Page 85 of Echo North
“Ivan—”
“Stay back.” He crouches down, his body filling up the opening of the cavern. But he has no weapon, having dropped his pick somewhere on the ice.
The wolves hurtle closer.
Ivan starts singing, a haunting melody filled with words I do not know. They slip through the air like my binding needle, shimmering with power.
The ground begins to shake. Ivan’s song grows louder.
The wolves leap toward us. Huge chunks of ice cascade down on top of them, sealing the mouth of the cave and plunging us into utter darkness. The wolves howl and shriek; I can hear them, digging.
Fear paralyzes me. “We’re trapped.”
“No, we’re not. These are the ice caves. We just have to find a path through them. Come on.”
We stumble together into the blackness. I try not to hear the sound of the wolves’ continued digging; I try not to give in to the horror of the dark. Ivan is solid beside me. Certain.
“Do you still have that tent pole?” he asks.
I hand him my makeshift sword and he snaps it in two, singing a fragment of his earlier song. Flame sparks out of nothing, catching each half of the wooden pole. He gives me one and keeps the other for himself, a smile touching his lips.
I peer at Ivan strangely but he avoids my gaze. For the first time in our weeks-long journey, I realize there is more to him than meets the eye.
We walk quickly, my ears straining always to hear sound of the wolves’ pursuit behind us. The cavern is immense, sprawling out in an impossible maze of interconnected caves, all of them beautiful, as if carved by a fairy artist with a magical knife. Strange ice formations overarch our heads like the meringue peaks that top Donia’s pies. Ice runs constant beneath our feet, and I wonder if it is ever warm enough to melt into a raging river. Magic shivers in every fiber of the caverns; I sense it all around me.
I sense it in Ivan, too. He walks before me, holding his torch high, and I almost feel like we’re dancing in the strange shadows his light casts. I begin to imagine weareshadows, that we died in the ice last night and are journeying to the afterlife.
“Are these caverns natural?” I ask him, to distract myself from the howls echoing distantly behind us.
He casts a glance back at me. “The North Wind made them.”
“Why?”
His eyes look deep and dark, and suddenly very ancient. “To keep the Wolf Queen’s court guarded from the world outside. We are close now, Echo. Very close.”
The howling grows louder, and I don’t think I imagine the sound of claws clacking against the ice. I droop with weariness, and Ivan touches my arm. “Stop and rest awhile. I will stand watch.”
“But the wolves—”
“I will stand watch,” he repeats.
I am far too tired to argue with him further, so I lay my head down on my coat, and slip into dark dreams.
Mokosh watches me from the wood, sipping tea from a chipped china cup. Her face is drawn and sad. “Time is almost up, Echo. My mother will prevail, and your journey will be for nothing. You should not have come.”
“Why are you doing this?” I whisper. “I thought you were my friend.”
“Iamyour friend, Echo. I didn’t mean to be. But I grew fond of our adventures together—I grew fond of you. That’s why I’m trying to warn you. I cannot cross my mother. I made a deal with her, to watch you, to make sure you didn’t get too close to the truth. You have to turn back. It is the only way.”
“I’m coming to get Hal.”
“You can’t free him. He made a deal with the Queen of the Wood. Nothing can break that.”
Coldness sears through me. “The old magic can.”
The dream shifts. The Wolf Queen’s laughter pours through the dark, and Hal stands suddenly before me in a shaft of moonlight. But it is not the Hal I know. His mouth twists with cruelty. He draws a dagger and slices into my face. Blood pours hot. Pain burns. But understanding runs deep.
I know how to free him.
