CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
C HAPTER F IFTY- T WO
Under Farra’s instruction, the small army they had gathered flies toward the Boulder Gate. They clog the sky with their multi-hued wings, brimming with freedom, and Ryon’s chest swells to see it, to join them.
Long has he fought for those in the Colony to experience exactly this, the feel of the frigid wind beneath them, the thrill of the descent. The endless expanse of sky all around, too big for any one Glacian to claim. They tumble and wheel over treetops, nudging one another out of the way as they soar, laughing loudly, and Ryon thinks that even if they should forfeit some to this battle against Adrik, at least they have tasted the air and seen the world as Gods do.
He clutches Dawsyn tightly now against his chest, but she does not seem bothered by the altitude nor speed. Somewhere between holding a knife to his throat and saving his life, she has built a tolerance for flight.
“Why are you smiling?” she asks suddenly. Without taking her arms from his neck, she brushes his bottom lip with her thumb.
“I was thinking of the first time I took you from the ground.”
Dawsyn huffs. “You tried to take my ax and I almost cut your hand off.”
“That wasn’t the first time.”
Ryon cannot see her face properly, but he imagines her frown. He knows it well. “Then, what was the first?”
“You held a knife to my throat, and I flew you into the trees to hide.”
“Ah,” Dawsyn nods against him. “That was uncomfortable.”
“Not for me,” Ryon smirks. “I was fond of that dress you wore.” He can still picture the way it had hugged her frame, how delicate it had made her seem, even after she’d drawn blood from his neck.
“You were fonder of me removing it,” Dawsyn says then and Ryon feels all the blood in his body rush south.
“That was foul play,” Ryon scowls. “Trying to weaken my resolve like that. By then, it was tenuous enough.”
“Men are easily weakened.”
“Near you?” Ryon asks. “They stand little chance. I stood little chance. That entire journey down those slopes with you was torture.” Dawsyn’s fingernails scrape the back of his neck, as he speaks, and he shivers. “Yet, I want to return to those days with you. If I were able, I would.” It is the truth. There have been so few days that have belonged to him and Dawsyn alone. Their beginning seems like a luxury now, time wasted.
Dawsyn shifts, pushing her face out of his periphery and into view. “I want to tell you something,” she says. “But I – I lack the ways to say it.”
“You lack nothing,” Ryon says and means it.
They are coming to land. The Boulder Gate awaits them below. The treetops have thinned. There isn’t a hope that their descent has been left unseen. There are too many of them.
It is with urgency that Dawsyn speaks. The moment Ryon’s feet touch the ground, the words come, and he does not put her down.
“When Baltisse taught me to use the mage magic, she described a light that existed in my mind, something that was shrouded, dim. I’d never noticed it before. Baltisse told me that to find it, I must think of something that brought me happiness, but no memory was strong enough. Nothing of my childhood on the Ledge came close. The only thing that worked… was when I thought of you.” As with anything Dawsyn says, the words are weighted. Sincere. They ring with significance. Ryon does not dare interrupt. He prays she’ll say more.
“It is only you that I think of when I need to find it,” Dawsyn continues. “There is nothing else strong enough, no other feeling that casts the same light. The magic grows warmer, brighter in your presence. If you depart this world before me, I will never find that light again, because the love I feel for you… it is the ruining kind. I won’t survive it twice.”
Ryon wonders if she has any clue the gift she has given him. They are words enough to eclipse any suffering that might find him next, words enough to win wars.
Ryon tries to speak around the emotion banking up in his throat. “Will you make a deal with me?” he asks her. “It won’t be for your ax this time, I swear it.”
She grins. “Yes.”
“Let’s live through this last fight,” he says, “so that I can fly you away and make you my wife.”
He’d never dared to dream it until just then, in that second, but suddenly he wants it with every fibre of his being. He wants it more than he wants Adrik dead, more than he wants Alvira thwarted.
He wants only Dawsyn Sabar to be his. And he wants to be hers.
Still in his arms, Dawsyn winds hers tighter around his neck. “What makes you think I’m looking for a husband?”
“You just declared your undying love for me.”
“Love and marriage are not the same.” Dawsyn smiles. “What if I tell you no?”
“Then I will ask it each day until you finally give in.”
Dawsyn laughs, the sound of it never failing to make his heart race. She deserves a life of laughter, of love.
“Very well,” she says. “But no rings.”
“No rings,” Ryon agrees. Mother knows they have brought them enough grief. He presses his forehead to hers, savouring the warmth of her eyes. “Do not die,” he says to her once more and vows silently that it will be the last.
Her eyes fall to his mouth. “I never do.” She presses her lips to his, clinging to him with that same fervour he felt the first time she kissed him.
When they part, her feet are set on the ground and all around them the other mixed-Glacians land in the valley for the very first time.
“Stay close to me,” Ryon tells Dawsyn, and it is more for his own comfort than for hers. “Please.”
“Always.”