“Is the ice breaking again?” Haur asked, jumping to his feet. He swayed, the effects of the narcotics still too strong, then stumbled down to his knees when the ground’s shaking intensified.

“Not the ice,” Thar replied and dropped into a crouch, hands and feet anchoring into the ground by turning the snow into ice.

D’Argen used his mahee to balance himself, his feet anchoring into the ground. It was shaking too much though and when Yaling suddenly dropped, D’Argen followed her on instinct. It was not a break in the ground like before, no chasm and freezing water waiting for them. Yaling just lost her balance and the snow under them shifted.

Thar used his mahee to harden it in intervals, giving D’Argen and Yaling icy footholds to keep them balanced. It took Haur a bit longer to find his own balance but once he did, he stood tall. He looked completely sober when he turned to the other three. Then he paled, all the blood draining from his face and making him appear sickly. His eyes were focused past D’Argen, Yaling, and Thar.

Towards the pillar.

D’Argen turned, lost balance, and fell to his knees.

The large group of mortals around the pillar were screaming, scattered and running. They were pushing at one another but it was impossible to tell whether they were pushing toward or away from the pillar.

Three were already in the water.

As D’Argen watched, another two fell in. One of them dragged Nocipel down with him. Fortunately, Nocipel was able to use his mahee to pull both himself and two of the mortals out with a small wave. The wave pushed the other three further down. One of them popped up and grabbed Lilian’s ankle. Lilian’s head cracked loud against the ice when they fell and were dragged down into the water once more. Abbot dove in after them and one of the mortals pulled him into the water as he used the artist’s body to try and climb out.

The mortal got out only to be shoved back in. Another three fell into the water. Another two after that. There was not enough water between the pillar and the ground. Not everyone’s head was above the surface.

The entire time this was happening, the ground was continuing to shake. The pillar was sinking. The markings on its surface were cracking.

D’Argen could not wait for an order from Haur or even permission. He opened his mahee as wide as possible and aimed for the base of the pillar, where it disappeared behind the struggling bodies. He slide to a stop before he came too close and elbowed and shoved mortals out of the way. Then he dropped to his knees right beside the pool and reached in.

The water was freezing. It climbed up his arms and his teeth started chattering immediately. He grabbed a flailing hand, latched on tight, and pulled. The mortal that broke the surface in gasps was not who he was looking for. D’Argen uttered a spell to give his muscles more oxygen to breathe and he used that new strength to yank the mortal out of the water completely.

He pulled two more out of the pool before he grabbed Abbot’s metal collar. He yanked as hard as he could and felt the wires break, the beads slip through his fingers, when something pulled the artist back down. D’Argen lost balance and was about to go face-first into the water when strong hands grabbed his shoulders and pulled him back.

Haur locked his legs and yanked. D’Argen tried to grab something solid. A hand clasped around his and that was enough. Both of them pulled until Abbot broke the surface in sputtering coughs. The water raised him higher and right over D’Argen’s head, throwing him further away from the pool.

The empty pool.

Nocipel must have gotten everybody else out even as the ground and pillar continued to shake.

D’Argen looked frantically through the crowd. Everybody was shivering and clattering, even those that were not wet, but everybody had at least one limb locked to the ground with ice. Thar was standing further back with his arms stretched out and his eyes closed. When D’Argen looked back at the crowd he noticed something. Someone missing.

“Lilian!” he called out loud.

The ground shaking was his only response.

“Lilian!!” he called again.

The pillar behind him screeched like metal getting sharped on stone. He turned around and watched as one of the symbols sank underwater. A moment later, it shot up a good meter above the surface, broke in half right down the middle, and then plunged down to disappear under the surface.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

No Lilian.

“Where is Lilian?” D’Argen asked, frantic. If they were still in the pool…

“Hold on,” Nocipel answered, immediately by his side.

“Where are they?!”

Nocipel plunged a hand into the water and closed his eyes. The scent of his mahee was so strong that D’Argen felt lightheaded. He ignored it and focused on the surface. Focused beyond that. Was Lilian down there?

“There is nobody in the water,” Nocipel finally said and pulled his hand back.

D’Argen shot to his feet to look around the crowd again. The ground continued to shake and he lost balance, slipping on the ice and stepping towards the open pool of water. Instead of sinking below the surface, his feet found hard and pebbled ice. A quick glance at Thar and a mouthed thank you and D’Argen was back to scanning the crowd.

There.

A small form. It looked like the size of a child. There were no mortal children with them. Haur pushed D’Argen forward and toward the figure. Abbot followed with a stumble. Yaling and Nocipel showed up before they reached the small body.

Thar stood over them all the moment D’Argen slid to a stop beside Lilian. The ground stopped shaking though the pillar behind him screamed something awful. He refused to turn around to look at it.

Lilian.

Lilian was lying on their stomach. When he went to flip them over, Lilian helped him.

The snow under them was strange.

Haur grabbed D’Argen’s shoulders and yanked him back with a warning, “Be careful.”

“Be careful??” D’Argen almost yelled. Yaling was by his side in moments. She grabbed his hands and held them out and only then did D’Argen notice they were wet. And sticky. It was not water. He recognized that particular shade of grey.

While D’Argen was trying to figure out how the blood got on him, Nocipel and Abbot were already examining Lilian’s body. They were awake, their eyes open and staring at the sky, but they were unmoving. Their eyes were blank.

“Lilian?” D’Argen asked quietly, afraid to hear an answer.

“I do not see anything,” Abbot replied, his words stuttering out through shivering teeth. His hands were shaking so badly that he nearly tore one of Lilian’s layers trying to move it aside.

“Same here,” Nocipel confirmed, his hands much steadier from the cold but his voice trembling with nerves.

“Whose blood is it?” Haur asked.

“Stop, stop,” Yaling suddenly called, her voice making everybody freeze. Her eyes were not focused on the bloodied snow under Lilian. They were focused on another patch and she pointed to it.

Right under Thar was another dark patch of melting grey snow.

Thar shifted on the spot and the stain spread to his white boots.

“There too,” Haur called out, pointing to another spot where one of the mortals was struggling to get up.

“And there,” Nocipel added on.

D’Argen felt like his neck was going to twist out of a socket as he turned his head as fast as possible. He was unable to see the blood but he saw those patches of grey. They were everywhere. They were under his own knees where he was beside Lilian. Yaling’s pants were taking on that horrible shade and Nocipel left a streak of it on his cheek when he brushed his hair back.

“What is going on?” D’Argen asked and finally faced the pillar. It had not stopped screaming since the ground started shaking. The ground had stopped but the stone had not. It continued to move. It had stopped rising as before and now just sank slowly and steadily, one carved line at a time disappearing under the water’s surface.

Ice.

Thar’s cold mahee surrounded them for but a moment before it hardened the water around the pillar completely, creating a thick block of ice. The pillar did not stop moving though and it broke the edges down, scraped against them, turned them into floating crystals, or dragged them down under the surface. The ice was not strong enough to stop the pillar from sinking.

Thar did not try to make it stronger.

All of them were covered in bloodied snow, some were wet and shivering, and the rest were too shocked. That pressure D’Argen had felt inside him since he first laid eyes on the pillar was so strong that it felt like the stone had latched onto him and was trying to drag him down. He was not the only one. Lilian could barely get to their feet. Every time they stood tall, the following moment their legs trembled and buckled until they were lying back on the ground.

Haur was not doing much better though he was too busy clutching his head with one hand and covering his eyes with the other. Out of all of them, Yaling seemed to be fairing the best. She had one of her whistles between her lips and was taking deep but short breaths, exhaling hard into the whistle. D’Argen did not hear the tone, but it must have been enough to keep her going. Every time she inhaled, her face hardened. When she exhaled and blew a note that only she could hear, she grabbed whoever was closest to her and urged them to their feet and towards the hill.

It took long past nightfall before everybody made it back to their now-destroyed camp.

They would not be leaving in the middle of the night.

Yaling changed her whistle and though she started with a high pitch that hurt, she soon changed it into a tune that put most of the mortals to sleep. D’Argen was scratching at his temple as he watched Lilian sleep.

“D’Argen?” Haur asked quietly, as if afraid to wake Lilian.

When the runner looked up, Haur was motioning with a hand for D’Argen to follow. D’Argen gave Lilian a final glance and a pat on their shoulder before he moved to follow Haur.

Yaling was whistling out a soft tune, one that let her breathe and speak a few words in between some notes. D’Argen joined them around the fire just in time to hear her say, “I figured it was worth a try.”

D’Argen was not sure what she was referring to but there was something more important. “What the fuck happened today?” he asked in a harsh whisper, loud enough to show his irritation but not so loud to wake anyone up.

Yaling blew a few consecutive notes. Nobody answered his question.

“We have to get out of here. As soon as possible,” Thar spoke up, the command in his tone enough to make even Haur snap to attention.

The rest looked to Haur, their party leader and highest rank. He nodded and looked down at his clasped hands. He looked ashamed. D’Argen felt a burning line of anger running through his veins. He was just not sure if it was directed at Haur, the person whose instinct, whose mahee, told them to stay away from his path, or at himself. When Yaling changed the tune yet again, D’Argen tried to let his anger go with the music.