The explosion didn't sound like fire. In the high, thin air of the Ridge, it sounded like a thousand glass bells shattering at once. The "Thermal Shock"—the violent collision of Elara’s black ice and the Sun-Core’s golden fire—hadn't leveled the mountain. It had paralyzed it.
Elara lay on the edge of the crater, her lungs screaming for air that was now thick with the scent of ozone and ancient salt. Her incandescent white hair was matted with soot, and the black "Siren-scales" on her arms were flaking away, leaving her skin raw and weeping.
She dragged herself to the precipice.
Below her, where the Sunken Lake had once shimmered, there was only a vast, silent sea of Solid Amber. The explosion had been flash-frozen in a dome of translucent, golden glass. Inside, the pillars of the Embass
