The cold was not like the island's heat. It didn't hug you. It didn't breathe. It waited. It seeped through the steel hull of the Iron Resolve like a slow poison, freezing the breath in Ezra's lungs every time he stepped onto the bridge. The windows were layered with ice on the outside, thick enough to distort the horizon into a blur of white and grey. Inside, the heating systems were struggling. The ship was designed for open ocean, not for being locked in the polar ice pack.
Ezra stood at the railing of the bridge wing. He wore a heavy coat scavenged from the ship's locker. It smelled of mothballs and stale tobacco. He gripped the railing. The metal was so cold it burned his bare skin. He didn't let go. Pain was a reminder that he was still alive. That he wasn't part of the ice.
Behind
