I crossed my arms. “Yeah, well, my powers aren’t magic tricks.”
“We’ll all have frostbite if you take any longer,” Freyja bit out from the other side of her mom.
I leaned over the railing, just so I could glower at her.
“Oh, River,” Hildur said with a tight smile aimed at the small crowd, “with that attitude you’ll never make it far. Humor me. You’re confident in your skills, are you not?”
Hot air blew out of my nose. Maybe if we stood here long enough, the ice would just melt, and we’d all be on our way. Popping up on my toes, I craned my neck to try and see beyond the turret, which was blocking the view of the mountain.
A stroke of lustrous blue glimmered beyond the icy tower. I pressed myself farther, until the dramatic cascades of a waterfall came into view. It was frozen solid: the water caught in the action of falling, the mist scattered like ice pellets, the spray stuck in midair.
Setting my heels back on the ground, I asked, “How long has it been like that?”
“Long.” That was it. That was all she gave me.
“Have you tried anything else to thaw it?”
With a tilt of her head, she pursed her mouth and raised a brow.
Okay, so that answered that.
Dropping my gaze to the moat, a permanent frost dusting the fronds of grass that lined the banks, I followed the grooves in the ice. Thin, black veins shimmered between the sheets of vibrant turquoise—threads of dark magic. Unease hollowed my heart.
Assuming they’d tried to use their own source of power—Galdur—with no success, why was she so convinced mine would work? And if it didn’t, then what? No Jarðarbæli? Tossed out onto the glacier? The guillotine?
I turned back to the queen. Expectation emanated off her in almost tangible waves; the pressure felt heavy on the air.
What was I supposed to do? Questions were clearly forbidden, and I couldn’t tell who she was keeping the answers from: me or the hundreds of clueless elves huddled along the perimeter.
Perhaps both.
“Okay.” Shivering at a particularly frigid gust, I gripped my arms tight across my chest. “I clear this and get the river flowing, and you’ll take me to Gaia.”
“Yes.”
I glanced over my shoulder, and spotted Gunnar, a statue of uniformed muscle, his navy-blue coat and stamped beret popping against the sea of beaded dresses and metallic threads.
Attention back on the task, I released a controlled exhale, then slowly filled my lungs with the crisp morning air. Opening my mind to every sound, every scent, every quiver of light and shadow—striving to reach that space in my chest between body and soul, between bones and blood.
Nothing.
The same nothing I felt when my fingers reached for the space under my collarbone and met only air. I couldn’t do this, not without my mom’s necklace—my conduit.
Despite the chill, nervous sweat beaded my temple. My nails dug into my palms.
Defeat slithered its way into my thoughts. These weren’t the right circumstances. Every time I’d called on my Source, I’d done it in a moment of panic without really thinking about it. Now that I wanted it, needed it, it wouldn’t come. I was in way over my head. This was a horrible idea; I’d never be good enough?—
A voice, one I’d never physically hear again, filtered through my thoughts. Allow yourself to feel, my therapist used to say.
I didn’t deserve her words, not even in memory.
If Dr. Fairmore had been assigned any other patient, she’d still be alive. But they killed her—Chthonia’s fringe group, maybe even Ryder himself—to get to me. I wished I could ask her: was there something else I was supposed to feel besides the utter desperation, the rage, the longing, the pain of her loss?
Powerful.
The word flashed across my mind like the crack of a whip, shattering the wall I’d built around my heart.
There. A faint tremor began beneath the ice. A whisper rose across the slick surface. A bead of water slipped down the icicles. A shadow flittered over the bright turquoise hue.
