Crouching down, he grabs the side of the stone and then heaves upwards.
I suck in a hiss of pain as the pressure disappears but yank my leg out straight away. A thud sounds as Orion drops the stone back down. With my leg now pulsing from lingering pain, I crawl the final distance away from the rubble and then struggle to my feet.
My entire body aches, but when I put weight on my leg, nothing appears to be broken. I wipe some blood and gravel from the scrapes along my cheek. It will take us a few hours to fly from here back to the battlefield. That should be enough to heal most of my cuts and bruises.
I glance towards Alistair.
It should hopefully also be enough time for Alistair to regain consciousness.
Lyra notices my gaze and looks up to meet my eyes. Her arms are still wrapped around Alistair’s chest, cradling him.
“I’ll stay with him,” she says. “Go find the Soul of Trees.”
I sweep my gaze over the two of them, and warmth fills my soul. In the midst of all this pain and destruction, Lyra and Alistair are like two bright flames that have finally found each other. And now, the darkness will never stand a chance.
With a small smile on my face, I give her a nod. “We’ll be back soon.”
She nods as well.
Isera rakes her fingers through her hair, trying to get some of the dried blood out, while Orion and I walk back up to her. Then the three of us start making our way up the mountain slope again.
It’s slow going. Both because all three of us are pretty banged up, but also because there is so much debris blocking the way. Chunks of ice and shattered stone lay scattered all across the mountainside. And in between them are everything from pieces of furniture to burned sheets of paper to flickering faelight gems that used to be mounted inside various ceilings in the Ice Palace.
But we make steady progress as we climb over the rubble andtowards the location where Orion said the Soul of Trees was buried.
Once we reach it, we all just come to a halt and stare out at the destruction around us.
We’re standing on top of what used to be Bane and Jessina’s throne room. But the grand doors are gone. The walls are gone. The floor is gone. The high ceiling covered in faelight gems is gone. And the thrones themselves are gone. Now, all that remains is broken ice and shattered stone.
“It was buried deep in the thick ice foundation here,” Orion says, and motions at the area around us. “So it shouldn’t have flown too far in the explosion.”
We nod.
And then we start searching.
Isera’s eyes begin to glow as she summons her magic and starts moving chunks of ice aside while Orion and I peer through them all to see if the artefact is still stuck inside one of them.
According to Lavendera’s drawing, it’s supposed to be a large, golden sphere. I look for any signs of something gold as we sift through the rubble.
“Here,” Orion finally calls.
Straightening from the chunk of ice I was inspecting, I dust my hands off and then jog over to where the Unseelie King is instead. Isera strides towards him as well.
When we reach him, we find him pointing down at a thick block of ice.
A large golden orb is visible in the middle of it.
Isera summons her magic again and moves her hands down in a chopping motion before spreading them apart.
The block of ice splits down the middle, and then the two halves slide sideways. Left in the middle is now the large sphere. I stare at it as it drops down the short distance to the ground now that the ice is no longer encasing it. It looks… familiar. But I’m not sure why.
It’s just a round object in a deep golden color that seems to glow faintly, as if it’s made of light rather than some hard, physical material. Where have I seen?—
The orb pulses.
All three of us draw back in surprise.
Then it happens again. Lying there on the ground, the golden sphere pulses several times in rapid succession. It looks remarkably like it’s shaking itself off to get rid of the final traces of freezing coldness from the ice.
