flashburn from his palms but only smearing it around instead. “Lucky it were only the starboard maneuvering forge that blew. If it were the stern engine, we’d never be able to limp our way back to the Crown.”

Nyx shared a concerned look with Jace. She knew the swyftship had three forges, a pair to either side and a huge one at the stern end of the keel.

“Have the fires been put out?” Darant asked.

“Aye,” Hyck answered. “First thing we did. Flames be the greater danger here than any blast. Your two daughters be surveying the rest of the damage, seeing if there’s anything to be salvaged.”

Darant paced the breadth of the wheelhouse. This was the brigand’s ship, and any damage it took was as if it were to his own body. His face remained a dark thundercloud. He kept a fist clenched on the hilt of one of his whipswords. A dark blue half-cloak flagged behind him, a match to his breeches and shirt, as he pounded across the planks.

Graylin lifted a hand. “Does this mean we’ll have to turn back, return to the Crown?”

Hyck opened his mouth, only to be cut off by Darant. “Sard we will!” the pirate exclaimed, half withdrawing the slim blade as if ready to attack anyone who challenged him. “This li’l hawk might have a damaged wing, but she can still fly true enough. We can compensate for the loss of the starboard forge. Like Hyck said, our stern engine is what matters most. We continue onward.”

Graylin turned to Nyx. Concern narrowed his eyes, allowing only a hint of silvery blue to show, like a vein of ice in his rocky features. There was little other color to be found in the man. It was as if the legend of the Forsworn Knight—a tale that wove Nyx and Graylin together in tragedy—had turned him into a book’s etching, a figure drawn in shades of black and gray. His dark hair and scruff of beard were salted with white. Some strands were weathered by age; others marked the sites of buried scars. Yet, not all of his old wounds were hidden, like the crook in his nose and a jagged weal under his left eye. They were all testaments to his punishment for falling in love and breaking an oath to the king of Hálendii.

A growl rose. While it didn’t flow from Graylin, it might as well have. It expressed a mix of frustration and anger. The knight’s shadow shifted farther into view. The vargr’s amber-gold eyes glowed out of coal-black fur. Muscular haunches bunched, ruffling the tawny stripes buried there, like sunlight dappling through a dark canopy. The vargr’s tufted ears stood tall, swiveling back and forth, seeking the source of the danger that had set everyone on edge.

Nyx hummed under her breath and wove over a calming thread of bridle-song. It wound into the rumble of that growl, tamping down the vargr’s guardedness.

Graylin tried his own method, resting a calloused palm on the beast’s shoulder. “Settle, Kalder.”

The vargr swished his tail twice more, then sank to a seat, but his ears remained tall and stiff.

During her brief connection with Kalder, Nyx had sensed the wildness constrained in that strong heart. Some mistook Kalder to be a mere hunting dog, one obedient to Graylin. Nyx knew their attachment ran deeper, a bond born not only of trust and respect, but also of shared pain and loss. The memory of Kalder’s brother, lost half a year ago, still echoed inside that stalwart chest. She heard whispers of chases through cold forests, of a warmth that only a brother curled at one’s side could bring.

Kalder’s edginess was also likely due to the months of confinement aboard the Sparrowhawk. Such magnificent beasts were never meant to be caged.

Graylin turned from the group and stared out the row of forward windows. “Darant, I trust your faith in your ship, but perhaps caution should outweigh conviction in this regard. If we lose the Sparrowhawk, then all is lost. Rather than rush headlong—”

“No!” Nyx blurted out.

As everyone turned her way, she refused to shrink under the combined weight of their gazes. She remembered the three turns of the moon it had taken them to get this far. To return to the Crown would take just as long. And they’d still have to make the crossing again to return to this spot.

“We’d lose half a year,” she said. “We can’t afford that. We must reach the site Shiya showed us on her globe.”

“We understand,” Graylin said. “But Shiya also told us we had at least three years, maybe five, before moonfall became inevitable. We have some latitude for cautiousness.”

“No. No, we don’t.”