UNDER THE ICE
819 Words
Chapter 12:
Ice cracked.
Raina heard it.
Didn’t flinch.
Not this time.
Eli’s fire flared in his palm.
“Something’s under us,” he hissed.
The words came out white and desperate.
Raina was already moving.
Sword out. Boots sliding on slick ice.
Below them, the water bulged.
Black. Wrong.
It didn’t freeze like the rest.
It rose.
The surface split open with a sound like bone breaking.
Something came up fast. Too fast.
No face. No eyes. Only cold shaped like claws.
It struck first.
Raina blocked. Steel screamed against nothing.
The cold bit through her blade and into her arm.
Pain. Sharp. Immediate.
Eli threw fire.
The flames hit and died.
Died like they were nothing.
The thing lunged for him.
Raina moved.
She slammed into Eli’s side.
Sent him skidding across the ice.
Took the hit on her shoulder instead.
Cold exploded through her.
Not pain. Erasure.
Her arm went dead in one breath.
“Raina!” Eli was on his feet again.
Fire in both hands now. Desperate. Wild.
He threw it in a wall between them.
The thing walked through it.
Flames bent around it like wind around stone.
It didn’t burn. It didn’t slow.
Raina forced her numb fingers to close on her sword.
“Behind you!” she shouted.
Eli spun. Too late.
A claw of ice and shadow came down.
Raina lunged. Caught it with her blade.
The impact knocked her to her knees.
The ice under them shattered.
Cracks racing out in every direction.
They were standing on a circle that was dying.
“Move!” Eli grabbed her good arm.
Pulled her up. Pulled her back.
The thing followed. Always following.
It didn’t make sound when it moved.
That was worse than roaring.
Silence meant it didn’t need to try.
Raina’s breath came hard and fast.
Her bad arm hung useless at her side.
Cold spreading from the shoulder down her chest.
She remembered Drayce.
“Hold the ridge.”
She’d held it until it broke.
This would be no different.
She wouldn’t fall back.
Not while Eli was still standing.
The thing reared up.
Water and darkness pouring off it.
It opened—not a mouth, just absence.
And cold poured out.
Raina raised her sword.
Eli threw fire again.
This time it didn’t die right away.
It held. A line of orange and heat.
For three seconds. Four.
Long enough.
Raina charged.
No plan. Just forward.
Steel met the thing’s center.
Where there should have been flesh.
Where there should have been blood.
There was only cold.
Deeper than a grave.
Older than names.
It hit her back.
Sent her flying.
She hit the ice hard and slid.
World spun.
Ice bit her face.
Eli was screaming.
He was between her and it now.
Burning. Flames wrapping his whole body.
Burning himself to make more light.
“Stay down!” he yelled.
The thing turned to him.
Curious. Patient. Unbothered.
Raina forced herself up.
One arm. One leg. Everything numb.
She staggered forward anyway.
Kael’s laugh echoed in her head.
Drayce’s voice: “Come home.”
Not yet. Not while Eli was burning.
She drove her sword in from behind.
Straight through the center of it.
Where heart would be if it had one.
The thing froze.
Not ice. Stopped.
For half a heartbeat.
Then it shattered.
Like glass. Like winter breaking.
Into a thousand pieces of black water and cold.
The pieces fell.
Sizzled where Eli’s fire touched them.
Then vanished.
Silence crashed down after.
Heavy. Complete.
Raina dropped to her knees.
Her sword clattered from numb fingers.
Eli’s fire went out.
All at once. Like a snuffed candle.
He dropped beside her.
Hands on her face.
“Stay. Stay with me.”
Raina tried to answer.
Couldn’t find the words.
Couldn’t find the air.
Cold had her now.
Deep in her chest.
Spreading slow and patient.
She thought of Drayce.
Whispering her name in the dark.
Holding a door open she couldn’t walk through.
She thought of Kael.
Telling that stupid story about the horse.
She almost smiled.
Eli held her tight.
Rocked her like she was light.
Like she was something he could keep.
“Please,” he whispered.
Once. Only once.
Raina closed her eyes.
Breathing slowed.
Then less.
Then stopped.
No drama.
No last speech.
Just quiet.
Eli didn’t let go.
Not for a long time.
Even after the cold took him too.
Above them, wind moved over empty stone.
Far south, Drayce sat in darkness.
Tracing “Survivors unconfirmed” until ink blurred.
He whispered three names.
Kael. Raina. Eli.
One didn’t answer tonight.
But he kept the door open.
Because waiting was faith.
And faith was all he had left.
The ice kept its secret.
The North kept what it took.
But Raina had fought.
She hadn’t fallen back.
She’d stood. She’d struck.
And for three seconds, she’d won.
- Writer
