Marked From Birth
"That thing on the ice-wave isn't a wolf. Our sensors are redlining. It’s a walking vacuum."
"The Tide-Caller," Audrey said, standing up with a wince. "He wants the child."
"Then he’s got to go through the Boiler-Guard first," Vane replied. She raised her brass arm, and a flare of red phosphorus signaled the ranks below. "Load the Silver-Oil! If it can't be bled, we’ll melt it!"
The Tide-Caller did not wait.
He descended from the peak of the black ice not as a man, but as a cascading avalanche of frozen shadow. Every step he took froze the very air, creating a path of jagged crystals that reached toward the Citadel.