The pup stopped, too. It froze mid-wriggle, its ears snapping up, its violet eyes fixed on the ground beneath its paws. A second later, a sound rose from the earth—not a noise, but a deep, tectonic vibration that Elissa felt in her teeth.
"What was that?" Elissa asked, her smile vanishing.
The ground gave a violent lurch, nearly throwing her. Alistair's hand snapped out, catching her arm, but Elissa didn't move toward him yet. Her eyes flew to the pup, who was skidding on the slick ice, its tiny legs splaying as a crack began to spider-web across the floor of the valley.
"Elissa, move!" Alistair roared.
"The pup!" she cried. As the earth heaved again, Elissa didn't run for the treeline. She lunged toward the fissure, diving into the snow and scooping the terrified, yelping creature into her arms. She tucked the ball of white fur tightly against her chest, shielding its head with her cloak.
"Got you," she whispered, her voice trembling.
"Elissa, now!" Alistair was there in two strides. He didn't have time to argue. He grabbed her by the waist just as a massive section of the sapphire ice above them groaned and sheered off the cliff face.
The earthquake wasn't a tremor; it was the mountain trying to shed its skin.
"Dante! Vane! The horses!" Alistair's voice cut through the thunder of falling ice. He didn't let go of Elissa. With her clutching the pup and him clutching her, they sprinted toward the rocky overhang at the edge of the clearing.
Massive shards of sapphire ice shattered against the cliffs, sending a deadly rain of glass-sharp fragments down. One shard, the size of a dinner table, slammed into the snow just inches from Elissa's heels.
"Don't look back!" Alistair commanded.
The earth split again, a jagged ravine opening between them and the path where the horses had been tethered. Elissa stumbled, the weight of the pup shifting her balance, but Alistair's arm was a band of iron, hoisting her upward and practically carrying her the last few yards into the mouth of a shallow cave.
He spun her around, pinning her against the stone wall and throwing his heavy, fur-lined cloak over both of them just as the main shelf of the Falls collapsed.
The sound was deafening. The world vanished into a white-out of ice-dust and snow. Elissa buried her face in Alistair's chest, her arms locked around the shivering pup, while Alistair braced his body against the gale-force shockwave of the avalanche.
For a long, suffocating minute, there was only the sound of the world ending.
Then, a heavy, muffled silence fell.
Alistair slowly lifted his head. His black hair was white with frost, and his breathing was ragged. He looked down at Elissa, his luminous blue eyes searching hers with a raw, terrifying intensity.
"Are you hurt?" he rasped. His hands moved to her shoulders, checking for wounds with a frantic energy he usually kept hidden behind his marble mask.
"I'm... I'm okay," Elissa gasped, her heart hammering. She loosened her grip slightly, and a small, white head popped out from her cloak. The pup let out a tiny, shaky sneeze, its violet eyes wide but safe. "He's okay too."
Alistair stared at the pup, then at Elissa. A strange, twisted shadow of a laugh escaped his throat—a sound of pure, adrenaline-fueled relief. "You almost died for a Frost-Walker, Elissa. You are the most infuriating woman I have ever met."
"He was scared," she defended, her voice small.
Alistair's expression softened, and for a second, he leaned his forehead against hers.
"Humm.." he just hummed in response.
He turned to look out at the mouth of the cave. His face went stone-cold again. The valley was gone. A wall of sapphire ice and snow now blocked the entrance, leaving only a small, jagged hole for light. The trail, the horses, and his siblings were nowhere to be seen.
"We're trapped," Alistair muttered.
The silence following the avalanche was heavy, like a physical weight pressing against the stone walls of the small cave. The only sound was the jagged, frantic breathing of three living things huddled in the dark.
The air in the cave had plummeted to a temperature that turned every breath into a thick cloud of silver. Elissa shivered violently, her fingers still locked around the pup. The small creature had stopped yapping and was now tucked into the crook of her neck, its tiny body vibrating with cold.
Alistair stood at the mouth of the cave, his silhouette a dark blot against the wall of sapphire ice that had sealed them in. He slammed his fist against the frozen barrier, the sound a dull, useless thud.
"Alistair, stop," Elissa whispered, her teeth chattering. "You'll cause another collapse."
"I am not staying in this cage while you freeze," he growled, his luminous blue eyes glowing with a desperate, restless light. He raised his sword hilt, preparing to strike the ice with the pommel, when a muffled, rhythmic thump echoed from the other side.
"Alistair! Don't you dare touch that wall!"
The voice was distant, muffled by tons of snow, but unmistakably Dante's.
Alistair froze, his hand inches from the ice. "Dante? Are you alive?"
"Barely!" Vane's voice drifted in, sounding uncharacteristically strained. "Kestrel is fine, but the horses are halfway to the next valley. If you break that ice from the inside, the whole shelf will shift and bury us all. Stay put. We're digging."
Alistair let out a breath he seemed to have been holding for centuries. He leaned his forehead against the cold ice for a second, his shoulders finally dropping. "Hurry," he commanded, though the ice stripped the authority from his voice. "The Princess is freezing."
He turned back to the shadows of the cave. Elissa was huddled in the corner, her face pale, her lips tinged with a frightening shade of blue. Without a word, Alistair walked over and dropped to the stone floor beside her.
"Come here," he said. It wasn't a suggestion.
"I'm fine, Alistair, I just—"