Only a little above freezing, but just enough to keep this path open.’
Zole resumed their descent. The shaft was not vertical but slanted with the flow of the ice. Half a dozen times they passed older shafts that had once served as vents but had been drawn too far by the glacier, forcing the heat to create a new escape.
Time lost meaning: repetition stole it away.
When Zole finally dropped a foot or so and landed on raw rock Nona started with shock as if waking from a dream.
‘Where are we?’
‘A temple of the Missing once stood here.’ Zole untied the rope that bound Nona to her. Nona staggered back, almost tripping on the uneven floor, her limbs unresponsive, chest aching.
They had descended the wall of a low-roofed ice cavern with a floor of bare stone. Where the rock lifted it lay scored all across with parallel lines, wounds gouged by the slow passage of glaciers.
Nona took several more steps back, eager to put some distance between herself and the shipheart.
‘Stay close.’ Zole reached out to restrain her. ‘The klaulathu here are many and they are strong.’
‘So, where is this marvel?’ Nona looked around and saw nothing but the dark. The klaulathu’s hatred needled out at her, ancient and hungry.
‘Here,’ Zole said. ‘Where else would it be but beneath the passage its heat has wrought?’
Nona turned and saw what Zole was pointing at. A huge ring lying where the rock dipped. It was three yards across, its perimeter a foot thick and two feet wide. The flat surface had been marked with sigils unlike any Nona had ever seen. Their fierce potential screamed into her eyes, twisting the world around them.
The ring wasn’t bedded in the ground. In places Nona could have slipped an arm between the peculiar crystalline metal and the bedrock beneath.
‘I think …’ Nona stepped closer to the artefact, unable to look away, her gaze anchored by the sigils. ‘Have I seen this before?’
‘I do not know. Have you been to the emperor’s palace?’
‘No.’ Of course she hadn’t been to the palace. She was Nona Grey. A peasant child.
‘That is unfortunate. If you had seen that one then it would have marked you and helped draw you to it. It is unlikely that you have seen another. Although the ice-speakers say that the Missing fashioned one thousand and twenty-four of them and set each within an Ark.’
Nona stood beside the ring now, her hand extended towards it, fingers tingling with the desire to touch the water-beaded metal. ‘What does it do?’
‘It will take you to another such ring. As if you had simply stepped between them.’ Zole joined her and the shipheart’s pressure started the voices chattering again, down in the depths of Nona’s own darkness. ‘Sherzal showed me a drawing of another such ring that stands in her brother’s palace. It lies within the Ark but not within the inner sanctum.’
‘You want us to go to Crucical’s palace?’ Nona raised her eyebrows at the thought of the reception they would get.
‘No.’ Zole gestured for Nona to step into the circle. ‘I want you to go there.’
‘But … me? Alone?’ Nona shook her head at the madness. ‘You’re coming too.’
‘No.’
‘But … what would you do here?’ Nona waved an arm at the cavern. ‘This is crazy.’
‘There are things I need to do on the ice.’ Zole met Nona’s stare. Her face, lit from beneath with violet light, was free of emotion.
‘Things?’ Nona shook her head. ‘No! You belong at Sweet Mercy with us. With your sisters. With me.’
‘I would like to go with you, Nona Grey.’
‘Well, come on then!’
‘But I cannot. I made a promise.’
Nona reached for Zole’s hand. ‘Break it.’ She stepped backwards into the ring hauling on Zole’s arm to bring the girl with her. Zole resisted, bracing a foot against the outside of the ring.
‘I cannot.’
Nona released Zole’s arm and took a step back. ‘It doesn’t matter!’ A bitter laugh burst from her. ‘It doesn’t work.’ She laughed again, amazed at herself for ever believing that it would. A ring that could spit a person hundreds of miles across the world!
‘It requires the power of an Old Stone.’ Zole lifted the shipheart. ‘You must carry it through with you.’
‘And leave you in this place! At the bottom of a hole two miles deep? Now I know you’re crazy. The shipheart has broken your mind.’
‘You must focus on the distance and direction that you wish to travel.’ Zole carried on as if Nona hadn’t spoken. ‘It