“Lira—”
“It might be me who falls, me who drags you down. Are you so certain you can hold me?”
Quinlan stared at me for a long moment, like he was working through a puzzle and his answer might change everything. I met his gaze. Maybe there was something stirring inside me, water flowing under ice. I wasn’t certain, but I thought it might be possible. Someday.
He took the rope and cinched it around my waist, tugging me closer as he tested the knot. “If it happens, I’ll catch you. Believe me.”
I did.
Axes in hand, we started up the glacier, snow and ice crunching under our boots. Fear twisted my chest, making it hard to breathe. It was easier not to dwell on the last part of my task when we were so far from our destination, but now there was no ignoring it. I had come to battle a goddess, the eater of souls, empress of the damned.
She would not go quietly.
The snowdrifts got deeper. It would take at least a full day’s trek to reach the center. We went slowly, our steps light, not advancing until our axes were secure, our grips on them steady. It was tedious work, but we edged past holes and crevasses in the glacier that warned us not to go faster. In the distance, the Mountain of Fire rose up, a stone tumor bursting from the frozen earth.
We didn’t stop until our muscles trembled so much it was dangerous to keep going. Resting side by side, cold seeping up through our trousers, we passed a waterskin back and forth and finished off the wolf meat.
“If I can’t defeat Ildja, you have to run.” I wouldn’t stop Quinlan from entering the Mountain of Fire, but I had to be the one to fight the goddess, to stab her in the heart and capture her soul in the crystal dagger.
Quinlan gestured at the glacier. “Running isn’t exactly an option.”
“Get out, then. Away from the spiteful goddess trying to eat your soul.”
“Back to the Mountain Renegades, to be a prisoner? Or to the Dragonmen, so they can put an axe through me?” He shook his head. “We leave together, or we don’t leave at all.”
“Don’t say that.”
“This isn’t just about you. I made promises. To Garreth. To Reyker, before he died. And to myself. That I’d protect you with my life. Don’t ask me to break those promises.”
“What did Reyker say to you, before Torin forced him on the ship?” We’d not gotten a proper goodbye. I’d been so drowsy with potions, I’d thought Reyker’s visit was a dream.
“Are you sure you want to hear it?”
“No. But tell me anyway.”
Quinlan paused. “That he owed you his life. That at the first opportunity, he was going to run his sword through everyone who’d hurt you. That I was the only one he trusted to keep you safe in his absence. I—” He bit his lip, glancing at me. “I hate him, for reasons I’ve already shared. But mostly because I thought no one else could love you as much as I did. He proved me wrong.”
I swallowed around the tightness in my throat. “Thank you,” I whispered.
“I won’t break my promise,” he said again. “I’m with you to the end.”
“To the end.” Whatever end it might be—victory or death. Despite my fear, I was relieved. This journey was almost over, and because of Quinlan I wouldn’t have to finish it alone. “Come on, then. Let’s go destroy an evil goddess.”
Once more, we crept and crawled across the frozen plain, taking our time. More and more often, one of us put a foot down only to jerk it back at the sound of creaking ice. The mountain grew closer, closer, until it was just over the next ridge.
When the ice creaked again, I listened harder, not certain the crackles were coming from us. I looked over my shoulder at how far we’d come. There it was—the crunch of footsteps. Something heavy. Big. “We aren’t alone,” I said.
Quinlan squinted into the distance. “I don’t see anything. What do you think it is?”
“I don’t want to find out. We need to get up the mountain.”
Above us I could see the entrance, an opening carved in the middle of the frosted rock emitting a golden-red glow from within. We picked up our pace as much as we dared, but the sounds of something following us sped up too.
We’d made it to the bottom of the mountain when the whole glacier seemed to groan. Quinlan and I were a rope-length apart, with me in front, my axe dug deep into the ice as I climbed the first slope of rock.
“What was that?” he asked, one foot hovering in the air, not daring to move.
I scanned the white landscape. A head peeked up out of a dip in the glacier. Horns. A muzzle. Claws dug into the ice, and the beast dragged itself over the ridge.
“Oh, gods,” I hissed. “It’s an ice demon, like the one the Mountain Renegades brought to Stalwart Bay.”
Maybe it was the same one. Maybe I’d called it here, when I’d sent out the summons that brought the white wolf to me—I heard someone telling me there was a price to pay for such acts, though I couldn’t remember whose voice it was.
I held tight to the axe, reaching for Quinlan, but it was too late. The demon saw us. It threw its head back, opened its mouth, and released a howl fit to bring down the sky.
Except it wasn’t the sky that cracked, but the ground. My ears rang, the demon’s scream vibrating my skull, and the glacier shook. Were the mountain not Ildja’s sacred domain, it might have cracked too. All around us, fissures widened and hidden crevasses revealed themselves as sections of the ice sheet turned brittle and collapsed. The ice under Quinlan’s boots crumbled.
He fell.
The jolt on the rope knocked my legs out from under me, and nearly ripped my fingers from the axe. My feet dangled over the crevasse, not far above Quinlan’s head. Only my grip on the axe kept us from tumbling into the chasm.
“Your axe!” I shouted down at him. If he could swing to the wall of ice, he could use it to climb up.
“It’s gone.” There was something wrong about his voice. It was too even, too calm.
I tried to pull myself up, but my arms trembled and refused to budge. My muscles already ached from the strain of holding us up. “You’ll have to climb the rope between us, then climb over me to get out.”He didn’t answer.
I dared a glance down and saw the knife in his hand. “Quinlan. What are you doing?”
“The axe won’t hold.”
He was lying to spare me. It was my grip that wouldn’t hold. He pressed the knife to the rope that linked us. “No! Quinlan, please. Please don’t.”
“You’re almost there. You can make it to the fire. But not if I drag you down with me.” The blade cut into the rope.