“You get my point. You see the lines. Each individual string is a path, a destiny that may or may not happen. You can’t follow them unless they cross your own, love. You won’t know what happens unless your path intertwines. Or, unless you’re me.” Lydian sighed, shaking his head. “And I’d rather not know either, but that arrow’s already been fired.”

It was quiet, and I fumed slightly as we slowly completed the gauntlet. Ice and mist began to blow in the air, their swirls blocking our vision again. The once-clear ice had the ice dust drifting off its surface and into the air, twinkling with the colors of the rainbow. The sun lowered in the sky as we took each step as carefully as we would enter a sleeping lindworm’s cave, and the slow pace may have been making my muscles ache to move faster and sprint across the ice, but walking with careful steps proved to be what kept us afloat on the thin, breakable ice.

Finally, when Lydian stopped and turned back around, I breathed a sigh of relief. “This is where the gauntlet ends. The rest will be mostly regular ice, some may have thin patches but that’s more of a problem with ice in general.” He shielded his gaze with his hand as he looked behind us into the distance. “We’ve been moving quickly. That’s good.”

“What about Hel? Won’t she be sending monsters?” Diaval asked.

“Most likely. She could also wait for us to die. We’re still in a very dangerous place and she knows that. If she thinks we’re going to fail, the safer we’ll be. Even if she sent anyone out to hunt us down, they probably won’t reach us for another day or so. Maybe less due to the time we passed waiting for Janneke to surface. It depends on who she sends.”

“Don’t say that like it’s my fault,” I growled.

“You’re right. If anything, it’s my fault,” Soren said. “I’m making us lag behind. I should stay here, offer myself as bait. Maybe catch up to you, maybe not.”