CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
C HAPTER F ORTY- T WO
Dawsyn brings mage fire to her palm and approaches the barrier once more.
“Dawsyn!” Salem hollers. “Are you daft?”
But Dawsyn can still feel the hum of that magic, can still see that strange haze, and something within propels her forward.
Above her, the moon is glowing in spite of the sun, a pink hue tinging its face.
She comes to the barrier’s edge. The flame in her hand seems to lean toward it, as though wishing to touch it.
Bracing to be hurled through the air once more, she shuts her eyes, and reaches forward.
Nothing happens. When she opens her eyes again, she finds her arm extended through the barrier, the mage light still dancing in her palm.
“Dawsyn?” Hector calls to her.
“I’m all right,” she says incredulously, a bubble of laughter catching in her throat. She goes to step forward.
“Don’t!” Hector calls again.
But Dawsyn is already through. Already standing on the other side, and no force tries to expel her.
She looks back at the others, standing on the slope. But their gazes are darting in every direction and they call out her name.
“I am well!” she tells them, but they do not seem to hear her.
“Dawsyn!” Salem bellows, his hands cupped around his mouth. His face is stricken, panicked.
“He cannot see you,” comes a voice.
Dawsyn whips around, pulling her ax from its sheath. Where before there had been no-one, now stands a group amongst the trees. Men and women, with animal skin draped over their shoulders and fire in their eyes.
Mages.
“Who are you, ax-wielder?” the closest of them says. A woman with black hair, thin lips.
Dawsyn’s heart beats rapidly in her chest, but she does not dare back away. “Dawsyn Sabar,” she says, wondering if they can hear the awe in her voice, wondering if they can feel the warmth she suddenly feels. Her mind is flooded with it.
“Sabar?” the woman asks, her eyebrow rising. “A descendant of Melares?”
Dawsyn recalls the name. Baltisse used it not so long ago.
“Yes,” she says.
“A foolish girl,” the woman says ruefully, “to marry a king of Terrsaw. Monarchs only take and never give.” Her eyes hold Dawsyn in their grip, the colour within them swirling viciously. “Is that why you have come, princess?” she asks. “Have you come to take?”
Dawsyn sees their stance subtly change, becoming defensive. Ready.
“No,” she says.
“Then why have you come?”
She grips the ax handle tightly. “I… I saw the haze. The barrier. I could feel it.”
“This is not your mountain, child. Go back to your castle.”
“I have no castle,” Dawsyn says, her voice rising. “And I am no royal.”
“Have they cast you out, child?” the mage asks, her head tilting to the side. “Did they too learn of your blood?”
“No. I am not from Terrsaw.”
“You are a Sabar–”
“Born on the Ledge,” Dawsyn finishes. “And I did not ask to be on this mountain.”
Silence follows. The woman’s companions share glances. Confusion.
The dark-haired mage turns to them, speaking a language Dawsyn does not understand. But their eyes roil as she speaks. Their lips lift. They seem… entertained.
“A Glacian prisoner!” the mage says, smiling brilliantly back at Dawsyn. “So, it was the blood moon that brought you to us this day. It always finds those in need of retribution. You are in luck, Dawsyn Sabar, mage of the Ledge. For tonight, we will bleed the Glacians who claim our mountain as their own, and you will have your vengeance on your captors.”
Dawsyn hesitates, pulling back toward the calls of her friends, pacing frantically just feet away. But that same hum she believed had come from the barrier seems to resonate, instead, within these mages. There is a flux of energy passing among them, between them, and out to her. It courses through Dawsyn – a gentle current. It is curiosity that moves her feet forward, rather than away.
“Who are you?” she asks of them. But only one answers.
“I am Roznier,” the black-haired mage says, taking Dawsyn’s hand. She feels a thrill run the path of her spine at her touch. “This is our clan.”
It seems to Dawsyn the mage clan has carved a piece of the mountain for themselves. Roznier leads her past huts made of tree root, as though they had risen from the ground simply to form shelter. Signs of mage magic are all around her, from the pines that curve inward, protecting the clearing, to the paths cleared of deep snow. Sunlight filters down into the circular space, making patterns on the snow, and Dawsyn feels warmed by its touch.
There’s no wind, no bite to the air. Indeed, Dawsyn feels she could do away with her furs here, so mild is the weather.
“What are you?” Roznier asks suddenly. She had been leading Dawsyn down a winding path miraculously clear of snow. They pass huts on either side, but Roznier pays little attention to the surrounds. Her discerning gaze is on Dawsyn.
Dawsyn frowns, she is unsure which answer is fitting. Mage? Human? Vagrant?
“I cannot distinguish what I sense,” Roznier continues. “What I smell.”
“You can likely smell a great many things.” Dawsyn scowls. “It has been an age since I bathed.”
“Ah yes! What a journey you’ve had. How did you come to find yourself off the Ledge, young one?”
“A long story,” Dawsyn defers, pausing to see a deer standing unafraid only several feet from them, its eyes closing as it tips its head toward the sun.
“Who taught you to use magic?” Roznier asks next, her curiosity obvious. Her companions have left the path, venturing in different directions. Roznier and Dawsyn walk on alone.
Dawsyn sighs. “A friend of mine. A mage named Baltisse,” she says, though her throat thickens to mention it.
Roznier smiles widely, then lets out a crow of laughter. “Baltisse!” she says, affection winding through each syllable. “Yes, she holds much admiration for you Sabars. Tell me, how does she fare? She has not paid us a visit in many moons.” Roznier looks expectantly at Dawsyn, searching her with new understanding. “I assume she was the one to rescue you from the Ledge?”
Dawsyn smiles sadly. She recalls again, as she often does, the sensation of freefall as she slides down the ice and over the lip of the Chasm, the second of suspended time before she and Ryon fell, and the hand that clasped her wrist and pulled them between realms. “Something of the sort.”
“You are most fortunate indeed, young one. She is a powerful being. And she has always lamented those on the Ledge. In many ways, she believes we are to blame.”
“We?” Dawsyn asks. “Mages?”
But Roznier sighs, her sight far-reaching and glassy with memory, and Dawsyn is suddenly struck by a thought. “Roznier,” she whispers, and the mage turns back to her. But Dawsyn is merely turning the name over in her mouth, a niggling sensation gnawing at her. Had Baltisse used that name when she spoke of King Vasteel and his reign in Terrsaw?
“He welcomed us into his fold of advisors and treated us like nobility. Me, two others by the names of Roznier and Grigori, and my mother, Indriss.”
Dawsyn lifts her eyes to the woman beside her and stops in her tracks. “Roznier,” she repeats. “Creator of the Pool of Iskra.”
Roznier’s lips flatten into an even thinner line, but she does not deny it. “One of four,” she says. “I cannot take all credit.”
Dawsyn does not answer. Instead, she takes the mage’s measure anew. Roznier seems to sag under the weight of the moniker, the same way Baltisse had. A similar sorrow that once darkened Baltisse’s features now darkens Roznier’s.
“Whatever hatred you feel now, Dawsyn Sabar. I assure you, it will not amount to the centuries I’ve spent in this skin, loathing every inch of it. I’ve learned to put my mind to what can be controlled and make peace with what I can’t.”
Dawsyn shakes her head. “There is no hatred.” She helped Baltisse to protect Terrsaw after all. She pulled boulders from the earth to form the Boulder Gate. There are too many to hate for Dawsyn to add another.
“Where is Baltisse now?” Roznier asks, looking past Dawsyn’s shoulder, as though she might appear there. “It is not like her to stay away on a blood moon.”
Dawsyn’s shoulders fall, but she makes herself say what Roznier has still not grasped. “She is gone,” she says tightly, lips reluctant to relinquish the words.
Roznier’s gaze becomes blank. Taller than Dawsyn, she looks over her head, staring resolutely away. “She cannot be.”
“I am sorry.” It is all Dawsyn can say, for that familiar wave of sorrow is upon her, and she cannot allow it to bury her now.
Roznier’s lips part and a broken breath leaves her. She squeezes her eyes shut and Dawsyn watches in wonder as Roznier lifts her palms to the sun, her face too, and murmurs something Dawsyn does not understand, in a voice that rings through Dawsyn’s blood, raises the hairs on her neck.
She cannot explain it, but for an achingly short moment Dawsyn feels her. She feels Baltisse’s palms on her shoulders, her long fingers pressing into the flesh. She feels the touch of Baltisse’s forehead against her own, feels their breaths combine. She sees her molten eyes, burning brightly in her mind – and that hum that existed inside of Dawsyn is suddenly released. It is all around. It finds the sparks of life in everything nearby. And Dawsyn’s own spark – the one that exists in her mind – expands and widens and fills every inch of her, every corner.
A mere moment, then it is all gone.
And Dawsyn wants it back. She needs it back.
Tears fall thickly. They are swallowed beneath the neck of her cloak. She cannot seem to stop them.
“Not gone,” Roznier says, placing a hand where Baltisse’s had lain. “She exists still.”
Dawsyn shakes her head, blindly denying. “I saw her die,” she mumbles. “I left her there. Left her body behind as though she meant nothing to me,” the words come on waves of shudders she cannot control.
“We have no use for our bodies in the other realm,” Roznier tells her. “She is not gone, Dawsyn. She surrounds you. She is… everywhere.” The woman places a hand to Dawsyn’s chest. And the hum grows louder, vibrating within. “What we cannot see, we can feel. She still exists. Not in this place, but the next.” Roznier smiles gently, though her own sadness is plain. “You will be joined again one day.”
Dawsyn does not know what it means. She does not understand the realms and the paths between. But she knows that, for a moment, the two were bridged. She wonders who else lingers on the other side. She wonders if they are all just across the way.
She breathes and this time her chest feels lighter, filled with warmth.
“Come,” Roznier says, taking Dawsyn’s hand in her own. “We will celebrate tonight and there is much to prepare.”