Relic

Prologue

Eamon throws his axe into the ice above his head. He hits a perfect depression in the wall. Pulling up hard, he kicks the bear-claw toes of his climbing boots into the wall. He repeats the practiced motion, over and over. Like some kind of arctic cat, he scales the frozen Ring.

Each time he moves, he makes sure to insert an ice screw level with his waist and secure his rope to it. Just a precaution should he fall. Not that he ever has.

Bit by painstaking bit, the top of the Ring nears. Although he knows he shouldn’t, that it goes against the primary rule of ice climbing, Eamon can’t resist: he looks down at the hundreds of feet of sheer ice below.

Even in the dim moonlight, the vista makes him dizzy. The Ring, a near-perfect, mountainous circle of ice, stands at the center of this last remaining land above the seas, his home: New North. It makes the risk of climbing—punishable by exile into the Boundary lands—worthwhile. That, and the edge it will give him for the Testing.

He looks back up. Despite the cramps in his hands and calves, he smiles a little. Only a few feet left to the summit. Just one more swing of his axe, and he’ll be standing on the peak.

He drives his axe hard into a hollow. But he is too hasty. For the first time ever, he misreads the ice. The axe doesn’t hold. It slips out of the giant, slick wall.

Sliding backward, he plummets twelve feet. He bounces off sharp outcroppings that lacerate his skin. His descent is stopped only by a screw, his rope, and his harness. Dangling upside down in the frigid midnight air, hundreds of feet from the ground, he starts to pull himself up.

As he manages to right himself, he sees that his rope is frayed.

How, Eamon can’t imagine. He had made the rope himself with sealskin. He was certain of its strength. But the reason doesn’t matter. All that matters is how he’ll climb the remaining twenty feet with an injured body and a worthless rope.

He begins to unhook himself from his harness, and the slight pressure makes the rope unravel farther. Just before it snaps and yanks him down with it, he swings his axe into the ice. Shaking and bleeding, he clings to the face of the ice wall with only his axe and his bear-claw boots. He has no choice but to climb back up, this time creeping inch by inch.

Stupid. He should never have risked the Ring, no matter the possible advantage. He needs to win the Archon spot, to make sure he can act on what he’s learned, but he didn’t need to try the Ring. Pride and thirst for glory brought him to this place. He’d assumed the Testing would be the easy part, given his training and sure footing. The difficult part was to make sure that his Testing Chronicle secured him not only the Archon Laurels, but also the Chief Archon spot when his father’s term ends. But he forgot the rule drilled into him from infancy: don’t presume to know the ice and snow. Now he stands to die. That price is not worth what it will do to Eva; he won’t be around any longer to protect her. The only consolation is that, even if he lives, sharing the truth with New North might get him killed anyway.

He sees the summit. As he plans how he’ll hoist his damaged body over the lip, a silhouette of a figure appears against the backdrop of the moon. Instinct tells him to scale back down. The Ring-Guards and certain exile await him at the top. But he knows his only chance of survival is surrender.

“Over here,” he calls out.

The figure moves toward him, leans toward the edge, and stretches out a hand.

Eamon leaves his axe in the ice so he can reach. “Thank the Gods, you’re here.”

A hand clasps Eamon’s, and the figure’s face becomes clear.

“What are you doing out here?” Eamon asks, too confused to be frightened.

“I’m so sorry, Eamon. You were never meant to make it this far.”

The figure lets go. And Eamon falls from the Ring into the darkness.