Air

by Rosie Scott

  The tornado outside was so abrasively loud that the vibrations of the noise rattled the walls of ice. We encouraged the soldiers farther back from the entrance with tugs on the arms because we could no longer hear ourselves speak. My heart jumped into my throat as thick swirling winds approached the opening of the cave, so dark they appeared black. The icicles hanging from the ceiling ahead shook, cracked, and fell, shattering over the icy floor like glass. As the winds rushed by the opening, I saw bits and pieces of Icilic men and women swirling within them.

  The hunting supplies over the ice hopped over it with trepidation, sliding toward the storm as if its twirling was a dance of seduction. The soldiers were so frightened of the storm that they pushed us back as a group. Since Ciro and I were first to enter the cavern, we were the deepest within it. I glanced around at my surroundings as the men's desperation forced me back. The ice sloped downward as a ramp into a giant underground cave. It must have been used for hunting in its depths because a small group of Icilic with bows stared right back at me from the landing, a mix of alarm and confusion on their faces as they combined our arrival here with the raging storm ahead.

  I reached toward Azazel, tapping him on the arm. His long black bangs were crisp with frozen water from the inlet, and he was still shivering intensely. Two black eyes met mine through the roar of the storm, and I pointed down toward the group of hunters. As he went about exchanging arrows with them, I summoned a ball of fire. I only held the element between Azazel and Cerin, desperate to keep them warm with its aura.

  Crrk! My widened eyes glanced over the heads of our men, watching with horror as thick chunks of ice from the entrance to the cavern were torn from the glacier and carried off into the storm. I fell back to the ramp as our soldiers fled down it with fear, pushing through comrades to save themselves. I was nearly trampled as one of them tripped over me, his body sprawling over the ice and sliding down a few feet before he rushed back to a stand. Maggie pulled me from the ground, and we rushed forward together as the cavern behind us started to collapse.

  It was like being in Aleyah's cave all over again, but this time we were headed into the cavern as it collapsed rather than out of it. The tornado was screaming as if the skies themselves looked to swallow us whole, and I didn't dare look back to see how close it was. As we fled the wreckage, Azazel took a break from shooting. The rest of the Icilic hunters were just as scared as we were, rushing through the caverns as if they knew how to escape them. Instead of killing them, we followed them.

  The hunters rushed through the large cave, running toward a second ramp that stretched up to another wall. Rays of sunlight filtered through the ice in shades of shimmering yellow and white like a beacon of hope.

  All at once, the roaring of the storm ceased, leaving my ears with a piercing buzz. The cavern floor still vibrated violently beneath my boots, proving that it could still collapse. The Icilic ahead skidded to a stop on the ice and turned with their bows, loosing a few before an arrow from Azazel and a death bomb from Cerin ended their assault. We continued forward, our eyes on our escape.

  The cavern behind us groaned as if reluctantly giving into Vertun's request. The deep crackling of thick chunks of ice separating at their new weaknesses preceded a loud crash. Once one boulder of ice gave in, its friends jumped at the chance to follow. All at once, the roof began to cave. The tornado had only hit the other side of the cavern, so the damage started there. Even still, the cracks stretched toward us in slivers of white light, and the roof over our head soon began to collapse.

  Tranferra le friz ti vapur! I forced the water energy into the chunk of ice which was determined to crush a group of our men. In the midst of giving into gravity, the ice dissipated into steam with a hiss that sent particles of it exploding outward over the men's heads. Nearby, Cyrus and a few of our water mages did the same, but one of the chunks landed straight on top of a few stragglers in the back of our group, leaving blood to leak out over the ice.

  We rushed up the ramp toward the light. My heavy breathing was torching my lungs and slowing me, reminiscent once again of Aleyah's cave. This time, however, when many of the men passed me by to get to safety, all of my friends were by my side. Azazel held onto my right arm, and Cerin held onto my left. Both men tugged me along, and with each step I took, my boots skidded along the ice with their extra support.

  “Alliv material in masse,” Azazel breathed, his teeth chattering over the words. A light cream energy appeared above his palm, and he shot it up toward the ice as the final chunk of it collapsed.

  I winced at the anticipation of being hit, but no pain came. I glanced up to see the chunk of ice resting awkwardly on Maggie's head as it fit perfectly between the rest of the frozen rubble. My friends and I were all beneath it with a blue glow, safe from Azazel's spell.

  “Ouch,” Maggie managed, wrinkling up her nose as she reached up with both hands to push at the ice.

  “That shouldn't have hurt,” Azazel said, still shivering beside me.

  “It didn't,” Maggie replied. “That was just said as a reaction, more like.” She chuckled at her own antics as she hopped up to push the ice out of the way. Though it was lighter in weight because of the magic, it was still stuck between rubble.

  Hsss...

  And then, the ice was gone, nothing more than floating steam. Cyrus's hand appeared in the hole of the cave-in, and Cerin pushed me out first before him.

  “Are you trying to give me a heart attack?” Cyrus murmured, reaching back in to help the others.

  “A racing heart'll keep you warm in this gods-forsaken weather,” I teased, even as my harsh breaths grated against my esophagus.

  Yseult was in total ruin. In Vertun's rage to kill his brother, he'd killed the very people he had been working with. Icilic bodies were splayed across snow and ice in puddles of red. Some were missing limbs. Tents from all around the city had been picked up, shredded, and discarded carelessly over random ice. The icy cliffside behind us was nothing more than blue rubble. The only thing left standing was the original ice castle, but even that had been chipped by thrown debris.

  The city was now quiet. There were Icilic which rushed to the edges of Yseult, but they stopped short when they saw the thousands of casualties. Their faces all turned toward the broken cliffs, and I followed their gazes.

  Vertun was shoving waves of heat into the rubble at the other end of the caverns, melting blocks of ice and pulling out corpses. He was no doubt trying to see if he'd killed Ciro and I. The god of the weather still had a life shield that one of the Icilic must have given him before the storm, so I didn't ask Azazel to try to shoot him. Instead, I turned to Cerin.

  “Keep Ciro shielded,” I said, and my lover nodded. To Azazel, I added, “You too.”

  Ciro glanced at me, hearing my whispers. “What are you planning?”

  “I will disable him, Ciro, as promised. In a few seconds, distract your brother, will you?”

  Ciro nodded, deciding to trust my judgment. After surviving the tornado, perhaps he had figured out it was a good idea to.

  Bilda te fasad. The illusion magic rippled over me, spreading over limbs and armor alike. I looked down at my hands, only satisfied when even I could no longer see them in their invisibility.

  Ciro was left dumbfounded by my sudden disappearance, but Azazel calmed him with some hushed words about the spell. I lifted an arm out before me, finding that just the edges of my outline glowed in the direct sunlight. I hurried across the snow to the elongated shadow of the ice castle, using the relative darkness as a cover. I did not cast a shadow myself while invisible, but I was leaving tracks in the snow. It was one thing to be mindful of. I also could not shield myself while I was like this for fear of the magic giving away my location. I could not allow Vertun to find me.

  “Who are you looking for, brother?” Ciro's voice boomed over the ice to Vertun's pointed Vhiri ears, and the god jerked his head up from searching the rubble.

  “You fucking slippery bastard,” V
ertun cursed, stalking toward Ciro and the others. His hands raised to the heavens, and thick clouds once more rolled forth to hang heavily above our men. A bolt of lightning struck Ciro from the sky, and our men exploded outward from the point of impact, their shields flickering with weakness. A few of them were killed by the impact, their protections having been low on energy from the cavern collapse. My eyes found my friends picking themselves up off of the ice, and I quickened my pace toward my target.

  “Slippery?!” Ciro reappeared standing just where he'd been, disheveled from the lightning's pressure but still shielded. “I'm not slippery in the slightest! That tornado was huge, brother. I'm shocked you missed!”

  Vertun growled and forced both arms forward, hot winds rushing toward the soldiers still trying to right themselves on the ice. Men were left scrambling for the ground as it melted beneath them, slipping into the waters beneath the ice. My friends had managed to avoid the hit, and Azazel hurried to refresh Ciro's alteration shield as Maggie rushed to save the men with her hammer, pulling them out of the water.

  “You may be the god of the sun, brother,” Vertun hissed, as he reached for the sky once more, “but I can force this land into the hottest High Star. I will take you all with me.”

  There was no time to play catch-up. The air surrounding us thickened with a rush of heat as Vertun forced his remaining energy into the atmosphere above Glacia. My lungs were still in pain from running out of the caverns, but I ran forward all the same, thrusting emerald green energy to Vertun's back when I was close enough for it to hit. In mid-spell, the god of weather fell back to the slowly melting ice, paralyzed but protected from the physical hit of gravity by his life shield. The god's golden eyes twitched in their sockets as he sought to find who'd bested him.

  I dispelled my invisibility, standing above the god with a look of seething disgust. “Knock-knock, motherfucker.”

  The rage in his eyes was so intense I nearly feared the emotion alone would allow him to break out of the spell. Ciro rushed forward, breaking through Vertun's remaining magical protections before raising his bronze ax high in the sky, and bringing it down on Vertun's right wrist with a vengeance. The ax split bone and tendon before scraping off of newly bloodied ice. Ciro repeated the move on the other wrist, and both of his brother's hands were soon separated from the body while he was unable to scream in pain.

  “Now try to summon anything,” Ciro breathed, before reaching down and grabbing his brother's right hand. He tugged a thick silver ring from one of the fingers, before tossing it to me and throwing the mutilated hand over the ice like garbage. “Here, Kai. For your collection.”

  I glanced down at the ring. It somehow managed to look like both a match of Ciro's sun ring and its opposite all at once. It was thick and flat-faced much like the other one, but instead of the sun, the silver was etched with the twirling of a tornado surrounded by bursts of lightning. Sparkling oblong blue and purple gems lined the crevasses of the electricity, making the air element glow with bursts of color. When I tilted the ring back, I saw a number etched into the inside of the metal.

  3404.

  “Kai,” Ciro said again, nodding toward his brother. “Secure him. He can't use his spells, but he can come after me in a matter of minutes and stop my progress.”

  “Stand back,” I replied, and the god complied. “La spyk a friz te risa!”

  An ice spike jutted up from the ice, impaling Vertun just to the side of his spine. True to my promise, I didn't kill him. The ice just disabled the god, keeping him still for longer than the alteration magic could. The ice spike was smeared with the god's blood, and some of it trickled out of his paralyzed lips.

  “Kai.” I glanced back to Ciro. His golden eyes met mine before moving to Cyrus. “Cyrus.” The god nodded back toward the ice palace, where the excess heat from the beginning of Vertun's earlier spell was melting it. The land groaned beneath our feet. Ciro said one last word to us. “Run.”

  Cerin sent tendrils of death magic skittering across the field of ice, calling hundreds of the tornado's casualties to Ciro's defense. The Seran Renegades, Cyrus, and our remaining soldiers then took off, already fatigued legs reluctantly carrying us across the bloodied and already melting ice. The group of Icilic which had seen the last of our battle with Vertun rushed toward us, promising to inhibit our progress. I thrust death bombs into the groups of them, felling the ones without wards. Maggie clashed with the others, swiping them back from our paths.

  In the midst of the chaos, I took one last look behind me to Ciro. The god held a fist up to his heart as he watched after us as if wishing us luck. I returned the gesture, allowing his golden ring to shine in the early afternoon sun. Ciro smiled at the gesture just before I spun back around.

  Our rush to the ships was not without its difficulties. Arrows and spells alike were thrown at us, breaking through many of our shields. Those with the ability to regenerated them, but a few of our soldiers fell dead, the victims of misfortune. One of the Icilic even raised the dead before we could, and Cerin felled a few of them with a scythe swipe through the throats to help clear the path for the others. Both my lover and I shot death magic into the oncoming foes, trying our best to keep them from going after Ciro.

  Our warship appeared in view just where we'd left it. Zephyr and the others still defended them, and the coast was full of corpses that had been raised by her dual caster. As the Sentinel saw us rushing toward her, she screamed over to the men on our ship to lower the boarding ramp. As they did so, she turned to the west, giving Altan and Uriel's navies an early warning with her war horn.

  Schkk!

  “Shit!” Cyrus.

  Time concerns suddenly meant nothing to me. I skidded to a stop so quickly an allied soldier collided with my back, leaving me falling to the ice below. At least this soldier was kind enough to hurriedly help me up from the ice, but once I was standing, he rushed forward to the ship.

  Cyrus was laying across the ice, a puddle of blood pooling beneath his prestigious armor from an ice spike through his right shin. He'd been covering our backs, and I hadn't known his alteration shield had been overwhelmed with hits. Tears of pain welled in his eyes as he watched me near him. The Icilic water mage responsible prepared another spell before an arrow shot through her eye.

  HUUURRRNNNNN!

  Ciro's war horn echoed from Yseult, warning us the god was ready to begin his spell.

  “Leave me, Kai!” Cyrus threw a hand toward the warship. “I can't walk like this.”

  “You insult me.” The words hissed through my teeth out of sadness and desperation more than anything else. Even as I tried to help him up, I called for Maggie. Azazel shot arrows through those who would pursue us, and Cerin was already on Cyrus's other side, pulling at the Sentinel to get him to stand. The ice spike was so long and thick that it prevented Cyrus's leg from lifting up from the ice unless we were to carry his full weight, and neither Cerin or I could do that.

  Maggie finally rushed to us. “Sorry I'm late, love.” She grabbed Cyrus around the waist, pulling the Sentinel up to her shoulder. “Forgive me if I'm not the most graceful of saviors,” she told him, before running off to the ship. The rest of us were close behind her. I forced orbs of death magic into our pursuers. Not only did I need an abundance of energy for our ship's shield, but now I had to worry about keeping Cyrus from being disabled. A shattered shin promised to require a lot of healing.

  By the time I hurried up the ramp and onto the ship, my heart was shattering my ribs and my head was throbbing with the agony of an excessive leeching high. I nearly collapsed next to the ship's metal charger to force the energy of at least one hundred people into its alteration shield. The swirling energy was crisp and robust when I glanced up, at least one hundred times stronger than the protection used in Tal. The soldiers forced the warship forward so quickly that the boarding ramp scraped audibly over the ice until it was pulled up as an afterthought. Zephyr blew through her war horn a couple more times, ensuring it was he
ard by the others on the western coast. We were a few hours away from the open ocean. Anxiousness filled my gut as I wondered if Altan and Uriel could hear the horns at all. Then I remembered being days away from Altan in Makani when Azazel had heard his call. If Azazel could hear it from that far, surely the Vhiri could hear the horns from a much shorter distance.

  I turned from the metal charger, hurrying to where Maggie had laid Cyrus over the deck. Cerin was giving him energy to keep him from being fatigued, but he didn't attempt to heal the Sentinel yet. Not until the worst was over.

  “Maggie, hold him,” I said, pointing to Cyrus. “You remember the drop in Tal.”

  The engineer nodded and grabbed onto Cyrus's arm with one hand and the railing with another.

  “Men! Hang onto something!” I commanded.

  “How will we know when—”

  “Assume it happens now,” I replied. “Hold onto something and close your eyes!”

  As the soldiers followed my orders, I collapsed to the deck in the midst of Cyrus's blood, finding comfort in its warmth. Cerin and Azazel both hung onto the railing. I lifted my hand up to Azazel's hood, tugging it farther down his face. The archer already had his eyes closed and his head tilted downward, unwilling to go through the same thing twice.

  I sat between my lover and best friend, one arm around each man and both hands gripping the railing. My eyes were open and on the western sky. It was beautiful and expansive and blue. I heard the distant crackling of fire, and then the heavens brightened to white. All sound in the world dissipated until I could only hear the natural ringing of my ears as Ciro's spell sucked up all of the energy hanging over Glacia.

  I closed my eyes. Prayers flew through my head, all desperately pleading with Ciro to do this right. He only had one job to do. Messing up even one of the details could get us all killed.

  I squeezed both Cerin and Azazel close to me. Azazel returned the gesture, and Cerin rested his head between my face and shoulder, his full lips brushing once against my neck.