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Ruby tilts her head. “And do you have a plan yet? To free the Ledge?”

Dawsyn sighs. What little idea she had has now been abolished. She cannot imagine returning to the Ledge without it descending into bedlam. And how willshefare in such a heightened state, with iskra that heeds the call of chaos and her mage blood waiting to choke it?

Perhaps it matters not. Perhaps she must go anyway, consequences be damned. “Not quite,” she finally answers. “But it is not as simple as gaining their trust. After they’ve been carried from the Ledge, it still leaves the conundrum of finding a place to put them. A place where they won’t be recaptured by the Queens.” Dawsyn looks around, contemplative. “The woods here are our only option, but how long could they possibly go unnoticed?”

Ruby frowns, severe in her musings. “A good while, perhaps. But you’re right. Eventually the Queens will get wind of it. We might continue to escape notice with our current small number, but a hundred or more?” Ruby shakes her head. “It cannot be kept secret for long.”

“And then they’ll come,” Dawsyn says. “Or Adrik will.”

“Have you considered bringing them into the Mecca?” Ruby asks then.

Dawsyn halts. The creek is ahead, still a few feet away. It is confusion that brings her up short. “Intothe Mecca?” she repeats. “I might as well shepherd them to the gallows.”

Ruby turns to Dawsyn. “Think about it. The people in the Mecca recognise you now. They know you escaped the Ledge and there has already been unrest. If you paraded into town with a hundred survivors, there’d be no way for the Queens to seize them all without causing a riot. Terrsaw would revolt.”

“Would they?” Dawsyn asks dubiously. She imagines many would be too afraid.

Ruby smiles wryly. “You’ve still not had a chance to learn much of Terrsaw, Dawsyn,” she says. “After the razing of the Fallen Village, when Terrsaw learnt about the Queen’s bargain, people despaired. Some wanted to go to war with Alvira, but she was persuasive when she confronted them. She convinced the people that the damage was done, and now all could heal. My father always said he could feel the surrender amongst them. They relented. Notimmediately, but they did. They fell under Alvira’s rule, too frightened by the Glacians to do anything else, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t feel the burden ofguilt.” Ruby’s eyes are alight. Dawsyn sees that this is a strength of hers. The art of strategy. “There is nary a citizen of Terrsaw who goes to sleep each night without shame in their heart. Perhaps they did nothing to stop her then, but they’ll stop her now. I know it.”

With that, Ruby walks onward, bending at the creek bed to cup water in her hands. She washes her face, then her arms, pushing back the sleeves of her guard’s tunic, now stained and limp.

Dawsyn thinks over her words, wonders if there’s some merit to them. She hasn’t forgotten the sounds of unrest that seeped through the cracks of the castle walls and into her cell. She remembers how quickly they pushed back against the guards who sought to execute her.

“What of your soldiers?” Dawsyn asks, coming to stand beside Ruby on the bank. “What will they do when they see an escaped prisoner like me stroll through their city with an army of my people behind me?”

Ruby stands, her glossy skin dripping, and turns a menacing smile on Dawsyn. “Some will seek to capture you,” she says simply. “But it will be nothing you can’t handle. Besides, most are just like me Miss Sabar.”

“And what are you?”

“Crippled by the blood debt of our Queen, and unwilling to pay the same dues twice.” Ruby takes the barrel from Dawsyn and turns its lip to the water, filling it.

“You wouldn’t be attempting to lead me straight into the dragon’s lair, would you?”

Ruby straightens, her water sloshing heavily.

“Of course I am,” is her reply. “How else are we to slay it?”

Dawsyn raises her eyebrows at her. “So, you wish toslayyour Queen now? You’re committed to the purest act of treason?”

Ruby sighs, turning away. She takes a moment to answer, her gaze distant, and Dawsyn thinks she detects a sliver of fear in her frown. A flicker of distress. “I fear there is no other end to all this,” she says.

Dawsyn feels the heaviness of it – her betrayal to her Queens, the risk she poses to herself and her family.

Dawsyn takes up the other side of the barrel so they might carry it back to camp between them. “The word ‘brave’ doesn’t do its duty in describing you,” Dawsyn says simply, and then says no more.

They walk back slowly, the weight of the water dragging at their arms. The sweat running down Ruby’s throat and the slump of her frame show the lingering effects of last night’s liquor, and Dawsyn can’t claim that she’s any better off.

She hasn’t slept. Her mind races. There is a restlessness in her chest she can only attribute to the plan Ruby has put before her. Try as she might, she cannot deny its cunning. The Queens will never accept those on the Ledge, but could she force them to?

There’s a thread of hope that weaves its way through her. A path opening in her mind. She can see Alvira’s face, that wretched smile stretching reluctantly as her people rejoice. She can see the fear sliding down their throats as they swallow the orders they can no longer give, not with the Ledge people in their city, safe and revered. Not with all of Terrsaw celebrating their miraculous return. What are the Queens to do, alone in their contempt?

Dawsyn smiles to think of it – the satisfaction, the justice. Her hands tingle with iskra, the matter travelling along the thrill in her blood. Her hands grow cold.

Before she can act on it, tamp it down and hide it away, the glow in her mind expands, becomes a striking serpent.

As quickly as the iskra comes, it is thwarted.

The barrel falls heavily, overturning and flooding the dirt. Ruby shouts. Muddied water finds its way into Dawsyn’s nose, her mouth; it sullies her hair, dampens her clothes. She feels none of it. All sight and sound and smell are overwhelmed by the grip of pain – a hand that tries to squeeze the air from her lungs, the food from her stomach, the blood from her veins. It clenches, tighter and tighter. Constricting.