Nyra
The mountain path narrowed to a jagged trail, slick with frost and shadow. Elira led the way, her torch flickering low as we slipped into the cleft between two massive stone ridges. The snow swallowed our footsteps, but even silence felt loud in that stillness.
Ava clung to my side. Her cheeks were raw from windburn, but her steps didn't falter. Not once.
Kael walked behind us, sword in hand, eyes scanning the dark.
The second flare hadn't gone up.
Yet.
"They're flanking us," Elira said under her breath. "Trying to herd us into a choke point."
I nodded. "Then we break the trail."
"How?" Kael asked.
"Fire," I said. "Big enough to make them think we split in two directions. You'll take Ava ahead."
"And you?"
"I'll lead them the wrong way."
His jaw flexed. "You won't survive that."
"Try me."
"No," Ava said. Her voice cracked. "You can't leave me again."
That stopped me.
"I thought you were dead, Nyra," she said, eyes filling. "You left and everything burned."
I felt the breath knock out of me. Guilt, old and sharp, rose like smoke.
"I didn't leave," I said quietly. "I was pulled from the rubble by a resistance scout. I tried to go back. I thought… I thought you were gone."
Ava swallowed. "So did I."
We stood in silence, the past pulling at our heels like roots.
Then Elira spoke. "We don't need to split. I know a vent shaft—the Cloaks use it to bypass the cliff sentries. But it's steep. And narrow."
"I don't care," I said. "Show me."
Ten minutes later, we were crawling on hands and knees through a jagged crevice barely wide enough for breath. The wind screamed above us. Somewhere distant, a horn blew.
"They've hit the dummy trail," Kael whispered.
Elira grinned. "Good flamework."
I didn't answer.
My mind was still on Ava's words. On the garden we never returned to. On the father I buried beneath a pyre.
The shaft opened suddenly into a frost-lit cavern, its walls etched with ancient sigils, some worn, some glowing faintly with windlight.
"The Cloaks pass through here?" I asked.
Elira nodded. "When they don't want to be seen."
Ava slumped beside me, breathing hard.
She was only five when the fire came down on Ignara. Now she was fifteen, still too young to carry the weight of the ashes. Kael helped her sit, then moved to examine the runes. His hand hovered near one.
"They're older than Glacium's founding," he said. "This mark here—it's from the Elemental Accord."
"You studied that?" I asked.
He glanced at me. "I remember you reciting it to me when we were thirteen. You knew every line. You said the Council made it up to feel important."
I blinked. The memory hit like a warm gust, us in the orchard, before everything burned.
"I meant it," I said. "And I still do."
Elira stood guard at the far edge of the cavern. "We sleep in shifts. I'll take first watch."
I sat beside Ava and wrapped an arm around her as she drifted into sleep. Her breathing evened out quickly, a quiet rhythm that lulled something aching in me.
Kael settled across from us, unspeaking.
"You don't have to keep proving yourself," I whispered to him. "But I won't forget what you didn't stop, either."
"I don't expect you to," he said.
I turned toward the tunnel, eyes drifting shut.
In the darkness, the flames in my chest pulsed once.
Low.
Hungry.
Waiting.
And far above, somewhere beyond the mountain mist, a third flare lit the sky.
They were still coming.