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Rivdan chuckles softly. “When we were young, you and Tash would hustle the rest of us out of our suppers. Do you remember?”

Ryon scoffs. “There was no hustling. You were foolish enough to bet against us.”

“Yes. I remember when you placed your hand on the ground and bet that a dropped knife would fall between your fingers, and it wouldn’t pierce your skin. I dropped that knife myself, and sure enough, it struck the space between your knuckles. You ate my broth right in front of me.”

Ryon can’t help but grin. “A fair victory.”

“One of hundreds.” Rivdan nods. “You always had a way of willing things to happen, Ryon. We used to call youGervalti,do you remember?”

“Fortune from misfortune,” Ryon murmurs, the meaning returning to him. “Yes, I remember.”

“For such an unlucky hand dealt to you, you’ve always found luck where you looked, Mesrich. Your girl, Dawsyn, she will be all right if you wish it. I am sure.”

Rivdan turns to leave, but before he can close the door behind him, Ryon speaks. “You’re only recalling when the knife missed me, Rivdan,” Ryon murmurs. “You’ve forgotten all the cuts my hand bore to begin with.” Ryon rubs his eyes. He wishes everything were as simple as his will and the strength with which he compelled it. “It didn’t always hit the ground.”

Rivdan hesitates in the doorway but says nothing to argue. He isn’t the type to offer false encouragement. Instead, he clicks the door shut, and Ryon hears his boots on the rough path, leaving him in peace.

A strand of Dawsyn’s hair falls over her forehead and Ryon reaches to brush it away. There is a scar along her hairline. Another near her ear. A woman who shouldn’t be alive, but has been too busy fighting to die.

Ryon cannot name what it is in her that ties him here – her wit, or her stubbornness, or her temper. The shape of her eyes, the feel of her skin. The way it feels when she looks at him. He suspects it’s not one, but all of them. Mother knows, it would be easier for them both if they weren’t so tethered.

Dawsyn’s chest rises and falls evenly. Ryon frowns as the iskra creeps into her palms and then disappears, over and over. He drinks his watery stew, plays out a thousand different scenarios in his head, all doomed. He promises himself that if the mage does not return soon, he will find her.

He will find a way through this challenge. They all will.

When her hand frosts over again with the pool’s magic, Ryon takes her palm in his. He studies her hand, smaller than his own. And when he interlocks their fingers, he expels a heavy breath.

“Stay the frost, malishka,” he tells her softly.

Ryon does not leave the cabin until early the next morning when the call of nature makes it impossible for him to stay. He leaves the cabin to relieve himself. He finds water and boils it. The sun has only just begun to tinge the sky from ink blue to purple. Birds call across the valley, the sky beckoning them to take flight, and he feels that shared yearning along his spine and shoulders. His wings long to take him away from the fears he faces on the ground.

The shapes of sleeping bodies lie around the camp. The nights have been almost unbearably hot for the mixed-bloods amongst them, and it shows. Rivdan sleeps half naked and Tasheem is splayed out as though she’s been drawn for quartering. Hector and Esra sleep alongside one another, the latter snoring soundly. Hector seems to have thrown one leg over Esra’s lap, at which Ryon smiles.

He looks around for the rest, Salem, Ruby, and Gerrot, but they aren’t here. Ryon has been the first to rise each morning since they made camp here, but perhaps the heat got the better of the others. They have likely taken to one stream or another to wash.

A few moments later, while Ryon stokes the flames of a weak fire, there is a faraway cry.

Swallows take flight all around, the sound of their wings replacing birdsong.

Ryon stands, his ears pricked. It was distant, the sound. He can’t be sure it wasn’t an animal. If it was one of their party, he isn’t certain it was a call of distress. He waits, his muscles coiling with a deep, dark dread. The forest is eerily silent, and then…

Another cry.

Ryon runs. At the sound of his haste, some of the others wake, call to him.

He sprints in the direction of the sound, striding clear of gnarled roots and thickets. As he gains distance, other noises reach him. The sounds of steel, the panicked whinnying of a horse, more shouts, more voices. Salem’s.

Ryon quickens.

Ahead is a wagon path. He can see the gravel through the gaps between trees. It is where the sound of the fray comes from. He can see the silver flash of steel colliding, hear the grunts of exertion.

His wings unfurl. In one heave, he swoops them down with enough force to strip the nearby branches of their leaves, and tears into the sky.

Below, on the road, Salem holds off two uniformed men – guards. Swords drawn, they slash and strike at Salem, who holds only a barrel between him and them, deflecting their blows and staggering backward. Gerrot lingers behind, hands empty. Not a single weapon between them.

Ryon plunges. He comes down on the guard who lingers behind – a coward, allowing his comrade to take the lead with two men and a barrel. His boots land on the guard’s shoulders before he has the sense to look skyward. Ryon crushes him into the gravel, his full Glacian weight breaking the man instantly.

Ryon rights himself atop the dead soldier to see the remaining Terrsaw guard wrap his arm around Gerrot’s neck. Gerrot claws at the guard’s arm, but his fingers slip from the polished armour. The guard’s sword presses tightly across Gerrot’s torso.