Wow. In just a couple weeks Icebound has gotten over 6,000 reads, put on the hot list, and ranked as high as 170 in fantasy. Thank you so, so much to all who read, voted, and commented! You have no idea how much it means to me. I hope you continue to enjoy the story, and please comment or message me with anything you want to ask. It took a while for me to update the last chapter because I had to deal with AP tests and school ending, but I hope to update more regularly now.
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When they stopped to sleep for the night, Anyu finally demanded that Kano draw a proper map of their path. Grumbling that he was too tired, he nonetheless took Anyu's offered sheaf of deerskin parchment and began to draw.
The bottom half of the map was mostly forest, split cleanly down the middle by the Amlei Pass. Their current location, marked by Kano with a lopsided X, was just beyond the Amlei's end, back into the wide open tundra. Anyu squinted at the northern half of the drawing. It took her a second to realize that the series of squiggly lines overlapping each other in the northwest corner were supposed to be mountains, and she couldn't even tell what the criss crossed lines to the east or the C-shaped curve in the center were meant to be. Kano's drawing skills were truly abysmal.
Tavra, who had been peering disinterestedly at the map over Anyu's shoulder, picked up on it as well.
"Is that supposed to be a tree?" He crowed. "It looks like an upside down harpoon!"
Kano grit his teeth. "It's a cave."
Anyu bit her lip to keep from laughing.
"What's that?" Anyu asked, pointing to the C. It looked relatively large in comparison to the forest and mountains, although that could probably be chalked up to Kano's drawing. Perhaps it was some kind of ridge or crest.
Still scowling at Tavra, Kano reached out and closed the C so it was now a circle. "It's a lake." He said. He glanced up to meet Tavra's gaze, his expression turning serious. "The Kesuk Lake."
Anyu watched as the smug look slowly deflated from his young face, leaving incredulity and fear in its place.
"Oh no," He said slowly. "No. We're going around Kesuk." Kano's gaze remained stoic, unwavering. Tavra whipped around to stare at Anyu with what could only be described as scared, desperate puppy dog eyes, silently begging her to take his side. It was such a marked difference from the feral, ruthless child of just a few seconds ago that Anyu was taken aback. He had been living all alone in that forest with only the wolves for company for gods knew how long. For the first time, it occurred to Anyu to wonder about his parents and why they weren't with him.
"It's too dangerous!" He insisted, his voice growing shrill, before Anyu could think of anything to say.
"Sakari is right on our tail," Kano shot back. "She'll catch up to us in less than a day if we don't do something." He carefully smoothed out the creases in the map before looking up at Tavra once more. "Who would you rather face, her or Sedna?"
"Sedna?" Anyu repeated, thoroughly surprised. For the first time since she'd arrived in Adlivun, it was a name that she actually recognized.
Tavra's bottom lip trembled and he clenched his fists at his side. Anyu wasn't sure whether he was about to burst into tears or take a swipe at Kano, but before he could do either he fled the tent, the entrance flap rippling lightly in his wake. After a moment, they heard the distinct sound of paws crunching against the ice and a long, lonely howl.
Anyu sighed and shifted into Tavra's vacated spot to have more space. "You have quite a knack for upsetting him," She commented.
Kano didn't look up from the extra details he was adding to the map, but his lips quirked up into a wry smile. "Some things never change, I suppose," He replied neutrally. "Kesuk Lake is half a day's walk from here. We should be able to make it."
He was changing the subject, but Anyu decided not to comment, both for the sake of Kano's comfort and her own curiosity.
"In the Nenet, Sedna is the goddess of the sea and the mother of all the water's creatures." She told him, satisfied to have some of her own knowledge for once. Kano stopped his drawing and looked up, leaning forward to listen with rapt attention. It was as if he was surprised her tribe had any information that was actually relevant. "We're all told the stories when we're little," She continued with a distinctly defensive tone. "If a child ever wanders too close to the water's edge, Sedna will snatch him up and drag him to the bottom."
After a brief pause, Kano shrugged and let out the tension in his shoulders. "It does make some sense that you would know her name," He said. "She used to frequent the human world more than anyone. Now she lives at the bottom of the lake, alone and forgotten."
The human world. The reminder sent a sharp stab of pain straight through her heart. With a small jolt of terror, Anyu realized that she hadn't worried about her home, had barely even thought of it, for the past day. Not that she didn't still desperately wish to return to her village, and now that she remembered it the feeling burned in her hotter than ever, but almost as if she had forgotten that she had a village to go back to. She hugged her knees to her chest, suddenly feeling uncomfortably warm. This place wasn't natural and she wasn't meant to be here. If no human had ever come to Adlivun before, how did she know that there weren't consequences for staying too long?
"Kano," She said. Having finished a very ugly looking map, he had just folded it up to pack it away when she spoke. He paused and tilted his head to the side in question.
"Can you show me the way back to the human world?" She asked. "On the map I mean?"
His eyes locked with hers for a moment and a silence hung in the air. His eyes were... Well, that was strange. She was looking right at his eyes, but every time she grasped for a color to describe them she came up with nothing. They were... Again her mind became foggy. Surely she must have noticed the color of his eyes after traveling this long together. She strained to recall, but there was nothing there. It was like his irises were two colorless voids without matter or substance. Just empty space.
He broke the stare to unfold the map on the floor again. Anyu shook her head, feeling dazed by the disorienting experience. That had never happened before when she'd met his eyes. She looked at his crouched form poring over the map with increased apprehension. Had he done that on purpose?
"Yahal is here," He said, pointing to the middle of the mountain range in the northwestern corner. "The human world is here." He pointed to a spot off of the map, about half a foot from the edge of the page, or north of Yahal. "For now at least. Like I told you before, it'll move even farther away if you don't get there by the next moon."
Anyu groaned in frustration and flopped onto her back. Perfect. A deadline was just what she needed to make this journey even better. And judging by the proportions of the map, it was a two days' march from Yahal to the portal, so they would have to arrive ahead of schedule if she was going to make it.
Another howl ripped through the night, making Anyu flinch. Tavra wasn't going to be happy when he came back. If he came back.
"He'll be fine," Kano said, reading her thoughts. "He's just afraid. Never really been a big fan of the water."
Anyu raised an eyebrow. "All of our hunting dogs are excellent swimmers," She pointed out. She had assumed that it was the prospect of coming face to face with Sedna that had made Tavra so scared, not the water itself. "Isn't being afraid of water more of a feline thing?"
Kano smiled, a hint of laughter on his lips, but shook his head. "Dogs and wolves like to swim. Tavra doesn't."
Anyu turned her head in the direction the howl had come from, feeling a sudden surge of pity. She couldn't blame him for being afraid of the water. Anyu could barely swim, and she didn't fancy giving it a try in the below freezing temperatures of the water under the lake. Although for Anyu, Sedna herself was more terrifying still. The figure rose in her mind of a long, thin woman with hair of seaweed and rows of teeth like pointed needles.
"Is Sakari afraid of Sedna?" She asked suddenly, remembering what Kano had told Tavra before. If so, did that make them clever or stupid for waltzing right into Sedna's home?
"Not exactly," Kano answered, stifling a yawn. "They're sisters, so naturally they hate each other and fight over everything."
Anyu waited for more, but all she heard was Kano's breathing evening out as he fell asleep.
Knowing that she should rest for what would be a long day tomorrow, Anyu wrapped herself in a blanket and tried to find a comfortable spot on the hard ground. "Naturally," She muttered sarcastically to herself before closing her eyes and drifting away.