Black Ice-Completed

Nyota was softly shaken awake and when she opened her eyes the sun was just setting making the Ice Floes blaze orange and red like fire. “It’s beautiful isn’t it? We call it Ice Fire whenever it does this. The phenomenon represents a good omen!” Syn said as he helped her to stand.

But Nyota wasn’t paying attention to Syn, instead her eyes were focused on what was in the distances. Movement caught her eyes and narrowing them into slits, Nyota blocked out most of the sun and felt her heart leap at what she saw, “Syn, we need to go!”

Syn, who had been gathering their supplies, looked up at her tone in confusion, “What?”

But Nyota was already striding over to him and grabbed his hand to pull him away, “No time! Spiders are coming!” she huffed and both started to run towards the abandoned barracks that sat several miles away.

They knew that they wouldn’t be able to get away. Nyota was still too clumsy on the ice and Syn wasn’t going to leave her for the spiders, who were built to crawl across the ice. As their chittering and clicking became closer, Nyota looked at Syn and grimaced, “Toss me!” she growled, knowing their chances were better if they fought the spiders off. It was only a small group of them, easily taken care of if they moved quickly.

Syn growled under his breath, not liking the idea of throwing his mate to the spiders. It went against his instincts, but fighting them from a distances was better than fighting them together. Using their momentum, he slid both of them around and flung Nyota away and into the air, unsheathing his sword as he followed after her.

As Nyota was flung into the air, she withdrew her own sword and felt satisfaction as she landed on one of the ice spider’s backs, instantly plunging her sword into its weak point. But as the spider burst into a thousand tiny crystallized pieces, two more spiders took its place. They were as they had been described. Nothing about them was living tissue, instead when the light from the sunset hit them, they blazed like fire from the refracting light.

Nyota dodged and flipped away as they attacked her, watching for an opening to kill another one when she heard Syn cry out in rage. She had to fight her instincts to look at him, she had to trust he was alright and still able to fight or she would get distracted and might end up dead.

As a spider came at Nyota, she pulled up her sword in time as the dagger like fangs of its mouth clicked and clacked around the blade as she tried to push it back so she could get her sword loose. The spiders were far stronger than Nyota had ever realized as the one she was fighting pushed her back, making her lose her balance.

Falling to the ground, the spider went over the top of her, one of its legs stepping on her upper arm and slicing through. Giving a howl of pain and anger, Nyota saw its weak point from the bottom and thrust her sword up and into it, watching it burst into tiny pieces.

Nyota jumped to her feet quickly and glanced at Syn who was killing another one but as she turned to fight more, she saw the spiders fleeing quickly. There were so many more of them then that of two wolves and it puzzled her as to why they were running away.

She walked slowly over to Syn, still watching the spiders to see if they would turn back around. Voicing her question to Syn, he just shrugged and picked his own sword back up, “Who knows when it comes to magic.”

Looking at Syn, Nyota felt a sliver of worry blossom as she noted that he was far more hurt than she was. While she had the stab wound in her right arm, Syn was stabbed in multiple areas. His shoulder was bleeding profusely, there was a slash across his temple and forehead, he was limping fiercely and was holding his stomach from lacerations. “Come here Syn and let’s get you patched up,” she said as she walked to her packs to get the medic kit.

Nyota was looking in the packs for the kit when she began to feel the vibrations deep within and almost instantaneously the vibrations became a roaring rumble that she had only heard in the distance. Snapping her head up to look at Syn, she ran as fast as she could and with her sword, she plunged the blade into the solid ice and held on to it as she grabbed a hold of Syn’s hand before he plummeted into the abyss created by the collapsing ice shelves. It was thanks to the ice spiders for this, they would burrow beneath the ice, the floes would then fracture and break apart to cause an abyss to open, in this case, it had opened beneath Syn.

Nyota looked down into the darkness, the crevice was about ten feet in width and twenty in length, she couldn’t tell how deep it was and if she focused, she could just faintly hear the rushing of water that would lead out to the ocean.

“Nyota,” Syn said as he panted and tried to get a grip on the edge of the ice, “You have to let go!”

She looked at him and saw his face was pale, his eyes huge as he pleaded for her to listen. Growing low, Nyota struggled to pull him up one handed. If she let go of the sword, they’d both fall down. “Never!” she rumbled and then whimpered as she felt his hand slip a little in her own. The blood from her wound was rolling down towards their joined hands, making it slippery and harder to hang onto him.

Syn grunted as he continued to try to grab the edge and as he did, part of it crumbled which caused Nyota to slip over the edge more. “If you don’t let go, we’re both going to die!” Syn grunted as he looked around, trying to find a way out of their predicament. He couldn’t let Nyota fall. She was his life and their future leader.

“Then we will die together!” Nyota said firmly and she felt her sword shift in the ice, becoming looser as she tried to drag Syn up.

“Don’t be so dramatic!” Syn snapped and softened his voice as he looked up into her eyes and saw them blurry with tears, his decision made, “I love you with all my heart,” he said sincerely, “Kill Lyosha and be a good Alpha!” he rumbled before he released her wrist.

“NO!” Nyota cried as she felt him slip and howled loudly as she lost her hold on him altogether. The last thing she saw was his glowing ice blue eyes disappear into the darkness.

Just so everyone knows, this was one of the hardest chapters to actually finish. I kept finding other things to do and I would mull over the deed that had to be done, trying to figure if I could keep Syn in my story. In the end I knew it had to be done. TT.TT Please forgive me.