Mina lowered her slender arm, but the three-foot sheet of glacial ice remained frozen solid across the grotto threshold.
Outside, the muffled shouts of Elder Sterling and twenty academy instructors faded into dull thuds against the frozen iron bars.
Inside the cavern, Kaelen Vance was already unrolling thick hemp rope between two basalt pillars.
A low hiss of subterranean steam rose from a fissure in the dark stone floor. Heat radiated from the crack, perfectly balancing the sub-zero chill radiating from the central spring.
A sub-zero cavern is terrible for naps, Kaelen thought, testing the tension of the hemp cords with one foot. A natural geothermal vent right next to an ice pool, however, is nature’s own heated blanket.
He tied the second knot with practiced ease. The coarse hammock sagged into a comfortable, curved cradle two feet above the warm flagstones.
From his wooden luggage crate, Kaelen lifted a heavy cast-iron plaque. The slab weighed sixty pounds, forged from scrap carriage axles and painted in glaring red enamel.
“Sera,” Kaelen called over his shoulder. “Hand me the bronze mallet and the expansion spikes.”
