We remain huddled in the darkness. Frozen in place. Numb with shock. Silence stretches for what seems like hours.
It’s Orthriel who eventually speaks. ‘Which of you has the starfruit?’
The soft pull of my Guardian’s disembodied voice stirs me to action. ‘I put some in my pack.’
I should have thought of this myself. The sooner we ingest it, the better. I search the saddlebags, locate my pack and root inside it, pushing the maps and the box containing the mooncrystal to one side. Items Astrophel mercifully deemed important enough to save in Galtair, despite having no knowledge of what the box truly contains. My fingers close around the precious parcel of dried fruit. I pass it around: one slice apiece.
Blayze sets upon his like it’s his favourite chop. In any other moment, the sight of him attacking starfruit with such relish might have made me laugh, but there’s nothing funny about any of this. The tower stands, but even with the starfruit and the tincture, it’s only a matter of time before we freeze to death. Unless we suffocate first.
Delphine’s teeth chatter as she chews it. She should never have sung.
I shrug out of my fur and place it around her trembling shoulders. The least I can do.
Maris’ eyes are moist as she looks up at me. ‘Thank you.’
I lean over and give her hand a gentle squeeze. And maybe it’s just the starfruit taking effect, but the air in the tower seems to thaw.
‘It’s a shame those bastards slung out half the contents of my pack,’ Blayze mutters, rocking slightly as he hugs his knees to his chest. ‘A nip of flamead would have come in handy right about now. Or, better yet, a hit of dreamroot.’
I try to smile, but my lips won’t curl. I’m in no mood for jokes. Besides, it’s a blessing that blasted root is gone. The only positive to come from our time in the Last City is Blayze no longer chomping on the stuff, fouling us all with its choking stench.
Astrophel takes a lantern from his pack, asks Blayze for a taper and fire-striker. Soon, wavering candlelight licks our faces.
‘Arcuri, come with me,’ he says. ‘Let’s try and find a way out.’
Blayze hesitates, then clenches his jaw and gets to his feet. Together they clamber the darkened staircase. Shutters rattle, close at first, then further away. The grunts and mumbled obscenities confirm what we already knew.
There’s no way out.
When Astrophel and Blayze return, they’re both pale. Sweat pearls the Clanschief’s brow despite the biting chill in the air.
‘We’ll have to dig,’ Astrophel says. ‘Use the ice axes. Start from the highest window and tunnel up.’
Blayze lifts an axe from the pack he carried through the peaks. His lips thin to a taut line as he leads us to the tower’s uppermost floor. Windows fan out on all sides. Blayze strides to the one closest to the stairwell. He unbolts the shutters, tears them easily from their hinges, like pages from a book. He lifts the axe to shatter what’s left of the glass, revealing a solid wall of compacted snow, dense as stone.
Blayze hacks: once, twice, then over and over, in a blind frenzy. I try not to think of the guards he felled in Galtair, of all the other lives ended by his powerful arms. Eyes glazed, Blayze’s movements grow desperate. But still, he doesn’t stop. Remembering his account of the Necropole, the dungeons he endured in Galtair, I understand something of his need to escape another dark prison. He strikes at the snow till his blows grow aimless and clumsy. Till he can hardly swing the axe.
Astrophel stands ready to replace him.
He works more methodically, chipping away at the snow, starting a tunnel. I admire Astrophel’s zeal too, his refusal to give in. He must know how hopeless this is. Save for a Sister-given miracle, we’ll never make it out of this tower alive.
We’re fighting more than just exhaustion; it’s the cold. A cold that doesn’t even feel cold anymore. My body is tingling, throbbing, burning, and I can barely keep my eyes open. I want to sleep, to curl up and sink into oblivion.
I could summon starshine again. There’s a chance the force of it might dislodge the snowfall. I moved the mountain in the first place, why not try and move it again? But it might make things worse, spark another avalanche, bury us deeper still. I can’t take that risk.
My magic is not a force to be trusted. It’s too easy to be seduced by it, to thirst for more till it consumes you, stripping your reason away like a cragstalker strips the flesh from its prey, leaving behind only bones.
I start to my feet.
The cats.
I stumble for the stairs. Astrophel calls after me as I clutch the handrail and feel for each new step with the toe of my boot.
‘Ingenious,’Orthriel whispers, as my plan crystallises for them.‘Now you’re thinking like a leader.’
‘Leaders don’t place their friends in danger,’I snap back.
Friends? Yes, they are that now.
