Ari was sick for days, so they had no choice but to stay in the crumbling fort. Sanna did what she could to make Ari as comfortable as possible, but she desperately wanted fire to make tea and hot soup, because she knew that would make Ari feel better.
"First we were surrounded by fire starrlings, and now when we need them, they're nowhere to be found," Sanna muttered to herself as she sorted through her pack of belongings, as if she would suddenly discover kindling for a fire.
Sigrún had gone hunting, while Warrah was sitting on the highest tower of the crumbling fort, staring out at the suns, which were hanging low in the sky. The dragon's long tail curled around the stone.
"Jinni," Sanna said suddenly, dropping the pack and looking up. "You're a fire tiger. You can make fire."
Jinni gave her a dubious look.
"I believe you know exactly what I'm talking about," Sanna said.
Jinni was curled up next to Ari. The tiger seemed to have a strange relationship with her. While she was like this - sick and sleeping - the tiger was protective of her. But when Ari was awake and talking, Jinni tended to stare distrustingly at her, as if he expected her to lash out at her.
Sanna pulled the little cooking pot from her bag and shoveled snow into it. Then she spent time gathering the smallest stones she could find from one fallen wall of the fort, and laid them in a circle. There was no wood to be found anywhere, but magic fire required no wood. The only problem was getting Jinni to cooperate.
"If you make a fire for me, I'll... brush your fur," Sanna said. She was already thinking how jealous Sigrún would be if she saw Sanna brushing Jinni's fur with her brush again.
Jinni huffed and closed his eyes again.
"Jinni," Sanna said. "If you make a fire, I'll..." she looked around for inspiration, but before she could make a decision, Sigrún returned. Sigrún lowered herself down next to Sanna and started cleaning her paws, which were bloody from whatever Sigrún had managed to hunt in this icy wasteland.
Jinni seemed annoyed by Sigrún's presence and wanted to show off. He got up and with a huff of breath, lit a fire in Sanna's makeshift firepit. Then the tiger pushed his way past Sigrún, out of the fort, and went out into the snow.
Sanna heated as much snow as she could gather for fresh water and then made tea, and as she was considering whether she could cook the biscuits in her pack with hot water to make some kind of vile soup, she looked up to see Jinni returning. He had a rabbit in his mouth, and he dropped it in front of Sanna with a look of satisfaction.
Sanna looked up at the tiger. "Oh you absolute show-off, Jinni. Look at you. See, Sigrún, why didn't you hunt anything for us?"
Sigrún was licking her paws, but she looked startled as she looked at the rabbit.
"I expect you never even considered it," Sanna said, grabbing the rabbit by its foot. "You've never had to hunt for me before. It would be a strange change in our dynamic, because I'm usually the one bringing you treats from the dinner table. It's been a long time since you've had to think for anyone but yourself, hasn't it, Sigrún? I don't blame you, of course. You know I feel precisely the same way."
Sanna had watched her father skinning moose and deer, and although she had never skinned or cooked a rabbit, she was determined not to be revolted by the task at hand.
Ari woke up to the smell of rabbit meat boiling in a stew. Sanna helped her to sit up and gave her tea. She saw Ari's hands shaking with the effort of holding a mug of tea, and she was scared she'd spill hot stew, so Sanna helped her with her spoon. Ari resisted momentarily, apparently embarrassed to be treated like a child, but eventually relented.
"We should keep going," Ari said firmly. "We need to find Lumi."
"We can't go anywhere while you're like this," Sanna said. "We'll stay put until you're better."
"I'm better," Ari said, but Sanna could hear it as a lie. Ari was stubborn.
"Just drink this," Sanna said. She had put her arm around Ari to help her into a seated position, and now she didn't let her go. She stayed with Ari leaning against her. It was comfortable.
How strange to think that this girl had once been a stranger, someone who appeared in their lives as little more than a servant, ready to attend to Katja with fresh bedding and cups of coffee. And now Sanna found herself holding a spoon to her mouth.
The fire burned happily in the pit, warming them as darkness enveloped the icelands once more, and the tiger and wolf arranged their bodies around the two girls to sleep, while the dragon watched from above.
The sound that woke them up was like nothing Sanna had ever heard, and in her half-asleep state she was certain it was the noise of the world splitting in two. The world was shaking. Their stone fortress seemed to be crumbling even more around them.
Warrah the dragon landed and let out a shrill cry as stones crashed to the ground around them.
Sanna stood up, and the first thing she noticed was the sky was red. It was still dark, and yet the sky glowed like it was on fire. The roaring in Sanna's ears was louder than anything she'd heard before, and the world was still shaking so hard that she found herself struggling to stand with balance.
"What is happening?"
Sanna turned to see Ari standing beside her.
"You shouldn't be standing," Sanna yelled over the cacophony of unrecognisable sound.
"I'm fine," Ari yelled back. "Are those fire bombs?"
Sanna glanced back at the fire on the horizon.
"Maybe," Sanna said, but she wasn't sure. "Get back in that corner - it's the most structurally sound part of this fort. I'm going to take Sigrún and see what's going on."
"You can't go alone!"
"I won't be alone," Sanna snapped. She didn't have time to have this conversation with Ari, but she was surprised that Ari would say "alone" when Sigrún would be with her. She was never alone when she was with Sigrún, but Ari didn't understand that. Ari considered kinnlings as something other.
She pulled herself up onto Sigrún's bare back, and Sigrún took off into the crumbling ruins of the sky.
The horizon was scorched, and the light seemed to be coming from where a jagged range of mountains on the horizon, silhouetted against the redness of the sky. Sanna could see bright red light on the mountains, and she considered what Ari had said. Fire bombs, like the ones the Fire Army had used in the war.
But the world was shaking.
"Volcano," Sanna said to her wolf. "That's a volcano."
It had been hundreds of years since there was a volcanic eruption in Norrlund, but the Norrlish people remembered them. There was lore passed down over generations, of stories of mountains that exploded in fire and lava, although no one alive had ever seen one.
The same could be said of Kakaio; there had not been a volcano in living memory. The only difference that Sanna knew was that volcanoes remained at the forefront of culture in the Fire Lands. The people revered volcanoes, and even said that fire tigers born in the shadow of a volcano were the most powerful.
Sanna had seen it with her own eyes - Tai had taken her to the volcano and shown her where steam erupted from the rocks. It meant, he said, that the volcano was alive, as if it had a heart and lungs and this was its breath. There were other volcanoes dotted across the Fire Lands that were equally as bursting with life.
Sanna heard a scream, and Sigrún instantly knew to turn in the sky and head back to the fort. What she saw made her throat close in panic, and Sanna couldn't even scream. The fort was collapsing. It looked like the world had opened up, a gaping mouth that wanted to swallow everything whole, and Ari was somewhere down there.
"Go, go, go!" Sanna was finally able to vocalise her thoughts, and Sigrún wasted no time.
They landed on ground that felt like it would collapse any minute. Sanna had never before experienced this feeling of the world crumbling beneath her, and it was horrifying.
Ari had managed to grab onto Warrah, and Warrah was gripping onto the crumbling wall of the fort while Ari clambered slowly onto his back. Sanna took a reckless second to grab a pack which contained a sleeping bag and supplies, because she knew that if by some slim chance they managed to survive these earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, they wouldn't survive out here without supplies.
Swinging the pack over her shoulder, Sanna pulled herself back onto her wolf. There was smoke or ash in the air now, and it was harder to see, but she caught a glimpse of Warrah's tail as he shot into the sky. She could see Jinni flying in the same direction. Sigrún required no instruction in following the other kinnlings up into the sky.
"It's a volcano!" Sanna yelled out to Ari when Sigrún drew up to Warrah in the air.
Ari twisted on Warrah's back and looked behind her. Her horrified expression glowed red in the light. But Sanna was distracted immediately by another explosion just in front of them. This time she couldn't help but scream as the ground seemed to erupt. Boiling liquid red rock erupted from the snow and ice.
"There's more of them," Sanna said. It seemed like everywhere she looked, from the horizon to the ground just below them, more volcanoes were erupting. It could only be the end of the world. She and Ari were going to die here. Everyone she knew, in Norrlund and Lombardia, must be dying too.
"Ari!" Sanna cried out.
If she was going to die, she was going to be with Ari.
x
this is where it starts to get intense.
thanks to those of you for voting on this chapter!
hope you're having a good day!
elle