Alright. Okay. Break it down, Bash.
Abel's instructions rang through his head as Sebastian stood, stuck in a numb daze, staring up at this supposed watchtower that was currently lost behind a thick clump of clouds.
First things first, thought his inner Abel voice, Start climbing. You made it up Mount Halum from Eilibir, so you can do this part, at least.
As for the other part, the part where he'd have to somehow drag a body from the frozen depths of a pond—Don't think about that yet. Just climb.
Sebastian jerked forward, one foot in front of the other. The sight of Astrid, who was already near the first switchback, propelled him upwards. Sebastian recalled reading about The Watchtower of Muir years ago; it was a fort that had been built as high as possible into the atmosphere. It had always seemed pointless to him for such a fort would only be beneficial on a clear day. He'd always wondered why someone would bother building such a useless lookout point, but now knowing some of the truth, that air and light Elementi had truly existed, Sebastian guessed it made more sense.
The noise of the crowd quickly fell away, lost in the rustle of the chilled branches and the chirps of animals scuttling around in the snow.
Even as he continued to climb, the path getting steeper and more wild, it still wasn't possible to see the tower. He knew from his studies that it stood at the icy top of the peak on a small treacherous outcrop that few were agile enough to reach.
Unless one could manipulate the elements.
Look at you, he imagined Abel jesting him, You're a proper mystic now.
Well, he wasn't about to murder anyone with his skepticism now, was he?
For the most part, the layers of snow were packed down tightly along the path upwards. It provided a stable ground to walk upon, at least. However, every now and then, if Sebastian took a wrong step, his foot would sink through the earth, falling nearly to his hip in snow. His calves already burned, breaths labored. Astrid had all but disappeared from his view.
"How are you moving so fast?"
He grasped at the stitch in his side as he pulled himself out of yet another snowy, icy sinkhole.
He cupped his hand over his eyes and stared up. A sudden strong bout of wind blew through the forest, breaking the cloud coverage just long enough for him to make out what lay beyond it. The sun brushed the top of his head, but the sight it revealed dismayed him. There was still so much ground left to cover that he wasn't sure he'd even make it to the peak by dawn, let alone back down.
A short scream broke through the silence. It broke off as quickly as it had started. Sebastian jumped and then grunted as his left leg sank into a mound of snow.
Something fell through the trees, big enough to snap branches. A flock of birds squawked angrily from up ahead as they erupted into frightened flight.
Sebastian froze, one gloved hand braced against the icy ground, another pressing into his accelerating pulse.
What in the name of the seven realms had caused that?
Not daring to breathe—because what if it had been a ravenous black bear or a predatory mountain lion that had made those sounds?—Sebastian scanned his surroundings.
The scream had sounded human.
"Astrid?"
He struggled to his feet. Around him, he could see nothing but rocks hidden beneath layers of snow and ice and trees standing now still. The wind had stopped.
What if Astrid had been hurt?
Abel would insist he shouldn't care, but he found that he did.
Regardless, he had to go up.
Eventually, the wooded path opened to a small, logged shack with its front door hanging off its hinges. It was a dead-end. A solid place for an injured person to seek refuge. Sebastian slowed, gasping to catch his breath. He turned on the spot, searching these new, empty surroundings. Nothing moved. Beside the dilapidated cabin, there lay a set of snow-covered rails. Curious, Sebastian followed the tracks around the back of the shack and came across a rusted tram, only large enough for one or two people. The railed tracks led up the mountain where there wasn't a walking path. Almost to the top.
Sebastian's heart leapt. He slipped and slid towards the tram. He had read about such machines and how they worked. In theory, the mechanisms were rather simple: an engine powered by steam that would expand the pistons and power it up the mountain.
And what was steam but water? His fingers stretched reflexively.
"For the record, I thought of that first."
The voice startled Sebastian. He slipped on the icy rails and fell, spinning on his backside to find Astrid leaning against a broken tree trunk.
"You screamed."
It was the first thing he thought of saying upon seeing her. If he was more adept at such social interactions, he probably should have asked her if she was alright. It was what he had meant, anyways. She had her left leg stretched out in front of her. Pine needles and sticks littered the snow in a near perfect circle around where she sat. A branch protruded from the torn sleeve of her snowsuit.
"What happened to you? Are you alright?"
She winced as she tried to stand, bracing a hand against the wide trunk of the tree. "I'm—fine."
"You don't seem fine."
Astrid gritted her teeth but sank back to the ground, her left foot shaking as she reached for it. Sebastian knelt before her and carefully touched the side of her boot. "Is it your ankle?" His fingers drifted to the boot's buckle like they knew what to do. Which they didn't. Shouldn't. "May I?"
"Absolutely not! If it is broken, then it's swollen, and if you take that boot off, I'll never get it back on. I'm not about to risk losing an appendage to frostbite." She pushed his hand away, cheeks pink from pain or the cold, Sebastian wasn't sure. She scowled at him from beneath her heavy hood. "I told you. I'm fine. At least more fine than that mountain tram. Go ahead and analyze it, scholar. It won't run."
Scholar, indeed. If it was broken, perhaps he could fix it. The tram, not Astrid's ankle.
Sebastian looked back at the cart and went to where its engine should have been. The cavity was empty. Well, there would be no fixing that, which meant his plan of using Water's threads from the snow to steam it up as close to the watchtower as it could travel was officially kaput.
"Hate to say I told you so," Astrid muttered.
"What do you think happened to it? Why steal only the engine?"
"No one stole it."
Sebastian glanced back at her. "You sound so sure."
"Perhaps because I am." She waved a wrist around in the air indifferently. "I may have flung it. On accident, of course. Or, rather, Air flung it, to be more precise about such things."
He gaped at her. "Air flung it?" It was still hard to believe he lived in such a world where he said nonsense such as that. "So, by extension, you sabotaged my plan."
"Sabotaged our plan," she corrected. "Actually, it was mine first, as I've already stated." She gathered a mound of snow with her gloved hands and then propped her injured ankle up on it. "I did warn you about my pull on the elements when my cuff's removed. It can be...sporadic." She gestured towards that cabin. "It's up there, by the way."
Sebastian followed where she pointed, and, sure enough, a clump of metal sat atop the broken roof. At least the engine hadn't fallen through the splintered logs. Actually, perhaps that would have been better; they could have actually reached it.
"You can't...magic it down?"
"Well, I could," she said, "but I can't."
"Why not?"
Astrid snorted. "For the same reason I'm stuck here, Fisherboy. Do you honestly think I couldn't heal this myself? I'm actually pretty good at finding Spirit's threads, but that's beside the point. I went too hard, too fast." She wiggled her fingers at him. "I depleted my magic reserve."
"By tossing an engine?"
"By beating your arse up here! I've been stranded here for ages, waiting for my reserves to recharge! You're really quite slow. And then I lost control of Wind and fell a good few meters. Thus, here I am."
Well, that was something new. Apparently his control over the elements had an energy reserve. Good to know. On top of that, he now knew how she had moved so fast up the mountain; she must have been manipulating Air's threads to carry her on the wind.
It meant he wasn't so slow as she claimed, at least.
"So you cheated?" he asked. "We were told to only use the water element."
"I found a loophole," she corrected. "Water can only be used to retrieve our dead trophies. Nothing was said about how we chose to get up there."
"Right." Sebastian's temples ached. It didn't help that the air was thinner up here. "So, you can't get the engine down from the roof?"
"You're a smart man, Seabass."
Ignoring her, Sebastian turned his head up towards the sky. The clouds were getting darker, not from precipitation but from the darkening sky beyond it. Evening was fast approaching. Sebastian raked his brain for a solution other than the obvious one because he hadn't practiced enough, could very well hurt himself or Astrid, but there was no other option.
He caught her gaze. "I haven't depleted my reserves."
Astrid shook her head vehemently. "No way in Hel's Abyss am I letting you anywhere near my ankle. Have you ever even practiced with Soul before? But of course you haven't. You claim to only be some poor, naive orphan from Eilibir." She rolled her eyes. "So, let me inform you: You could end up sealing one of my arteries, cutting off my foot's blood supply, and then I'd be heading for an amputation. Or a grave. Of which neither one I'm fond, to be clear."
Sebastian sighed, tugging at the fingers of his gloves. He pulled them off, the cold air stinging them immediately. "I meant the engine. I can get it down unless, of course, you're afraid I'll drop it directly onto your ankle once I have hold of it."
When he smirked at her, she huffed. "Please stop looking so pleased with your own joke mediocrity. It's off-putting on you." She braced her chin on the bent knee of her good leg and peered up at him. "Come on, then. What's this grandiose plan of yours that hopefully won't get me killed?"
He contemplated the roof. It wasn't that far from the ground. Maybe about five meters. "Well, what would you do?"
Astrid wagged her finger at him. "Absolutely not. It's been forbidden to help each other, remember?"
In that case, perhaps he'd leave her here once he got the engine running.
His palms were sweaty, despite the freezing temperatures. He wiped them against his snowsuit and regarded the snow-covered cabin. Somehow, he was going to have to get up there.
"I'm only confident with Water," he muttered, splaying his fingers. It was easier, this time, to see the ripples in the threads exuding from the layers of ice and snow atop the roof. They tickled his fingertips. "I don't suppose people like us can walk on water."
"I've been walking on snow my entire life, which, in case you've forgotten, is nothing more than frozen water, so who's to say you can't? Technically you and I are standing on water right now."
Sebastian glanced back at her. "You're sitting."
"Semantics," she said. "Now, get on with it. My backside is nearly a glacier, and I can practically hear the gears of your brain whirring, so just do it and be done with it before I throw a cabbage at you."
A short laugh escaped him. "You're a trained Iced Guard, and you would threaten me with a cabbage?"
Her cheeks flushed. "I heard they grow in these parts."
"No, they don't—ow!" Something prickly bounced off his forehead. "What was that?"
"Nature's grenades." Astrid shrugged at him innocently, another pinecone already loaded in her fist. "For every time you fail, I'll launch another of these spiky menaces your way, and it won't always hit your face. I have rather impeccable aim, just so you know."
Sebastian dropped a hand from his stinging forehead and grumbled to himself, turning away from her and back to the dilapidated shack.
What'd I tell you? Abel's voice said in his ear. A raving bitch.
A small grin flickered across his cold lips. He imagined Abel down in the valley, watching him. Could she see him? Could others? Watching as the two of them wasted time throwing words and pinecones at each other. The sun was quickly setting, drooping to the west, and Queen Davina expected them back by dawn.
Sebastian's stomach flopped at that thought.
Abel was only safe in the fortress as long as he performed in her tournament.
His next breath lodged in his throat. Don't think, Bash. This would have to work. The threads swam to him slowly at first, trudging their way through his self-doubt and worry. A thin one reached his thumb first, wrapping around his nail and sending relief down his arm and into his chest. Others followed after it, twirling between his knuckles. Sebastian trailed Water's rippling threads to where it connected to individual water compounds within the snow.
Picturing what he wanted, he closed his eyes and pulled.
When Astrid didn't assault him with nature's grenades, Sebastian held his breath and opened his eyes.
A cube made of dirtied snow hovered a few centimeters off the ground. "By the Scribes, please let this work." He held up a foot and, holding his breath, he placed it on top of the block. He tugged on the threads tightly, willing the molecules to hold their shape before he lifted his other leg and stepped onto his snow-step.
It held his weight.
Sebastian bent his knees, testing it out with various degrees of pressure. When it still did not collapse, he stilled, reached out, and created another one.
"What's it like up there?" Astrid asked, her tone anything but impressed. She sounded rather bored. "Still as cold and desolate as it is down here?"
It was easy to ignore her, considering how entangled his concentration was on the threads before him. He was seven blocks up and nearly eye level with the roof before his vision wavered and his hold on the threads slipped. Bracing himself, he gathered them close once more, his breaths panting. He refused to look down from his perch atop a magically floating cube made of water. Though, he would most likely survive a fall from this height, but still! He could break an ankle, at the least, and then he and Astrid would truly be quite the incapacitated pair.
"You mentioned draining your reserves," he called to Astrid. "How long does that take, exactly?"
"A tad longer than this."
Well, that certainly didn't make Sebastian feel any better.
"No need to worry so much, Seabass. You're most likely winded from the physical exertion unless, of course, you run laps around the Halorian Library when Master Lambert isn't looking."
If he were solidly on the ground, he would throw a pinecone at her.
The last snow-step bobbled only slightly underneath him when he finally flung himself onto the roof. He landed in a wobbly crouch with a breathless oof on a thick wooden beam that was just visible beneath the mounds of fallen snow. It was, thankfully, intact. Sebastian sat back on his heels, patting the wood, grateful to be back on semi-solid ground. Just over the lip of the roof, his snow-steps remained even though his grasp on the element hadn't. The cubes floated up and down against the air.
"I did it." He laughed to himself, amazed. "I did that!"
"Men always inflate their egos too soon," Astrid sighed. "You still need to make it back down."
Forget a pinecone. He'd toss the whole damn engine onto her. Only needing to dodge one gaping hole in the roof's support, Sebastian approached the tram's steam engine. It wasn't large, but he guessed it would certainly be heavy. Thick metal rods and pistons stuck out from the main cylinder, which, though rusted, looked to be made from brass. A small dent on one of the piston's rods seemed to be the only damage it had sustained.
He swept some of the snow away from its edges to get better leverage to lift it. The snow around it was more icy, and he was thankful for the spikes on the bottom of his boots as he squatted beside it, reached his hands under it, and lifted it, bracing the weight against his chest.
Astrid watched him with a blank expression as he stepped off the last snow-step and plunked the engine down beside her. He wiped a trail of sweat from his brow, bracing his hands on his shaking thighs.
"Your turn."
Her lips twitched. "It hardly felt heavy when I threw it onto the roof."
Sebastian gaped at her. "You used magic when you threw it!"
She shrugged, a smile breaking across her expression. "Well, no one said you couldn't."
With a wave of her hand, a gust of wind pushed back Sebastian's hood and then lifted the forty kilo engine like an invisible clawed machine. It flew through the air at an alarming, out-of-control speed before falling into the tram's empty cavity with a clatter.
Sebastian spluttered at her. "You said—your magic reserves—how?"
Astrid brushed off her hands. "It came back."
"You—" Sebastian looked between her and the engine that now rested inside the tram. "You flung it. Again! What if you had broken it?"
With a roll of her eyes, Astrid jumped to her feet and twirled before him.
"But...your ankle!" He reached out as if to catch her. "Be careful!"
"All healed." She preened, twisting her injured foot every which way to determine its range of movement. "By the Scribes, Fisherboy, no need to look at me like I'm some miracle worker. You took ages. Enough time for my reserves to replenish enough to at least do that."
He couldn't help but stare at her, mouth parted. "So, wait...You could have helped me lug that scrap of metal from the roof, and you chose not to? I could have fallen to my death!"
"But you didn't." She patted him on the shoulder as she pushed by him, her gait steady and strong once more. "Now, let's get this machine up and running, so I can win this damned task."
Sebastian scrambled after her, wondering if any of what had just happened had been real at all.
- - -
I've always loved their interaction in this scene! How about you?
Thank you so much for making it this far with us! Can't wait to share what happens next...