Kingdom of Ice and Bone by Jill Criswell

Author:Jill Criswell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
Published: 2020-07-29T18:56:33+00:00

CHAPTER 26

LIRA

One tunnel led to another, and another, winding and twisting, finally spitting me out into a lofty, hollowed-out space, as big as ten great halls put together and as hot as a kiln. I walked along a rocky ledge coated in ice that should have melted in the heat—there must have been magic here, sustaining it. High above me was the volcano’s crater. Far below was a boiling cauldron of liquid fire.

This was the Frozen Sun, a volcano in the heart of a glacier. The doorway between Iseneld and the death realms Ildja reigned over. And I was standing in the middle of it.

Smoke swirled along the outskirts of the fire, veiling what lay beyond. The Mist—where the Destroyers dragged the souls deemed unworthy of joining their kin in the endless meadows of Skjorlog Felth. Where souls would be tortured, devoured slowly by the serpent-goddess.

From the depths of the Mist, a voice spoke, blazing like it was born of the spewing fire. “Have you come to capture me, soul-reader?”

“I brought you a gift, Ildja. Show yourself so I can present you with it.” I ran my hand over the crystal key and it pooled like wax in my palm, shapeless, before transforming back into a blade.

“Did you think it would be so easy, mortal child? Cross an island, climb a glacier, cage a goddess. With my own ice dagger, no less, forged in this very mountain.”

I held the dagger up, examining its bluish-white sheen, its glassy texture. Not crystal, as I’d assumed—unmelting ice, like the sheet beneath my feet.

Laughter curled around me, reeking of sulfur. “Did you learn nothing from the story of the Fallen Ones?” Ildja asked. “Gods cannot be trusted. Veronis did not tell you everything.”

What was I meant to do with the dagger? How did I bury it in Ildja’s heart, as Veronis had instructed, if she wouldn’t manifest into a body I could stab?

I squinted at the fire, the heart of Iseneld.

The core of Ildja’s realms, the gate between the world of the living and the nightmares of the dead. The heart . . . of Ildja herself.

bury it in the heart of ildja.

I squeezed the dagger, staring into the crater. It couldn’t be as simple as tossing the key in the fire. With gods, nothing was ever what it seemed. Veronis had said to bury it, but how could something be buried if it burned? To bury a blade required either dirt or flesh.

There was no dirt here. No flesh but mine.

“Your mother only delayed the inevitable,” the voice in the Mist said. “You were always meant to be a sacrifice. Destroying the key in my fire will break the lock on Veronis’s cell, but the prison-realm does not let its prisoners out without an exchange. To free Veronis, one who shares his blood must take his place. You.”

Ice and snow and fire blurred around me.

Bloody fates.

Veronis had misled me all along. He was never going to bring Reyker back or reunite us in the otherworlds.

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