Page 45 of The Cradle of Ice

Glace looked equally unconvinced. “We don’t know if those boiling waters encircle us. We could cast off and be overwhelmed by the heat or fumes.”

Rhaif wiped his brow again. The air reeked of sulfur and bale-breath. It already stung his eyes and burned his nostrils.

“But worse,” Glace added, “we don’t have enough rope to rig a stout enough raft. Especially not one that could carry all of us.”

She looked toward the one member of their group who weighed as much as Herl and Perde put together. Rhaif turned to where Shiya had stopped along a curve of the island. The bronze woman stared out to sea.

Shiya must have overheard their discussion. “I detect firelight in the distance.”

Rhaif crossed to her, drawing the others with him; even Glace leaped deftly to the sand. He searched the dense fog but saw no flicker of flames.

“Where?” he asked.

Shiya pointed out into the mists.

Rhaif squinted but still failed to see anything different in that fogbank compared to the rest. He glanced at the others. “Are my eyes too old? I see nothing out there.”

They all shrugged, equally confused.

“It’s there,” Shiya insisted. “Flickering flames. Many of them.”

Rhaif trusted Shiya. Her glassy eyes were sharper and capable of seeing the world with a perceptivity far beyond any of them.

“How far off?” Glace asked.

Shiya turned to the woman. “I cannot properly discern.”

“Could it be the others trying to signal us?” Rhaif asked. He pictured both the sailraft that carried Nyx’s group and the Sparrowhawk.

Hope surged through him.

“I do not know,” Shiya admitted. “But you are correct about these waters. They’re dangerous. I can hear other regions bubbling and spewing hotly out there.”

“Then what do we do?” Hyck asked.

She faced him. “I will walk there.”

Rhaif took hold of her arm. “Shiya…”

She turned her glassy blue eyes upon him. “I have no need of air. My weight will keep me to the seabed, allowing me to cross. Though it may take time. I suspect some of the magma vents could damage me, so I will have to keep clear of the worst of them.”

Rhaif swallowed, struggling how to convince her otherwise, but he also knew she was right. With this heat and foul air, they couldn’t risk staying on this island for more than a day or two.

“I will do my best to fetch help here,” she said.

She stared at the group, awaiting their agreement.

They all shared worried looks, but no one objected.

Rhaif let out a strained sigh. “Just be careful.”

Shiya’s eyes glowed softly upon him. She lifted a hand to his cheek. Her palm felt like the warm flesh of any woman. The curling strands of her hair, a dark bronze, wafted gently about her brow. Her skin swirled in hues of rich coppers, from pinkish to a darker red, especially her lips.

Rhaif lifted his arm and covered her hand with his palm. He remembered when he had first set eyes upon her, deep in the mines of Chalk. Seeing her ensconced in her glass bed, he had thought her a statue come to life by some god’s miracle.

But no longer …

They had spent months aboard the Sparrowhawk in each other’s company. He already knew she was far more than simply the masterwork of some skilled artisan working in bronze. After so long together, he recognized her unique intelligence, her true compassion, even the humor infused into her form. While she might not have been born of womb and blood, she was as much a woman as any other—only more so.