The transition from the solid, unyielding permafrost of the tundra to the surface of the Frozen Sea was like stepping onto the skin of a titan. Under the bruised magenta sky, the sapphire ice was so clear it seemed as though we were walking on nothingness, suspended hundreds of feet above a dark, silent abyss. Beneath our feet, the massive shapes of leviathans—beasts of the deep that had not seen the sun in an eon—were frozen in mid-lunge, their scales as large as shields, their eyes glazed in permanent, violet-tinted terror.
I walked at the head of the column, my bare feet numbing against the ice. I refused the litter now. If I was to be their Queen, I would bleed with them; I would freeze with them.
