princessarchives
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- Parts 35
The ice still screamed when it cracked.
Even after they escaped, Kora swore she could hear it - the shriek of frozen walls collapsing behind them, the echo of blades scraping across endless white. The Glacire had been their prison, a labyrinth of glass and frost that glittered like a promise and killed like a trap. Now it was only a blur on the horizon, a wound of blue light swallowed by storm.
Aris's breath came in ragged clouds beside her. Rachel's skates hung from her wrist, dripping crimson that steamed in the cold. The three of them should've felt free. They weren't.
Freedom didn't sound like the thunder of aircrafts cutting through the snow. It didn't look like soldiers in black masks shouting for them to run. And it didn't feel like the ice beneath them trembling, alive, as if the maze itself refused to let them go.
Kora turned once - just once - to see the Glacire's last secret vanish into the blizzard. The map they'd found, the thing carved into the thin membrane of a dead Skraith's wing, had led them here. Out. Alive. Or maybe straight into another trap.
When they woke in the compound, Kora knew. The maze hadn't ended. It had just changed its shape. And when the new survivors arrived - one of them looked at her like he'd seen her before. Like he'd known her.
But Kora didn't know him. Now she must figure out who this boy is, while also trying to figure out how to survive this ravaged world without her memories.