CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
C HAPTER F ORTY- N INE
Dawsyn knows she is being watched.
Ryon hovers persistently, as though she might fold away to Glacia at any moment and drink the pool dry. He remains at her heel as their party prepares to leave the mountainside camp, not allowing her out of his sight.
They will soon fly to the outskirts of the Colony and make their plans to infiltrate it. It is the best way to reach the palace undetected, Rivdan had said. After that, Mother help us.
“Where are you going?” Ryon’s low voice reaches her. She halts in the process of turning away from the cave, where the others are gathering their belongings.
Dawsyn sighs quietly. “Would it pacify you to come with me?”
He grumbles something but crouches his way out of the cave behind her, straightening to his full height in the morning sun. He rolls his shoulders with a groan and for a moment the tips of his wings appear, then quickly vanish before they can extend.
Mother above, but he is an impressive creature.
“Come,” Dawsyn says, taking one of his hands in hers.
“Where are we going?”
“I only wished to walk a while,” she tells him. “And it seems I’m not trusted to do so alone.”
Ryon narrows his eyes. “It is not a matter of trust.”
Dawsyn sighs but pulls him to stride beside her. “Oh?” she says ambling along in the snow, for once not hurrying in any particular direction. It feels foreign to dawdle. “You don’t fear I’ll run off to Glacia without you?”
“Won’t you?” he fires back, fingers unintentionally biting into her palm.
She smiles weakly. “So you do not trust me.”
“I trust that your mind is turning over the same thoughts as mine,” he says. “I trust that you’ll act exactly as I expect you to.”
Dawsyn grits her teeth; the barb begs her to pull at it. “And what is it that you expect of me?”
“Bravery,” he says, pulling her to a stop so he can watch her face. “Recklessness.”
“I am not reckless. ”
Ryon’s expression is flat. “You stormed the Terrsaw palace. Twice. You tried to kill Alvira on a whim, and Adrik, and–”
“Those were calculations,” Dawsyn says, smirking. “I knew you were standing behind me.”
“So, it is only my strength you admire me for?”
“No. I admire your wings, too. Walking is tiresome.”
His smile is not lasting. “Baltisse once warned me to stay away from you, you know? She told me I’d met my match. In more ways than one.”
Dawsyn tsks. “Are you regretting your choices, my love?”
“Choices?” he asks. “There was no choice , malishka.”
Dawsyn walks ahead, ignoring the ache in her chest. “I felt her… Baltisse. In that mage clan. She seemed peaceful.”
Ryon stares, eyes widening.
“Inside the wards, Roznier said something to you,” Dawsyn continues. “Something about you having returned to the clan? Had you been there before?”
“Ah, that’s a long story. It was where I first met Baltisse.”
Dawsyn’s mouth falls open. “You jest.”
But Ryon is laughing in earnest now, shaking his head. “It was during one of my first expeditions down the mountain in the night. One moment I was a travelling down the slope, next, I was wrapped in vine, trapped. I found myself gagged and dragged back behind their wards, tied to a tree. They left me there and went about their business, talking about their plans to cook me when the sun set. I was shouting and braying like a fool when Baltisse walked by. She dressed differently from the others. Spoke differently. She inspected me like I was an insect, sniffed the air around me, and said, ‘What is your name?’ I spat it out, and she sighed, as though she’d known the answer already. As though she was hoping I’d say otherwise. Then, she said, ‘Well, I suppose I cannot leave you here.’
“She spoke to Roznier, told her I was ‘an important piece in the game.’ I had no idea what she spoke of. All I knew was that I was freed and then folded outside the wards. Baltisse asked me what I was doing so far from Glacia and of course she could read the answer in my mind. She knew of all my grand plans within the moment and she smiled. She described to me an inn not far past the Fallen Village in the valley. She said it was owned by a drunk named Salem, who would offer me lodgings far away from the Mecca, should I need it. She told me I could find her there. And then she disappeared.”
Ryon smiled. “I met Salem on my very next venture. Esra soon after. They became my home away from home quicker than I could imagine. Baltisse healed me. Counselled me when I needed it, and when you finally came along, Dawsyn, she told me that if I could not stay away from you, then I should stand by you. Protect you.” Ryon halts and his hand pulls Dawsyn to a stop alongside him. “But I won’t stand by you this time, Dawsyn.” All traces of humour evaporate. “If you sacrifice yourself to that pool, I won’t stand behind your decision. I won’t forgive you. Do you understand me?”
Dawsyn sighs. She reaches up to touch his chest, laying her hand on his heart. “I made a promise to you,” she says. “I do not intend to break it.”
He looks over her head. “Whether you intend it or not, I fear it matters very little. The moment before the sword drops, if the chance avails itself… you’ll change your mind.”
She does not meet his eye. She has never been a good liar, never needed to resort to coercion to achieve any end. It pains her to do so now.
“You don’t need to fear,” she says, bringing her body up against his, wrapping her arms around his waist. She lays her head against his breastbone, where he cannot see her eyes, and she breathes him in.
How cruel life is, to ration the time between lovers. Each time she finds herself here, in the circle of his arms, she feels sure she is home.
Has she ever told him that? That he is the place she thinks of when warmth evades her? Has she told him how the spark in her mind grows brighter when they touch?
“We go to Glacia to kill Adrik,” Ryon says to her. “And we will find some other way to be rid of that fucking pool. We’ll fill it with stone, bury it in the rubble of the palace.”
Dawsyn clutches his collar and brings his lips down to meet hers. She willingly loses herself in the press of his mouth, in the clutch of his wide hands at the dips of her waist. She feels his deep exhale when her tongue slides past his teeth and pulls him tighter, anything to smooth the lines in his furrow. She tucks away the truth, the great unavoidable certainties she feels.
The first is that there is no other way to destroy the pool.
The second is the surety that there will always be someone willing to use it, as long as it still exists.
The third is that her own life is not such a great sacrifice.
And the final certainty is that Ryon will never allow her to make it.
They fly to Glacia knowing the task ahead won’t be clean or even quick. It may take weeks to find a way into the palace, maybe more. Rivdan and Tasheem shake their heads doubtfully. “It will be a hive, Dawsyn,” Tash says. “Every member of the Izgoi will be within its walls.”
“It’s the only path left,” Dawsyn tells the others, not meeting their eyes. “Killing Adrik is the only chance we have left.”
“And if we fail?” Hector asks, his hand gripping Esra’s. Dawsyn wonders if she shouldn’t have left them all behind. Kept them from the relentless pursuit of danger.
But she looks around at them, her friends: Rivdan and Tasheem, who abandoned their home to help her; Hector, who was dragged into their circle of bandits; Abertha, who she cannot look at without seeing Maya; Esra and Salem, who have suffered much and offered her more comfort and affection than she ever deserved… and then Ryon, who chose to tether himself to someone such as her, knowing she would drag him over precipices.
She cannot abandon them now. She is past the point of pretending she’d rather court loneliness.
No. She’d rather this. Or rather, she needs them. A terrifying proposition.
“If we fail,” Dawsyn says, swallowing. “Then we’ll know… we’ll know we took every measure. We turned every stone.”
“And you would be satisfied with that?” Hector pushes, eyes narrowing. “With letting fate decide what happens to people like us?”
Dawsyn’s eyes flicker to Ryon’s before she can bid them not to. He is staring at her intently, awaiting an answer she cannot possibly deliver with any measure of honesty. No matter how her tongue tries to shape the words, they will never sound true. Not to her. Certainly not to him.
But it is not time to break her promise. Not yet.
“No,” she finally says, opting for a modicum of honesty. “I won’t be satisfied. But there are worse things to live with. I will learn to live with this. Perhaps the future will bring us another opportunity, another path.”
“A path you needn’t walk,” Rivdan says now. “It is not your burden, Dawsyn. You only think it so.”
Dawsyn grimaces, for how many have said the same? How many have told her to set down the weight she carries? How to tell them that she’ll feel it still, despite the distance?
If not me, then who? She wants to shout it, bellow it.
Instead, she gives a thin smile. “Wherever I go, I won’t be walking,” she says. “A hybrid once made me a promise and I intend to make sure he keeps it.” She turns to Ryon and finds him looking straight through her.
“I’ll take you there now, malishka,” he says, voice hollow. “Just ask me.”
It is so ardent that she looks away again. She sheaths her ax. “Not yet,” she says, unable to bear the feeling of being turned inside out. How remarkable and dangerous it is, to be seen all the way through.
“I, for one, will be opening my own tavern, if anyone was wondering,” Esra says, slinging his arm over Hector’s shoulder. “Called, Well Hung. ”
“No one was wonderin’, Es.”
“I’ll be getting the fuck off this mountain if I can,” Tasheem shudders. “If I ever come back, it will be too fucking soon.”
“What will you do, Bertie?” Hector asks, nudging the girl with his elbow. “Once all this is over?”
Abertha considers for a moment. “I want to see the valley,” she says, looking surreptitiously at Dawsyn. “I want to see where we came from.”
Dawsyn wonders if it will be possible for someone like her to make a life in the valley and leave their origins behind. She hopes so. She prays for it.
She listens to each of them, making their plans to carry on. They sound to Dawsyn as fantastical as walking through the Chasm, as unlikely as a pool of dark magic. She wishes she could feel the draw of contentedness that they feel, the nearness of peace.
To her, peace feels idealistic. Na?ve. How nice it must be, to feel its proximity.
“Come,” she says to them, though her boots are heavy. Already, she wishes to turn back. “We can celebrate in Esra’s godforsaken tavern after the task is done.”
The rest give a cheer, renewed with purpose. All but Ryon, whose eyes grow darker with shadows each passing second.
Ryon flies with Dawsyn in his arms. He does not wait for Rivdan or Tasheem. He simply lifts her without warning from behind and leaps from the slope into the sky.
They stay low beneath the treetops, dodging the pine and using the mist to stay hidden. Ryon does not speak to her, but his hands grip her tightly, his blood pounds beneath the skin, and she feels his unease. His suspicion.
But he doesn’t voice it.
And neither does she.
She supposes he will settle for keeping her within his sights when they reach Glacia. And she will settle for that moment when the sword falls… when the chance avails itself.
It takes very little time for Glacia to appear before them, rising into the cloud-clogged atmosphere, bleakly grey and threatening. The palace spires pierce the sky, while the Colony stretches beneath it. From a distance, the slum appears nothing more than a mass of craggy, colourless rock.
Ryon, Tasheem and Rivdan land in the forest down the slope, not daring to come closer. It is difficult to know if sentries will be watching the skies, as the Glacians once did under Vasteel’s command.
“I doubt Adrik would bother with such things,” Rivdan says as they trudge the rest of the way up the slope. “He seemed quite averse to imposing any order among the Izgoi once the palace was theirs.”
“No. Just drinking and fucking and ensuring there were still those doing his labour. Arrogant bastard,” Tash intones. “Always thought himself superior.”
“ We encouraged him,” Ryon says. “Fed his ego.”
“He manipulated us all, Ryon. We thought he’d lead us to freedom,” Tash sniffs. “We were young, and he fed us visions of glory.”
“But we are not so young anymore. And still, we didn’t see it.”
“Perhaps it was never his intention to take Glacia for himself, to drink from the pool,” Dawsyn says suddenly, the words falling from her lips in a tangle of thought. She barely pauses to dissect them before allowing them passage. “The pool speaks. It lures those near enough to heed its commands. Perhaps Adrik is merely a victim to its call.”
“A victim? ” Tash says now, her voice rising. Rivdan lays a heavy hand on her shoulder, placating her.
“It is possible, is it not?” Dawsyn shrugs. “So long as the pool resides in Glacia, it is a threat. Its magic will keep reaching out to touch those who come too close. The temptation will be too great.”
Silence follows, save the press of their boots in the snow. Ryon is grinding his teeth. Rivdan’s head tilts to the side, considering her words.
But Tasheem scoffs, her ire plain. “Temptation only threatens those who already lack a heart.”
In that, Dawsyn agrees. She cannot imagine any amount of temptation that would lead her to consume another’s soul.
The first glimpses of the Colony appear ahead. Oblong shapes that become struts and flags and lean-tos as they slink closer.
“Stay behind me,” Ryon murmurs to them. “And be quiet.”
The border of the Colony is not guarded by sentries. In fact, they continue to escape notice as Ryon guides them slowly behind the first of the crooked shelters. They had planned to enter slowly, finding those who Ryon, Tasheem and Rivdan considered friends to hide them. Perhaps find those who have already pitted themselves against Adrik and his self-appointed reign and lean on their assistance as they move to storm the palace.
But the wind that whistles through the Colony is devoid of accompanying sound. There is no conversation, no clatter or clamour of an entire race living shoulder to shoulder. They stalk slowly down the narrow lanes between shelters and find no one in their path. Curtains of fabric flap wildly in the frigid breeze, revealing empty interiors. Snow builds at the edges of the lean-tos, spilling within. The lanes, once slick with slurry and ice from incessant traffic, are now blanketed in virgin snow.
Ryon looks over his shoulder at Dawsyn and she sees her thoughts matched in his expression.
There is no one here.
The Colony is empty.
“Where are they all?” Salem asks, his gruff voice cutting through the silence much the same way a horn would. Esra hits him in the stomach.
“Ugh. Esra! Yeh–”
“Shut up,” Ryon says lowly, dangerously, dissolving whatever slander Salem had been ready to bestow. “Or I’ll have Dawsyn shut you up.”
Esra frowns. “She doesn’t have that spell.”
“She has an ax,” Ryon says clearly. “And my blessing to use it.”
Dawsyn’s lip quirks.
They continue onward without encountering traces of anyone that still resides in the Colony. It feels and sounds devoid of all but them. It raises the hairs on her neck, unsettles her. For if the mixed are not here in the Colony, then where?
They turn a corner, coming to a large opening Dawsyn recognises. Stocks adorn its middle, laden in snow. The small dais is now a small white mound, the mountain taking back what has been left unguarded.
Dawsyn can still envision Ryon sitting on that dais, shoulders slumped in defeat, her body curled around him in a moment of forfeit.
The vision is impeded, however, when a figure appears across its space, stepping into the open, skin as white as the snow around him.
He holds a crudely made knife and the skin of an animal – a hare, it seems. It dangles from his grasp.
The Glacian halts immediately and raises his knife, head turning to view their party, counting the number. His wings do not appear. In fact, his feet shuffle backward, as though he means to flee.
The moment he appears, his name rises to Dawsyn’s lips.
“Phineas,” Ryon says, the name escaping on a breath. His eyes widen at the sight of the male, teetering in place on the other side of the clearing. No longer does he stand tall and righteous. He stoops. He quails. The hand around the small knife clenches it tightly. Long straggly hair hangs over his forehead.
It reminds Dawsyn of the Glacians they had found with the mage clan. They too were diminished. Defeated.
“Stay back!” Phineas calls, retreating back the way he came – a gap between shelters. His voice is strangled with panic.
Ryon reaches over his shoulder and slowly pulls forth a sword. “Phineas?” he says again, louder this time.
Dawsyn spins the ax in her grasp, feeling the woodgrain slide along her palm. It seems to sing through the air as it moves.
Phineas – the man who betrayed Ryon to Vasteel.
Phineas – the iskra-drinking Glacian noble.
“What are you doing out of your cage, Phineas?” Ryon asks now, his shoulders stiffening. He moves forward toward the dais but makes a motion for the rest to stay back. The message is clear – the brute is his.
Phineas suddenly stills once more. His feet cease sliding backward through the snow. “Ryon,” he says in recognition, his knife dropping an inch. Though the Glacian’s stance slackens some, the fear in his voice only intensifies. He drops the animal skin and holds his bloodied hand up placatingly. Dawsyn marks how it quivers. “Ryon,” he says again, shaking his head. “What are you doing here?”
“Me?” Ryon asks, stalking closer. His slow footfalls round the dais – a hunter cornering prey. “No, not I. This is my home. What are you doing here, Phineas?” Ryon’s sword flashes menacingly as he adjusts his grip and Phineas does not miss it.
He speaks carefully, as though warding off a rogue animal. “They sent me here,” he says. “King Adrik released us all and sent us here.”
A noise escapes Tasheem somewhere behind Dawsyn. It sounds like derision.
“All?”
“The remaining pure-blooded,” Phineas elaborates.
“He freed you. Gave you the Colony,” Ryon says. It is not a question. “How charitable.”
“It did not come without a cost,” Phineas replies and then he lowers his knife to his side. Wings extend from his back, or rather, what is left of them.
Splintered bones unfold and jut out over his shoulders. There is nothing else, just the broken remnants of what was once an impressive span of translucent membrane. A flash of malevolence crosses Phineas’ expression, and then his broken wings vanish from view.
“Consider yourself fortunate,” Ryon intones. “I would have bled you dry.” He advances.
“Wait, deshun!”
“Call me that again,” Ryon says, continuing to stride towards him. “And I’ll cut your tongue out.”
“Ryon! Please,” Phineas holds his hands before him. “I… I can help you!”
“Yes, you can,” Ryon says, and he brings the hilt of his sword crashing into Phineas’ temple. The Glacian crumples immediately, his eyes rolling into unconsciousness.
Ryon sheaths his sword again. “Hurry,” he says over his shoulder.
Dawsyn’s heart pounds. She rushes forward, beaten by Tasheem and Rivdan, who help Ryon to lift Phineas’ limp body.
“We need to hide,” Ryon utters. “We’ve made too much noise.”
“Where?” Tasheem asks. “We don’t know where the rest of the Izgoi are.”
“Come,” Ryon says, leading hurriedly back into the maze of the Colony.
Stuffed inside the limited space of a frozen timber hut, Ryon slaps Phineas’ cheek. It takes him several moments to come to, his eyes finally tightening with fear when they focus on Ryon.
The Glacian breathes heavily, his shoulders rising and falling. He pulls at the restraints that tether his wrists together behind his back. “Ryon, please,” he says. “I only ever protected you.”
Ryon’s jaw ticks. “Be useful,” he says, “and you stay alive.”
Phineas’ eyes dart between all those crowded into the small shelter. His cracked lips, veined eyes, sallow skin appear more human than they ever have before. Dawsyn wonders if the deprivation of iskra is killing him or keeping him here.
Phineas licks his lips nervously. “What is it you need?”
“Knowledge,” Rivdan says simply. “Where are the others?”
“In the noble’s village,” Phineas answers immediately. “The new king’s orders. Vasteel’s pure-blooded are to remain in the Colony, without the privilege of flight.”
“He always nursed a complex where wings were concerned,” Tash quips.
“The mixed who did not fight are housed in the noble village,” Phineas continues. “The Izgoi have free reign of the castle.”
Ryon turns to Dawsyn. “There are hundreds of Izgoi,” he tells her. “Too many to fight.”
“Not anymore,” Phineas interrupts and Ryon’s head whips back to him. “There were many who stood against Adrik, once they knew that… well, once they could see–”
“That he was consuming iskra,” Ryon says plainly.
Phineas nods. “Any of those who spoke against him were turned out of the palace. He called it sedition. Most remain in the village, from what I can tell.”
“How many remain?”
“Of the Izgoi? Perhaps fifty. Maybe more.”
Fifty, Dawsyn thinks. Still too many.
“But you won’t find them in the palace,” Phineas suddenly adds.
All in the shelter fall still, silent. Ryon is the first to break it. “You just said–”
“They left.” Phineas speaks cautiously, watching Ryon’s reactions for any sudden movements. His eyes flit to his weapons often. “I do not know where they were going.”
Dawsyn’s heart gallops. “When?” she asks forcefully.
Phineas does not turn his head toward her. “Midday,” he says. “The entire flock.”
He could be lying, Dawsyn thinks, but every wisp of instinct she possesses tells her otherwise. “They’ve gone to Terrsaw,” she says aloud, for surely it was always Alvira’s plan.
“The Ledge people,” Ryon says. “They’ve reached the valley?”
They must have. For what other reason would Adrik abandon his pool? His throne?
“The Queen will hand ’em right over,” Salem utters, jaw hanging open. “Mother above. Yeh gotta get back there!”
Ryon stands upright, leaving Phineas on the ground. “We cannot go alone,” Ryon says, his voice hurried. He is already making to leave. “Not if we hope to win.”
Abertha sniffs. “If you think those people will be recaptured peaceably, you underestimate them. This is no Selection Day. They’ll fight with us.”
“It won’t be enough,” Dawsyn says. She clasps Ryon’s arm as he tries to pass her. “It won’t be enough,” she tells him again, lower this time.
He halts, meeting her eyes. He reads what she tries to convey. His head begins to shake. Slowly at first and then vigorously. “No,” he tells her.
“Ryon–”
“ No, ” he growls once more, piercing her with his glare. “You promised me. Did you not?”
Dawsyn glares back. How are they to defend so many in Terrsaw against fifty trained Izgoi, filled to the brim with iskra, as well as whatever battalion the Queen brings to the fray?
It is an impossible feat. They cannot win. Not unless–
“Do you hear that?” Hector says suddenly, breaking her reverie. He rounds Ryon to peek through the gap in the flimsy drape.
Dawsyn falls still with the rest. Together, they let the sounds of shouting reach them. A distant rumble of voices finds its way to their hut on the wind. Ryon’s eyes darken.
“Mesrich, wait!” Rivdan calls, but Ryon does not heed him. He slips outside, his eyes turned to the sky. Dawsyn watches the fleeting shadows come over him and disappear, and he mutters something awed.
Dawsyn follows him, tilting her head back.
The sky is filled. Wings disrupt the normally impermeable blanket of cloud. Glacians in varying hue circle above, dipping and disappearing into the fog. They make whorls of the mist, allowing dappled light to pierce through.
The others in the hut follow them outside, and they too stare up at the sky in awe. Tasheem murmurs something in the old language, eyes glassy. Dawsyn wonders if she has ever seen so many of her kind flying freely above.
“Ah… should we be running?” Esra asks nervously, backing into the tent. “Ryon? Is the swarm likely to kill us?”
Ryon does not turn his eyes away. “No,” he says, his voice contemplative. “They are the mixed-blooded.”
“Yes,” Esra continues. “But why exactly are they in the sky?”
No one answers, but they continue to watch together as more mixed-Glacians rise from somewhere east of the Colony – the noble village.
Tasheem suddenly laughs, breaking the tension immediately. She steps forward, cupping her hands around her mouth, and a wordless high-pitched call rips from her throat. She beckons to those in the sky, as though she were calling to old friends. After a moment, they cry back, their exultant calls echoing down around them.