The pass was silent but for the occasional groan of the wind against stone. The black fire burned low now, its light painting the snow in ripples of shadow and crimson. Seraphira lay in her bedroll, staring up at the sky, tracing constellations she half-remembered from her childhood.
Every time she closed her eyes, the lake returned, the cracks racing outward, the cold air rushing into her lungs, his hand gripping her wrist. She tried to shove the memory aside, but it clung stubbornly, curling into the corners of her mind like frost creeping over glass.
She rolled onto her side, her gaze seeking him without her permission. Kaelreth sat against a boulder, his head tilted back, eyes closed. For a moment, she thought he slept. Then the flame flickered, and his eyes opened, dark, ancient, and very awake.
Kaelreth, she said before she could talk herself out of it, "if the ice breaks… what happens to the world?"
The question hung between them, heavy and fragile at once.
He studied her for a long moment, the faint glow in his gaze reflecting the dying embers of shadowflame. "The same thing that happens to you, little flame," he said at last. "You either drown… or you learn to breathe in the depths."
Her breath caught, not from the words alone, but from the quiet certainty in them as though he already knew which fate awaited her. She wanted to ask what he saw when he looked at her. She wanted to demand whether he had a place in that fate.
But she said nothing. And he did not push.
The wind howled over the pass, carrying away the questions neither of them were ready to speak.