Nora Varn's Arc

Chapter 2 of 5

Nora reached the platform as the ice groaned beneath it. Not the sound of the drill. Something deeper. The collectors kept working, their equipment loud enough to drown out what the ice was saying. She moved closer, watching the drill pierce down through the extraction point. Then the ice split. A crack raced outward from the drilling site, wide as her arm, and the platform lurched. The collectors shouted and pulled their equipment back. Nora dropped to her knees at the edge and looked down into the crevasse. Blue ice walls fell away into darkness, jagged and crystalline where the fracture had torn through. Thirty feet down, something gleamed. The artifact sat in a second chamber, exposed by the break but too far below for their drill to pivot. The collectors had brought machines that could only reach straight down. Nora pulled the grappling hook from her pack and tested its weight. She could descend. They couldn't follow. The ice had given her what their equipment never would. She didn't wait for them to regroup. Nora anchored the hook to the platform's base and dropped the chain into the crevasse. The metal rang against ice as it unspooled. She swung her legs over the edge and started down, boots finding purchase on the jagged walls. Above her, voices rose in argument. Someone shouted for rope. By the time they figured out how to follow, she'd be back up with the artifact in hand. The chamber below opened wider as she descended, blue light filtering through ice centuries old. Her fingers burned cold on the chain but she didn't slow. Eleven years had taught her to listen when the ice spoke. Today it had spoken for her. Her boots hit the chamber floor and she released the chain. The artifact lay ten feet away, partially embedded in the wall. Carved bone, intricate and intact. She took three steps toward it before the ice cracked again. The sound came from above and behind, sharp as a rifle shot. Nora turned in time to see the crevasse mouth narrow. The split was closing. Tons of ice shifting as the platform's weight settled. She had maybe seconds before the gap sealed completely and trapped her below with no way out. The artifact or her life. The choice arrived with the same cold clarity the ice always gave her. Nora grabbed the chain and pulled herself up, hand over hand, arms screaming. She didn't look back at what she was leaving behind. The ice had spoken. This time she'd chosen to listen to the warning instead of the promise.