Galen awoke to the unfamiliar, but not unpleasant, sensation of someone stroking his hair. In the liminal space between sleep and consciousness, his mind pieced together images made half of memory and half of dreams.
He lay in a luxurious bed, such as he'd enjoyed at the Haven, but in his own room in Dern. Strangest of all was the fact he was not alone in it but lay wrapped in arms that held him safe and warm.
A sigh of contentment escaped him, and he breathed in a scent that was not his own: a musky masculine spice that suggested both sensual strength and comforting security. A memory intruded: a stolen kiss so brief he'd hardly felt the brush of warm lips and the tickle of stubble against his own smooth skin; and another, given in the heat of rebellion against a fate he refused to accept as sealed. Two kisses, neither given nor received in harmony, but each a seed that promised lush harvests in seasons to come.
Drawn to wakefulness by such wandering thoughts, Galen opened his eyes and saw that while most was fantasy, one part of his dream was real. He still lay at the bottom of a deep crevasse, lost beneath the mountains somewhere, but he lay in Sevhalim's arms.
The other man watched him with keen gray eyes, his face mere inches from Galen's own, wearing a thoughtful, somber expression.
"You're awake," he said.
Galen frowned up at him. "I know."
The ghost of a smile touched Sev's lips, and his eyes brightened from gray to silver, lit by the luminescent lichen's pale gleam.
"You are a worker of miracles," he murmured, still absently stroking Galen's hair. "You saved my life."
Grimacing, Galen disentangled himself and sat up, though he immediately missed the warmth of Sev's embrace. "If I hadn't followed you, you wouldn't have needed saving."
"Untrue." Sev caught Galen's hand before he could turn away. "If not this, then something else would have befallen me. I'd have fallen victim to the barrowlings, or else been forced to use the Hand; and without you..." He touched the side of Galen's face.
Troubled by the slightly unfocused look in his eyes, Galen returned the gesture, feeling Sev's brow for signs of fever or shock, but detected neither unhealthy heat nor clammy chill. "How is your leg?" he asked.
Recovering himself, the natural guardedness returned to Sev's expression, and he withdrew his hand. "A little tender, as a freshly healed wound will be, but otherwise quite fine," he said. "What of yourself?"
"I'm not hurt," Galen assured him. "A little tired, but not as much as I expected to be. Perhaps I'm getting used to it."
"You did this?" Sev gestured at the eerie glow surrounding them.
"Not on purpose; not at first, anyway."
Sev got carefully to his feet with the heated boulder for support. The stone had cooled considerably, telling Galen they had slept for several hours, but still radiated a slight warmth. Sev laid his hands on it wonderingly. "And this as well? You are wonderfully resourceful."
Ignoring him, Galen stood and frowned as he surveyed the length of the crevasse. He wished there was something from which to fashion makeshift crutches, or a walking staff, at the very least, but there was nothing but rock and ice. "You really shouldn't walk just yet," he said, "but I suppose it can't be helped."
"No, it cannot," Sev agreed, "We should not linger here. The barrowlings did not follow us, and for that I am grateful, but I will be content not to learn the reason why they fear this place."
"Can we climb this?" Galen asked, studying the walls doubtfully. Some stretches looked inviting enough, but others were smooth as glass, or slanted inward at daunting angles.
"No; and even if we could, the top is sealed, remember. We must find some other way. Have you seen my blade? I dropped it when we fell. It may do us little good against whatever barrowlings might fear, but I'd rather have it than not."
Galen agreed with this sentiment and began searching for the sword among the chunks of ice and stone. "Can the lantern be repaired?" he asked.
"I fear not," came Sev's reply as he followed more slowly, keeping his weight off his recently healed leg as much as possible. "The glass broke, and regrettably we have no spare."
Galen smiled bitterly. "Now who's so resourceful? When I followed you, my 'plan' was to remain undetected for as long as possible. As such, I didn't think to bring a light of my own."
"Don't be so hard on yourself," Sev said. "You've done far better with this... glowing rock scum, or whatever it is, and you continue to surprise me at every turn. Besides, it isn't as if you were trained for this life."
Galen laughed under his breath. "Believe me, I haven't forgotten. I doubt I'd be alive if you hadn't come to Dern when you did, but just because you changed your mind about the Order doesn't change the fact you forced me to come here against my will. We're not friends or... or anything else, for that matter. I didn't follow you for you, but for myself, and for Triss and Behn."
"Duly noted," Sev said, watching him with a curious expression. "And yet I think that if I had told you to leave me and find your own way out of here, you would have refused."
"That's called being a decent person," Galen grumbled, and before he could stop himself, added, "it doesn't mean I'm in love with you."
"You kissed me," Sev reminded him unnecessarily.
Heat rushed to Galen's face, and he turned his back, making a pretense of checking for the sword among some large pieces of ice. "You kissed me first. I was just getting even."
"Is that how it works?"
Scowling at the amusement, real or imagined, in the other man's tone, Galen fumbled for a suitable reply. Before he could come up with one, he spotted a glint of metal among the jagged stones.
"I found your sword," he said.
"Thank the gods," Sev sighed, and hung back while Galen went to retrieve the weapon. "You needn't fear, you know. Yes, I kissed you; and yes, I did confess... Rather, I do confess I have grown fond of you; but you were a child only yesterday, and I do not prey on innocents."
Galen snorted. "Unless they happen to be dying, or the p'yrha," he said. "Then you kidnap them, hand them over to the Order and hope for the best."
"You are cross," Sev remarked, frowning at him.
Having reached the sword, Galen grasped the hilt and tugged at it, but the blade was caught beneath a flattened, leaf-shaped rock. Brushing loose black curls out of his eyes (Harrald would have told him it was time for a haircut) he spoke around his efforts to work it loose.
"I am... tired, sore, cold... thirsty, hungry, stuck at the bottom of a crevasse and... frightened half out of my wits, but... cross just about covers it, yes."
"Now I wonder if you did not save me simply to flay me alive with your tongue," Sev remarked dryly. "We are in this together, if you recall."
"Come and... help me... then," Galen huffed as he continued to tug at the sword. "The damn thing's... stuck fast."
No sooner had he spoken than the blade came free so suddenly that Galen fell back and landed on his tailbone with a painful jolt.
"There now," Sev said, making his way over and helping him to his feet. "You didn't need me after all."
Galen didn't answer, but continued to stare at the rock under which the sword had been trapped. It was an oddly shaped thing — leaf-shaped, like a spade — and as Galen studied it, he realized there were others like it all around.
Well, not all around; but arranged in such a way that he could imagine a pattern, almost like scales, though most would be buried by rock, ice, and dust.
Sev laid a hand on his shoulder. "Galen? What—"
"Shut up," he hissed, still staring at the stone.
"Come now," Sev admonished lightly. "I was only teasing. I did not mean—"
"Shh. Look at the stone." Galen pointed. "I swear it moved."
All trace of humor vanishing, Sevhalim held his sword at the ready, and nothing in his stance would suggest he'd recently suffered a broken bone. "Where?"
Galen pointed again. "The rock. It... wiggled."
Sev stared at the offending stone for nearly a full minute before he relaxed and sheathed his weapon. "A trick of the light," he said.
The stone moved again, and while he would not have minded being proven wrong, Galen's powers of perception were vindicated beyond a doubt.
Sev redrew his sword. "What in...?"
The stone moved again; and then another, and another, all in unison. Like the scales on the back of some great beast, Galen thought. In fact...
He looked down and swore.
"Sev?"
"Yes, Galen?" answered he in a tone that belied his unease.
"I think I know what scared the barrowlings."
"Do you, now?"
"Mmm hmm."
Sev's eyes were still fixed on the strange rocks, which rose and fell like stony fans, or the gills of a gasping fish. Galen tugged at his sleeve and pointed down between his feet.
An eye glared up at them through a sheet of ice.
An electric blue eye the size of a dinner plate.
"Fucking hell," Sev remarked calmly. "An ice wyrm."
"A what?"
"A 'run for your life when I tell you to,'" Sev restated, still calmly.
"Oh."
"And... run!"
Galen's heart leaped like a hare in his breast as he turned and sprinted back the way they had come, running helter-skelter among the boulders and chunks of ice. He kept sight of Sev in his peripheral, and was thankful the other man seemed unimpeded by his recent injury, though whether that was because it did not trouble him, or because not dying was a higher priority, he didn't know.
Behind them, the crack and rumble of breaking ice and crumbling stone created a terrifying cacophony. Galen dared a glance over his shoulder and gasped.
An enormous, serpentine shape rose from among the broken rocks, lifting a grotesquely scaled head from the rubble and fixing burning blue eyes on its prey. With a low hiss that Galen felt in his chest, the wyrm slithered in swift pursuit, and as the ground broke beneath their feet, Galen perceived its immensity and realized that the entire crevasse was its den.
Which, in the direction they had chosen, resulted in a dead end.
Literally.
Sev spun, sword drawn, and faced the monstrous serpent as it bore down on them. He shoved Galen to the side as blue fire ignited along the length of his blade and licked up his arms to engulf him in a halo of unholy light. As the wyrm struck, he leapt high.
The ice-serpent's head collided with the wall of the crevasse behind the spot where Sev had stood, cracking the stone like a spider's web. Meanwhile Sev himself soared to inhuman heights before descending, sword first to land on its back.
He alighted in a crouch, like a knight striking a killing blow, and slid down the serpent's back with his sword embedded in its flank. By rights, he should have sliced it in two and yet it seemed the wyrm's scales were as hard as the rock and ice they resembled. Sev rolled off the tail and regained his feet, chest heaving, and Galen ran to join him.
The wyrm, in the meantime, shook its head, stunned from colliding with the wall, and then turned its baleful glare on its prey.
"Galen, get out of here," Sev hissed, readjusting his grip on the hilt of his sword, which now fairly hummed with the blue fire of the Hand.
"Get out of where?" Galen asked, gesturing at the chaos of the ruined crevasse, strewn with debris and with no clear path to safety.
"Just go!" Sev yelled. "Hide, and then follow the first passage you find."
Stubbornly, Galen stood at Sev's side and faced the wyrm as it lifted its massive head like a snake preparing to strike. "I won't leave you," he said; and even as he spoke a desperate plan took root and spread through his brain.
"Galen, if the Hand takes me, I will kill you as surely as the wyrm!" Sev yelled.
Galen spun and grabbed the straps of Sev's pack. "No, you won't," he hissed, and pulled him down into a kiss. "Trust me."
The wyrm lunged, but Galen was ready.
Perhaps it was the result of the healing he had done earlier, but when Sev used the Hand, Galen had seen that their magic remained entangled as a tree clothed in vines. Reaching for this mingled power, he pulled hard, envisioned the outcome he desired, and slammed it forth with as much force as he could.
Heat blasted from his hands as if he'd opened the door of the bread oven in Behn's father's bakery. It shattered stone and ice alike, and as all came pelting down in a rain of ruin, the wyrm screeched in dismay, turned tail, and fled into the icy depths of the crevasse.
Galen stood a moment, his arms hanging limp and his chest heaving, before Sev looped a cautious arm around his back and lent him support.
"How on earth did you know that would work?" he asked weakly.
"I didn't," Galen admitted. "I just thought that... an ice wyrm wouldn't like heat... and it worked on the stone earlier... and so..."
Sev laughed softly in his ear. "By the Seven, you'll be the death of me, but life shall be exciting while it lasts. And look!"
He pointed, and Galen saw that the tiniest crack of light shown through where the main force of the blast had hit the wall. With somewhat mutual assistance, they made their way towards it and found that a pocket of ice had all but melted away, leaving only a thin sheet between darkness and daylight. Sev set to work with his blade, and within minutes had widened the gap enough for them to slip through.
They squirmed through the opening. Half of his own volition, and half carried there by Sev, Galen found himself upon the upper reaches of a long, snow-clad slope. Below, the tree-line of an alpine forest awaited, and beyond that, the land fell away in blue-gray folds towards a distant plain.
"Sakkara," he breathed. "We made it!"
He turned to Sev, who grinned, caught him in his arms, and kissed him briefly, but with a heat Galen felt in his bones.
"So we have," Sev said, releasing him. "And now we are even again, you and I."