Elaria Silverstan's Arc

Chapter 17 of 22

The track dropped between the snowbanks and ended at a wall of white. Elaria stopped and lifted the orb. The Covered Ruins path ran into a slope of packed snow and ice that filled the passage from wall to wall. She could see no doorway, no arrow, no sign of where the road went from here. She set the orb on a flat stone and pulled a small glass timer from her coat. She turned it once and watched the fine snow inside begin to drift down. When the top bulb was empty, Lia's cradle would be dry. Elaria walked the width of the drift and pressed her palm against it in three places. The ice under the snow was solid. She could not dig through in time. She stepped back and looked at the walls on either side. The left wall was blank stone. The right wall showed a corner of something dark under the drift, low to the ground. She knelt and brushed the snow away with her sleeve. A carved pillar stood half-buried against the wall. Ice crusted its edges. The face of it showed a long blue mark shaped like a downward blade, ringed by a border of small looping lines. Elaria wiped more snow from the base. The blade pointed down and to the left. She looked at the drift again. The blade did not point along the corridor. It pointed into the left wall, low, near the floor. She checked the timer. A third of the snow had fallen. She knelt at the base of the left wall and pushed her hand into the drift where the blade aimed. Her fingers met packed snow, then air. She dug with both hands. The snow gave way into a low gap under the wall, wide enough to crawl through. Cold air moved against her face from the other side. Elaria unhooked the cradle from her chest and checked Lia. The ice figure was still whole. The snow blanket at her chest was wet through on one side. She refastened the cradle, tucked it against her ribs, and pushed the orb ahead of her through the gap. Then she went in on her elbows, keeping her body high off the cradle. The tunnel ran three body-lengths and opened. She stood up in a wide hall. The orb's light climbed panes of clear crystal set in slender frames, rising to a peaked roof above her. A pale road of the same crystal ran from her feet into the dark ahead. The crystal road. She pulled the timer from her coat. Half the snow was gone. She lifted the cradle, stepped onto the road, and started to run.