Chapter 19 · The Beast Under the Ice

The silver bone coffin slipped over the broken edge, and I went after it.

“Sula!” Kaiser shouted.

His hand caught the back of my coat. The fabric snapped tight against my throat, but the coffin kept sliding. Below me, black water churned beneath the cracked ice. Something huge scraped along the riverbed, dragging claws across the underside.

“Let go!” I kicked at him. “My mother is down there!”

“She’s already dead!” Kaiser’s injured fingers dug harder into my collar. Blood ran from his palm onto the white fur at my shoulder. “You fall in, you join her.”

Varan reached me from the other side. One second he was ten feet away. The next, his hand locked around my waist and hauled me back so hard my spine slammed into his chest.

The coffin dropped.

I saw its silver lid flash once under the ice.

Then the beast hit.

The river exploded upward. Black water punched through the crack and threw chunks of ice across the shelf. Varan twisted, putting his body over mine. A slab struck his back with a wet crack.

“Varan!”

“I’m fine.” His voice came out rough, too rough. His arm stayed clamped around me.