CHAPTER FIFTEEN
C HAPTER F IFTEEN
The fifth day passes with a fading sense of awareness. There are times when Dawsyn is wise to the path underfoot, the walls around her, the noises behind her, the ache in her feet and legs and chest and throat. Other times, she is only aware of the noise of her mind, sounds of a more soothing nature. Words and melodies that rid her of even the memory of pain.
But each time, that magic within her rises to the threat of invasion. It strikes, serpent-like, forcing that other inhabitant into silence.
And then the Chasm returns, and she finds herself stumbling down its spine again. All of the aches reawaken with a vengeance.
She thinks of the mothers carrying their children. She thinks of the husbands carrying their wives. She feels the burn of each cough that rings up the rockface and prays for this to end.
If the valley is heaven, and the mountain is hell, then surely this is the purgatory between, an infinite torment. A path with just one true end. The other is a winding maze, entrapping those stupid enough to follow it.
No, Dawsyn thinks, shaking the thought away. This will end too. It has become her mantra, her war cry. Stay alive, she commands herself. It is all you have to do.
Twice, they stop, so that someone can kneel and leave their kin on the ground, their body having succumbed to this wretched journey.
“A mistake,” Dawsyn hears, over and over. Words that find their way to her down these obsidian walls. “Leaving the Ledge was a mistake.”
She cannot bring herself to look them in the eye. She suspects they might be right.
The third time they stop, it is a different energy that passes down the convoy, raising the hairs of Dawsyn’s neck.
“Stop!” she hears Ryon command. And they do.
But there are whimpers, shouts, the sound of bones and flesh meeting that accompanies the call. The dismay of bystanders bellowing and pushing one another.
Dawsyn doubles back, knocking into the chests and backs of those who bear the misfortune of blocking her sightless path. She follows the glow of the torch held high above her head, for surely Ryon is its carrier.
The sounds of fighting grow louder, more vicious. It is the very same accompaniment one would often hear when these sorry fools graced the Ledge. It is the chorus of her childhood as the Drop came. The canticle of every feud, every transaction, every settlement of grievance.
But there is no time for public exhibitions here. No energy to be expended on frivolous quarrelling. Dawsyn barrels toward the noise, toward Ryon’s beacon, and draws her ax forth, however heavy it may feel in her hand.
“Move,” she calls, nearing the commotion. “ Move! ”
“Ah, here she is!” comes a voice. The last spectator moves, and Dawsyn takes several moments to blink the scene into view.
Nevrak stands before her, straddling the stream. Beneath his hand is someone on all fours. Their fingers claw into the earth on either side of the water’s edge. By the sounds of their laboured breathing and the way Nevrak’s fingers are twisted into their hair, it seems their grip on the ground is necessary, lest Nevrak decide to bury their face in the brook again.
“I won’t ask it again,” Ryon is saying, his sword tip levelled with Nevrak’s bared teeth. “Drop her.”
The girl in Nevrak’s hand, spits, whimpers, water cascading from her clothes and hair. Hair that glints auburn in the flicker of torch flame.
Abertha.
“She. Killed. My son,” Nevrak shouts, his jaw trembling with the force of his rage. “Burned him. Alive.”
“He –he set it –himself!” Abertha pants, her face screwed up tightly in pain as Nevrak yanks.
“SHUT UP!” he bellows, incensed. “Enough lies!”
Abertha cries out, then thrusts her hand upward in an attempt to grab Nevrak’s beard. In turn he pushes her back down, her face breaking the surface of the water.
“Stop!” Dawsyn calls, stepping forward, holding her ax aloft. She waits until Nevrak finds her in the gloom, his expression only darkening. Slowly, he lifts Abertha’s face.
The woman gasps violently, spitting grit and icy spatters back to the ground.
“Killing the girl will not bring him back,” she calls, but the volume of her voice ignites that waiting flame in her chest and throat, and her abrupt coughing dulls the sharpness of the words.
“Thought she’d pay back my son for deigning to notice her,” Nevrak bleats, ignoring her. His face bears the fiery, veined conflict of man far surpassed of his rational nature. “Too fucking high and holy to bear his attention!”
“He forced himself on me!” Abertha spits, her cheeks billowing with the strength of her gasps.
“And you set him alight. ” Nevrak growls. His teeth are bared. The fist that holds Abertha captive pulls her head from side to side.
“No!” she cries.
“NEVRAK!” Dawsyn bellows, but Ryon now touches his sword tip to Nevrak’s throat.
“Do it,” Nevrak hisses. “Cut us all down. Put an end to this nightmare .”
“Listen to me,” Dawsyn asks abruptly. “Was your son hearing voices? Whispers?”
Nevrak hesitates. “What did you say?”
“Did your son talk of voices in his mind?”
“How could…?” Nevrak frowns. “He spoke to you of the same?”
“It was those voices, Nevrak,” she says exasperatedly. “They drove him to madness. It was not Abertha.”
“LIAR!”
“Did you hear him scream in that fire?” Dawsyn pushes. “Did anyone hear Wes scream?”
“Ask her,” Nevrak barks, nodding to the woman in his grasp. “She was the only one with him. Fucking convenient, I’d say! That a man she had grievances with had the misfortune of combusting before her fucking eyes.” Nevrak’s voice breaks. Sobs make the spittle fly from his mouth. His throat pushes against Ryon’s sword. “He was just a boy! ”
“He was sick,” Ryon says calmly, though his sword does not lower. “No one is at fault.”
“My – boy,” he says, the shudder of pain breaking his words. His chest rises and falls with rage turned to sorrow. In painstaking increments, Nevrak loosens his hold on Abertha, his fingers detangling from the tendrils, and she falls away from him, scrambling on her hands and knees. “No one’s fault?” he asks, tears dripping from the end of his nose, disappearing into the first bristles of beard. “There’s always fault to find. Anyone that dies here in this hole, dies by your hand.”
He points at Dawsyn.
Ryon lowers his sword but does not take his eyes from the man. There’s a muscle feathering along his jaw and Dawsyn knows he wrestles with the desire to crush Nevrak. His eyes flicker to hers, awaiting her say so.
Perhaps she should give it. Perhaps she should rid their journey of the threat standing before her, of a voice far louder than she would prefer. If Nevrak wanted to attack her, there would be a million opportunities to do so down here.
But the man’s belly and shoulders still shake with the force of his loss, and Dawsyn knows well the feeling. She brought this man into the Chasm so that he might escape the early clutch of death, and she does not want to be the one to bring it about. Maybe there was a time when she would have split this Splitter for daring to challenge her, but Dawsyn finds that while she has enough reason, she does not have the energy, nor enough hatred left. Perhaps this sickness has sapped even that: the rage that keeps her upright, keeps her moving.
With a small shake of her head at Ryon, Dawsyn lifts her chin. “Nevrak,” she says, “And every other here!” This time she bellows it, finds the face of any close enough to be illuminated beneath Ryon’s torch. They stand by, watching her with waned expressions, hollowed eyes.
Dawsyn takes a breath. “On the Ledge, we settled our grievances in the way animals do. “We slashed and clawed for what we needed, and anything else besides. We could not turn to each other for charity and compassion when there was not enough to go around. We were given imbalance, and it forced our hand, tilted the odds,” Dawsyn finds Ryon watching her keenly, and for a moment their eyes lock – his dark and awed, as though she were a spectre. “We can no longer afford to settle debts in blood. We cannot continue to tear each other to shreds as if our neighbours were our enemies. Our enemy lives above, and we needn’t aid them.” At that, Dawsyn coughs violently into the crook of her elbow.
Close your eyes… sleep.
“No!” The word rips from her lungs, though she feels the pull to unconsciousness. Whatever magic she still possesses floods her mind, her palms, rushing to heed her call. Her palms glow brightly, leaking light, and the voice becomes nothing at all.
Around her, people stare at her hands. Shocked. Afraid.
“The end to this Chasm nears!” she says it like a prophecy, a divine proclamation. She wills it to be true. “And we will not litter what remains of this path with our bones. We have enough adversaries without turning on each other.” Dawsyn sways, weakened by her own rising voice. She nods to Nevrak. “Mourn your son.” Then she nods to Abertha, who has made it to Dawsyn’s side. “But if you lay a hand on this girl again, I will take it from you, neighbour or not.”
Nevrak spits to the ground before Dawsyn, his expression remaining red-splotched and pained. “You do what you must,” he tells her, finger pointed as though it were a weapon. A stake to run her through with. “And so will I.”
“Be on your way,” Ryon tells him, and the timbre of his voice brooks no protest. The short sword in his hand quivers with eagerness.
With one final sneer in Ryon’s direction, Nevrak lumbers away.
The others follow quickly, disappearing back into the shadows until Ryon and Dawsyn are the only ones standing in the torchlight’s reach. Dawsyn lets loose a breath, and feels the world turn sideways.
Ryon’s arm comes around her in moments, winding around her back and grasping her side. “Easy,” he tells her softly, though the old malice still simmers there, an undercurrent, hastily dampened. He gives a huff of frustration. “You need rest.”
Dawsyn says nothing. They all need rest.
“I should kill him now, malishka,” he mutters, leading her away from the stream, guiding her around the obstacles, both natural and human. “Before his control wanes again.”
But Dawsyn shakes her head.
He emits a gravelled sound, a low growl. “You’ve killed men for much less,” he says, the anger winning out. “As have I.”
“He would deserve it,” Dawsyn murmurs, leaning heavily on Ryon’s embrace. “Abertha is not safe sleeping so near to him.”
“Then why–”
“Because it would divide the others,” Dawsyn says. “Those who believe Abertha killed Wes, those whose ears Nevrak has already filled. He suspects I cannot bring them to the end of the Chasm. Each day, these people grow wearier, less certain, less hopeful. Killing Nevrak will only spread distrust. I will not allow factions to be created before we’ve even reached a place to settle.”
“And if Abertha’s throat should be cut in the night?”
“I will send Hector to watch her. Guard her, if he must. He is well equipped to handle Nevrak.”
“That human is dangerous, Dawsyn. Leaving him alive is a mistake.”
“I will not have those I lead watch me cut him down.”
“When will you accept yourself as worthy of following? These people will see it for what it is – a threat to be eliminated.”
“That is a Glacian’s ploy. Human’s do not always carve inroads by killing that which blocks the path.”
Ryon huffs mirthlessly and Dawsyn sees too late the line she has redrawn between them. “Humans kill plenty,” he says acidly. “You are no exception.”
She stops. Ryon has walked them away from the others, where no one will hear. She unwraps herself from his hold. Staggering as she regains her footing. Her neck heats. Her hands clench.
“I do not deny it,” she says, aware of the way her chest smarts with a new ache. “It is not goodness stopping me from killing a man like Nevrak. These people will turn their backs to me the instant they believe I cannot be trusted.”
“Then you have already lost,” Ryon rebukes, his expression steely. There’s something desperate beneath the surface, something entrenched in fear. “You sabotaged yourself the second you lied to them and led them away from Terrsaw.”
Again, that ache. It strikes her chest anew, doubling the pain. Ryon lifts his eyes from hers and looks to the heavens, where not a single star shows itself. He curses lowly. “If you had but told them everything, allowed them to make the choice to follow, you would only risk dooming yourself in this venture,” he says, shaking his head. “But you chose coercion. And now, you may doom them all.” And still, he looks skyward, refusing to meet her eyes. Keeping from her that light she can always find in him, the confidence and awe and reverence he reserves for her.
He withholds it now. His jaw ticks with agitation. His hands rise to scrub his face. “I’ve followed you without question,” he says. “And it was my choice to do so. But you have tricked these people into doing the same.”
“Yes,” Dawsyn says, the hurt quickly solidifying to contempt. “And I did not do it lightly. I know what it is to be coerced. Lied to.”
There they are - those old pains, the old treasons. She hurls them into the space between them now, as though they are shields. She barricades herself against whatever cuts he might inflict. Inside, she boils.
Ryon gives a long-suffering breath. In it, she hears his exhaustion. And still, he holds his stare up and away from her.
Dawsyn follows his gaze. Somewhere above, the Chasm opens to the heavens. How it must beckon him, she now realises. How easy it would be for him to escape this fate she leads him to.
“Go,” Dawsyn says now.
Ryon looks down at her, confused. “What?”
“Go,” she says again, nodding to the sky. “If that is what you wish.”
Ryon scoffs again, his lips curling into a sneer, into something that masks hurt. “You know absolutely nothing of what I wish.”
“You stare at the sky as though you would bid it closer.”
“Name a person here who doesn’t,” Ryon growls, he steps closer, lowers his face until it is an inch from hers. “Do you think I would leave you here? Leave our friends here?”
“You say I have doomed them all.” Her voice quavers, her heart racing with something unspent, something she desperately tries to strangle into silence. “If that is what you believe, then I will not scorn you for making your escape.”
Ryon turns away from her, mutters the old language in a hot stream. He exudes frustration, disappointment. Lines cord down the back of his neck. Yet, his wings do not appear. He does not summon them.
He turns until he can meet her eyes and says, “Mother above, girl. I’ve been run through by talons and swords and blades, but you are still the biggest pain in my arse.” And then he leaves, cursing loudly as he goes.
Dawsyn stands there in the darkness alone and finally lets the shame wash over her.