Page 142 of While the Dark Remains
I see again the deadness creeping into Kallias’s eyes, the feeling of his lifeblood leaking warm onto my arm. My gut twists.
“So do we all,” I say.
It’s still dark when we come to the edge of the Sea of Bones. I hadn’t realized we had come north at all, let alone quite so far. Asvaldr jerks to a stop, and Ballast leaps down from his back. After a moment, I do the same.
The land plunges down into the frozen valley, where glaciers claw jagged fingers into the moonlit sky, or lie like the massive broken bones the Sea is named for, scattered across the brittle tundra and the frozen lake. The Sea is miles upon miles wide; I am not sure where we are on the southern edge of it, but we are enough in the middle that it appears to go on forever in three directions. And in any case, we have taken a detour we can’t afford.
“Why are we here, Ballast?” I ask uneasily.
But Ballast puts his hand on Asvaldr’s giant head and speaks into his ear.
A sudden sound like thunder shakes the earth beneath us.
It’s the rest of the animal army, not nearly as far behind as I thought, racing across the snow in a blur of hooves and claws, spotted fur and antlered heads, wide wings and fierce calls. They surge past us, their tangled scents strong in my nose, snow spraying up in our faces.
“We’ll catch up,” Ballast tells me.
Asvaldr turns around in a circle and flops down in the snow with a grunt. Ballast paces up to the edge of the Sea of Bones. I watch him, but I don’t follow.
“It occurs to me,” says Ballast without looking over his shoulder, “that if you felt threatened enough, your magic might unbind itself to save you.”
I blink at his shoulders, dread squeezing my insides. “What do you mean?”
His cloak whips about his ankles, the mingled light of the stars and the moon tracing him in silver. “Do you trust me, Brynja?”
The quiet longing in his words is enough to draw me to him; I step gingerly up to the edge of the Sea, heart thudding, sweat breaking out under my heavy coat. For a few long moments, I don’t look aside at him. I think of Vil, asking me to trust him outside the walls of Skógur, how I told him I did but it was already a lie. I trusted my father, who molded me into his willing sacrifice and sent me away to be devoured. I trusted my brother, my people. But I was nothing to them beyond a game piece, easily discarded when I was no longer of use.
But Ballast isn’t asking for something he hasn’t already freely given to me.
“I trust you,” I whisper. And I think that perhaps I trust myself, too.
Ballast looks at me. The jewel on his forehead shines. “Then jump,” he says.
I jerk backward, ice skittering from under my feet and tumbling into the glacier valley. This is very like the place Lilja fell to her death, the place that still haunts my dreams. “I can’t do that.”
“If you want to unlock your magic, I think you have to.”
I shake my head, terror pounding through me. “No.”
“Trust me.”
“You can’t ask me to jump into the Sea of Bones!”
“Your magic was strong.”
“I was a child, Ballast! I—I barely remember it.”
“Iremember it. You nearly brought the whole world down around us. Surely you can catch yourself if you fall.”
“Ican’t.”
He takes a step toward me and I back away, terror stitched into my soul.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he says quietly. “I would never hurt you.”
My throat hurts. “I know that, Bal.”
“Then trust me.” His voice breaks. “Try.”
