The first real contraction hit like the mountain deciding to rearrange itself from the inside out, and Akira's response was to freeze everything within a thirty-foot radius, including Liam's left eyebrow.
"Irniq anerniqlu katiqatiqtut!" she snarled, ancient Inuktut flowing like arctic wind through the medical wing. The ice and the spirit are fighting! The words carried meanings that English couldn't touch—not just pain, but the fundamental wrongness of bodies doing things that felt like splitting apart while staying together.
"Breathe, beautiful," Liam said, though his voice carried the particular strain of a man whose eyebrow was currently a small glacier. "Remember the breathing exercises we—"
"Aullartit!" Go away! The command came with another wave of ice that crept up the walls like
