Page 120 of Burning Ice
“Kylix! Answer me!” he shouted into the roar.
The pressure shift flattened his ears. Ozone bit his tongue. Static prickled along the edge of every sound.
A soldier stumbled past with half a mask, coughing blood into his glove. The splash steamed where it hit the floor.
“Hold!” another voice yelled, lost to the crash of steel.
Mirel ducked as a pipe burst, scalding water cutting the smoke into sheets. Heat washed through the corridor like breath from a furnace.
He pressed his palm to the wall. Frost spread beneath it, thin and shaking. “I’m coming,” he said, voice raw.
The city’s heartbeat lived inside the noise, unwilling to die.
Pipes vented scalding air. Every sound merged into a single groan.
Pushing up, he found the floor tilting. He coughed, tasting metal and ash. Red strobes pulsed through the haze as a broken mechanical voice crackled overhead, repeating evacuation codes no one could hear. Frost trembled over his palms, curling outward in weak spirals. The bond hummed somewhere inside his skull. The hum steadied him, proof the link had survived the blast, thin but alive.
Kylix.
The thought hit like a blade of light. Panic followed. The last thing he had seen was fire swallowing the space where Kylix had stood. He couldn’t sense him clearly now, only static and the fading echo of his voice.
He pushed to his feet. The floor tilted beneath him. Sound returned in layers. The crack of settling stone. The hiss of broken vents. The distant whine of alarms. Figures moved through the haze, half-silhouettes staggering toward the stairwell. Luminary jackets flashed among the smoke. A medic dragged someone by the shoulders.
The fire still painted the world red. It hadn’t ended, it had only changed shape.
Helianth’s voice cut through the chaos, steady and hard. “It’s rigged! They’ve wired the core! Everyone out, now! Daven, hold Ryneth and keep him breathing!”
Mirel turned toward the sound. The static glow from Ryneth’s body reflected in the drifting smoke as a faint blue light, and his own frost flared along his arms in response. He glimpsed Daven through the haze, Ryneth motionless in his hold, the boy’s skin lit faintly by a blue flicker of static.
“Repeat, retreat!” Helianth’s command echoed above the din.
The wind from the spinning rotors buffeted Mirel’s face, lifting ash and debris from the floor. Every breath tasted of metal and smoke. Luminary helicopters thundered outside, their searchlights slicing through the broken walls.
They were already inbound. Someone had seen this.
Mirel’s chest heaved. The only name he wanted to hear didn’t come.
“Kylix!” he shouted, but his voice broke apart in the noise. No answer came. Only the roar of gas igniting somewhere below.
Then he saw it, the west wing collapsing in on itself, a column of flame rising through the wreckage. Through the storm of fire,Kylix lay pinned beneath a fallen beam, one arm raised to shield his face.
Panic cleared everything else from his mind. Mirel ran.
Helianth shouted after him. “Mirel, no! The whole thing’s going?—”
He didn’t listen.
“Kylix!” His voice cracked. “Hold on, I’m coming!”
“Answer me.”
“I am answering,” came back through the fire. “Don’t you dare die, Mirel.”
From across the inferno came Kylix’s shout, raw and furious. “Don’t!” But it was already too late.
Heat pressed against him. The corridor burned from wall to wall. Every breath tasted of smoke. There was no path that wouldn’t kill him. Instinct rose faster than fear. He braced both hands. Cold filled the air and pushed the fire back.
The effort tore through him. Pain spiked behind his eyes as the frost carved its way out. Ice cracked down his spine while his pulse echoed slow. Power drained through every nerve. His skin tightened. His breath turned to fog. Both eyes turned pale as frost. For an instant everything inside him went silent. The stillness held against the chaos surrounding him. Veins shimmered blue beneath his skin, and the air around him dropped in temperature until every inhale scraped his lungs.
