A shape looms ahead. Not a wall. A fissure. The same one we came through, or a reflection of it. “Oh, look,” I say with a smile. “We found it.”
Chapter 26
Voren
“So fucking rude to just vanish behind the fog,” I mutter for the hundredth time, circling back on myself and cursing the dent in the fog wall.
I pause, sensing something close by, but I can’t see anything. I summon a jagged spear of ice and hurl it into the mist. It shatters against something solid.
“Ow,” a feeble cry echoes out of the mist.
I frown as the fog lightens up a bit before descending back into a grey gloom.
“Air,” I say, narrowing my eyes. “What are you doing?”
“Me?” he says. “This wasn’t me.”
“Then who?” I demand, stepping through the thinning grey until I tower over him. Air looks small, pale, and entirely too breakable in human form. He rubs his shoulder where my ice clipped him, looking at me with wide, fearful eyes.
“Her,” he squeaks, pointing vaguely into the nothingness. “The Queen. She pulled the currents tight. It’s a vacuum. I can’t find a draft to ride.”
“She’s… annoyed,” I murmur.
I grab the front of his tunic and haul him off his feet. He weighs nothing. “Find me a way out.”
“I told you, there are no currents!”
“Create one,” I growl, letting frost creep from my hands onto his fabric. “Or I freeze your lungs solid and leave you here as a statue.”
He pales further. “If I could, I would. It’s impossible. See?” He holds his hand out, trying to do whatever it is he does to make air currents.
Nothing happens. Not a breeze. Not a flutter. The air in his palm remains dead, stagnant.
I let him go.
“I told you,” Air snaps, getting a bit of backbone. “She is absolute. The vacuum is total.”
It is annoying how right he is. Nyssa doesn’t do things by halves. If she wants solitude, she bends reality to get it.
I stare into the grey. If Air cannot find a path, perhaps the ground can. Or rather, the flaws in the construct.
I slam my heel into the floor. Frost cracks the black stone, spiderwebbing out into the mist. I don’t look for a breeze; I look for the fracture. I push my power into the ice, demanding it find a weakness in the fog.
Nothing.
We are well and truly fucked.
I close my eyes and think. Nyssa wanted solitude. But more than that, she wanted to get out of here. So, she is probably aiming for the exit. If she can find it in this dense veil she has created.
“Get moving,” I order Air. He looks terrified. I start walking in what I hope is a straight line.
The silence is absolute. No wind. No echoes. It is maddening. I prefer the whispers of the dead to this vacuum.
“Do you see anything?” Air asks, hurrying to keep up.
“Grey,” I reply. “Lots of grey.”
I scan the mist. Nyssa controls this. She wants to leave. The path must lead out. Logic dictates that the exit is the only thing that matters. I focus on that intent. I push my will against the barrier, demanding passage not as a god, but as someone who wants the same thing she does.
