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She struggles to isolate them – the iskra and the mage magic, the light and the dark. One wraps so tightly around the other they coalesce. They burn in tandem.

Somewhere above there are voices shouting, calling her name, touching her. She recognises only one.

A hand sweeps over her forehead – ice cold. It is the only thing that her mind can grasp amid the heat of pain. It is a snowpack on burnt skin. A cold compress to quell an aching head. Even down here, in the depths of her agony, she can recognise this sweet relief.

Release me,the dark gasps.

Release us both,she thinks alongside it.

Suddenly, the pain disappears, as quickly as it came. The fist in her stomach relinquishes, and she feels her body wilt against the earth, just as it did in the clearing.

“Open your eyes, malishka.”

Are they not already open? She swears she can see him, hovering over her, each inch of his face in vivid detail. She blinks, and the vision blurs, replaced by the harsh sunlight, the distortion of faces.

But she can smell him. She can feel his cool hand now warming against her neck. And when she shuts her eyes again, it is with the fatigue-hazed thought that she can sleep safely.

He’ll not let her come to harm.

CHAPTERFORTY-SIX

Ryon hovers around Dawsyn.

Ruby has offered to relieve him, but he is busy wrestling with a snare of wild thought, and it won’t let him think of rest or sustenance.

Dawsyn sleeps on Baltisse’s mattress. Ryon has pulled a chair to her side, where he has remained since setting her down more than a few hours ago. Her eyelids don’t flutter, her fingers don’t give a single twitch. A dead sleep.

This iskra, this thing that contaminates her body, was not meant to be absorbed, and he should have known it. He should have considered it before leading Dawsyn on a quest into that fucking pool. He wishes he could see inside of her, find the magic defiling her and wrench it free. She’s suffered enough.

She’s suffered enough.

He swore he wouldn’t see her suffer more.

His mind is a tempest, berating him. Condemning him. Suspicions roll together, catastrophising more and more the longer she sleeps.Where is Baltisse? Why is she hiding? This will kill her, won’t it?

He can feel it. This will eventually kill the woman he loves. The only person who might help her has disappeared. But the worst of his suspicions, the niggling thought that troubles him most, is that Baltisse disappeared knowing that she cannot help at all.

The door to the cabin shudders as it is pushed inward, and Rivdan ducks through the opening.

“Rivdan?”

“Sorry to disturb you,” he says in his quiet way. He must remain stooped to fit inside the cabin. Ryon imagines it’s a source of vexation for someone so reticent to take up space.

“What is it?”

“I brought you some stew,” he says, holding a tin cup aloft. “Has she woken? I can fetch more for her if–”

“No,” Ryon mutters, taking the stew and turning back to Dawsyn. “Thank you.”

Ryon says nothing more, expecting the man to leave, but if there is anyone who could tolerate silence, it is Rivdan.

“You are very fond of her,” he remarks.

Ryon sighs. It is perhaps the most benign way to describe what he is. “I ought to be.”

“Then you needn’t worry for her, Mesrich.”

“Why is that?”