This second book in a cli-fi series from a nationally-recognized anthropologist explores a frozen future where archaic species struggle to survive an apocalyptic Ice Age In the brutal Ice Age caused by the ancient Jemen war, many archaic human species, including Denisovans and Homo erectus, hover on the verge of extinction. There seems no way out, until the greatest Neandertal holy man, Trogon, has a vision. Legends say the truce that ended the old war left one hostage in the hands of the victorious rebels: the godlike Jemen leader known as the Old Woman of the Mountain. According to Trogon’s vision, only one person knows the location of that burial cave. Trogon must capture young Quiller and force her to lead him there…for the Old Woman may not be dead. She may only have been in stasis for a thousand summers, and when reawakened she will save them from oblivion. But according to the Denisovans—Quiller’s people—Trogon is the most powerful witch alive. He’s up to something evil that will surely spell their destruction. He must be stopped before it’s too late. Quiller’s best friend Lynx must brave towering glaciers, dire wolves, and prides of giant lions to save her and stop Trogon. Praise for The Ice Lion "With this engrossing series launch, Gear conjures a vivid postapocalyptic world .... This mesmerizing adventure through a world destroyed by climate change is sure to have readers hooked." — Publishers Weekly "Gear brings her vast knowledge of prehistoric cultures to this climate-fiction tale with beautiful and engaging worldbuilding.... A loose, beautiful tapestry of a tale ." — Kirkus Reviews " Written by both a master storyteller and scientist , it’s a chilling tale of a different climate change." —Amazing Stories "The icy setting, with its mountains and ocean, provide a cold backdrop to the warmth of the peoples, whose lives are going to be inescapably altered when paths cross and the past is excavated ." —Whiskey with my Book Kathleen O'Neal Gear is a nationally award-winning archaeologist who has been honored by the United States Congress. She is also a New York Times bestselling author with 48 books and over 200 non-fiction articles in print. 1   LYNX   923 Summers After the Zyme   Mother Ocean is high again tonight, with an icy flush of wind.   I crouch in the doorway of our dome-shaped lodge and tie back the flap. Constructed of upright mammoth rib bones covered with bison hides, the lodge is around thirty hand-lengths across. A fire burns in the middle of the floor. On the other side of the fire, Elder Arakie lies beneath a mound of muskoxen hides with Xeno, the wolf, beside him. The wolf watches me with half-lidded eyes. Arakie hasn't moved since midday. He may still be alive. I don't know. Every morning I wake expecting to find that he has died and left to travel the Road of Light that paints a swath across the night sky. Arakie calls it the Milky Way galaxy. My people believe it is the road that all souls must travel to reach the afterlife in the sky.   Quietly, I sit down in the doorway to watch evening settle over the beach. It's one of those unearthly beautiful nights-mastodons trumpeting high up in the mountains, monstrous icebergs gliding ghostlike through the pale green zyme light-so beautiful it seems not to be of this world.   I have escaped to this barren seashore with a few books, a strange wolf, and a dying old man. Though Elder Arakie says I'm a fool to think this is an escape. He says I'm lost and running from myself.   Very well, then, if you wish to put it that way, I have run here in the hopes of finding myself.   For a few blessed moments, I appreciate the endless, luminous hills of zyme that ride the waves as they roll toward shore. In places the hills of bioluminescent algae have grown so enormous they've toppled over one another and resemble hunched monsters five times the height of a man. Their green glow intensifies with the darkness, and the air fills with a pungent scent.   My people, the Sealion People, have many stories about the world before the zyme covered the oceans; it was a time of warmth when the world was filled with flowering trees and long-gone animals like coyotes and Cymric cats. Our elders repeat the stories over and over around winter campfires to teach the children about the Beginning Time before our creators, the Blessed Jemen, sailed to the campfires of the dead in ships made of meteorites. After the zyme, the Ice Giants were born. My people believe, as I once did, that they are alive and have voices that speak to our greatest shamans. Because of Arakie's lessons, I know they are monstrous glaciers that are still creeping across the world, gobbling up the land that living creatures need to survive. Today, the rumbling Giants rise so high they seem to touch fingertips with Sister Moon. Their jagged blue peaks are cracked and broken, veined with black crevasses that drop down to the center of the earth where rivers of fire flow. When