A STEP TOO FAR
LEILANI
ONESTEP.ONEstep at a time.
One foot in front of the other, that’s all I have to do. But it’s getting harder – I can’t pretend anymore. In the three moonsrisings since we left the first ice-cabin, the air has grown so thin, so foul, I’m constantly light-headed and breathless, my pack a great boulder at my back. I raise my axe to the ice, but every muscle screams as I inch up the mountain. My fingers are numb, even cocooned in the fur-lined gloves we’re all wearing to ward off frostbite. Snowflakes dust my face as I gaze up the crag, focusing on the cloud-line.
Once we reach that next ridge where another ice-cabin awaits us, a final push up the Spindle Pass, a treacherous stretch of near-vertical rock face, should bring us to the foot of the Ice Steps. The summit of the mountain, the means to my mother’s salvation, lies tantalisingly – maddeningly – close.
Our proximity to the cloud-line turns my mind to Orthriel. Once we clear it, we’ll enter Nimbi’s sphere of orbit. I search my mind again, reaching for my Guardian. But I’m met with a silence hard and cold as the mountain itself. I can only pray Orthriel reached the cielsylphs’ floating isle safely, that I’m still shutting them from my mind unintentionally.
A handspan above me, Astrophel thrusts his axe into the frozen mountain at chest height. Using it as a stake, he sets his jaw. A deep groan rips from his throat as he drags himself upwards using his good arm, driving his ice-shoes into the snow for better grip. It takes considerable upper-body strength to heave oneself up the mountain, and it also places immense strain on the legs. Astrophel and Blayze managing this climb at all is a miracle, testament to their force of will; Astrophel is driven, like me, by the need to save my mother, and Blayze, by his pride, helped along by his Flameborn abilities. But for all their effort, they’re moving slowly.
I volunteered to bring up the rear of the group so I could keep an eye on both, assuage some of my guilt for putting them in this position in their sorry condition, but also so I could watch for Arden. Her button burns a hole in my pocket, just as my other secrets burn holes in my chest.
I stab at the ice, making sure the axe is secure before I wrench upwards. I’ve torn my palms bloody, but there’s a perverse form of release in this pain.
‘Leilani, wait,’ Astrophel shouts over his shoulder, as I stab again at the ice.
‘We must move faster.’ I try to keep the harsh note of impatience from my voice. The three of us have fallen so far behind the others I can’t even see them overhead anymore. I don’t fancy our chances of scaling this pass in the dark, but we can’t go back either. I don’t dare look over my shoulder, but I know what lies beneath: a long, sheer drop.
A flicker of pain clouds Astrophel’s face, but then he nods and turns his attention back to the mountain. I wait for an answering stab of guilt to bloom in my chest. But there’s only that strange new numbness.
Blayze has hardly spoken to me since Astrophel interrupted us back at the cabin – clearly decided to listen to his better instincts. The draw of our shared magic is no match for his contempt for it. And I am no match for Maris.
It’s for the best. Blayze belongs with Maris. And I… I suppose I belong to Astrophel, if I belong to anyone. On paper, at least – if not in my heart.
And what of that heart? I can’t in good faith claim it’s cold to Astrophel as it once was. I can’t deny the terror I felt when the frostfangs savaged him, the comfort he’s been to me. He’s more than just an ally, more than just my fellow realmsman. It’s not the way I feel for Blayze – not the all-consuming heat, the dizzying intoxication, that makes me forget everything and everyone else. It’s different, gentler. The soft glow of the moons as compared to the brilliance of the sun. Maybe, just maybe, he’s become my friend. And who knows what might grow from that…
I look again to the cloud-line.
One step. One step at a time.
*
ATLAST,WEreach the ledge. The others seek shelter in the ice-cabin, but I linger outside, scanning the horizon. I grip Arden’s button tighter as I peer at the clouds fanned beneath the ridge, stained opal by the peak’s astral glow. They have their own peaks and troughs, echoing the shape of the mountain. It’s hard to believe they’re intangible vapour, no more substantial than the breaths misting the air before my face.
The mountain is barren, severe even. Yet, because of the strange energy pulsating its halo of Star-Aether, it’s more magical, more beautiful, than the Desolate Peaks. That faint thrum becomes a louder vibration now I focus on it, with cadence and pitch. Music: pure and clear like crystal bells – the same otherworldly song that beats in the starstone around my neck. According to legend, starsong is an echo of the Dawn Sister’s lament, the one she sang with every moonsrising to her Beloved across the Veil – a remnant of her pain and longing locked forever in the shards of diamond that spangle the night sky.
I turn to find Maris behind me, shivering, arms wrapped tight across her chest.
‘Just admiring the sunset.’ I nod towards the nacreous clouds and draw my hand from my pocket, letting go of the button. Another lie to add to my ever-growing tally. I was looking for Arden. Searching again for any flicker of Orthriel.
‘Are you all right?’
I hang my head. I don’t have it in me to lie again. ‘I used to look up at this mountain from my bedchamber and long to be here – far from court, far from my father. But it’s not like I thought. We must be close to Nimbi now, and I can’t feel Orthriel. Do you think…’ But I can’t finish that sentence, can’t bear the thought of any more loss. Not after that vision of my mother.
My eyes rest on the newly risen, almost spherical moons. Two more nights till they’re full. I haven’t made the decision yet, still unsure it’s worth the risk, but if I haven’t heard from Orthriel by then, the mooncrystal might provide the answers I need – about my Guardian, about my mother, too.
‘Come inside, it’s freezing.’ Maris slips her arm through mine, and together, we turn for the ice-cabin. ‘And Orthriel will be fine, they’re a fighter,’ she says.
Maris stiffens as we approach the door.
‘Areyouall right?’
‘I’m… No, not really, but it’s silly by comparison.’ She releases my arm. ‘Let’s go inside.’
‘No, go on. You can tell me. What is it?’
