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Dawsyn watches him retreat. She stays on the beach as the others gather their supplies and go over final plans. She contemplates loyalty.

Hector had used the word. The elusive pull that drives her back to the Ledge time and time again. The binding that exists between Ryon and her. It’s the face behind the guilt that plagues Terrsaw. Dawsyn sees her friends coming toward her, ready for the journey ahead, and wonders if loyalty isn’t the greatest hindrance of all.

CHAPTERSIXTY-ONE

Ryon holds out his arms to her, but his expression stops her from going to them.

It is a fracturing glass. The incremental splintering of ice. She can see his jaw working beneath the scruff, his eyes becoming carefully blank, disguising the fault lines.

Despite the vastness of him, the obvious strength he possesses, it seems there is something that can breach it all. She is not dense enough to believe it’s the threat of the Ledge.

Dawsyn’s eyes prick, and she means to withdraw from the discomfort of it. There is a task ahead, and that callous part of her shies away from the thought of being made to feel. Perhaps she would do just that, if Ryon didn’t look so anxious. Perhaps she’d wrap an arm around his neck and tell him to hurry up and untuck his wings. Perhaps she would have shunned any emotion of her own, preferring to live out the next few hours with a prickling throat and a heavy heart.

But she is growing more and more certain that this hybrid was sent here to humble her. She cannot bring herself to ignore the stress in this face she has come to… love.

The word startles her still.

Instead of climbing into his arms, she places her hands in his.

He sighs. “You’re not about to coddle me, are you, malishka?”

She chews on the inside of her cheek for a moment before answering. “I do not know how.”

He gives a deep, rough laugh, then pierces her with his fathomless stare. “Do not die.” His fingers tighten almost unbearably around hers.

“I never do,” she says. She takes one hand away and places it on his cheek. She feels the roughness of his stubble, the smooth plane of his skin.

“Say the word,” he says. “And I’ll take us across this sea. Now.”

Dawsyn smiles, despite the seriousness of his pledge. She can feel him almost begging her to agree. She steps in and lays her head against his chest instead. An apology, of sorts. “Not yet,” she whispers. Words echoing a time and place much like this.

She hears him grunt into her hair, his lips at the crown of her head. “One day, I’ll insist,” he says. And then his arms wrap around her, and they leave the ground behind.

With the Chasm before them, they follow the sea into its opening and then ascend, flanked by its dire shelves looming just above. The tide does not reach far into mouth of the Chasm. Soon, the glinting water below resembles a narrow vein, creeping out into the ocean’s waiting grasp. They climb with the mountain, until the Chasm becomes the black pit she recognises. The Chasm of her darkest, most hopeless remembrances.

Before long, the wind finds them, and though it does little to deter the strength in Ryon’s wings, or that of the other mixed-bloods following close behind, it forces Dawsyn to turn her face into her hood.

She can smell the mountain, smell the onset of the hostile season in the wind. She has lost track of the days. She wonders if the people on the Ledge will be preparing for the coming of a new season or a new Selection. She wonders if the Selection rituals will be different now, with Adrik leading the invasion. Perhaps he has already begun taking what he wants.

Ryon banks from side to side as the Chasm weaves through the mountain, and when night begins to fall, Dawsyn turns her face outward again. They must be near.

The Ledge approaches, Glacia on the other side.

“Ready yourself,” Ryon says to her as they bank heavily around a bend. At a point of no discerning marks, Ryon grips Dawsyn tighter. He grunts as his wings swoop downward. He hurls them at an angle, the lip of the Chasm ahead, set to meet them head on.

Skirt the lip and keep to the ground,Ryon had directed Rivdan and Tasheem in the cove.Don’t break until you reach cover.

Dawsyn flinches, nails digging into the insides of her gloves as they evade the brink, so erringly close that Dawsyn feels the ice reaching out to snag her clothes. Then they are gliding over it – the Ledge.

Ryon stretches his wings as they sail over the snow, trapping Dawsyn’s limbs to her body to keep them from hitting the drifts. They soar above this ice and powder until the night becomes impossibly darker, the pine grove shadowing everything.

Ryon swoops up, landing them as quietly as he can, shin deep in the drifts. The heavy armoury on his back sinks him.

The others arrive in quick succession. Rivdan with Salem. Tasheem with Hector.

For a moment, all stand silent. They wait for the sounds of approach and hear none. They turn and look through the trees to the kingdom beyond the Chasm, its castle turrets only just visible for the white snow heaped on their eaves. It appears quiet. No one descends upon the ice or takes to the sky. They have arrived unseen.

“No sign of the witches?” Tasheem murmurs, and Dawsyn shakes her head. They had agreed to fold here once the sun had descended completely. “Any moment now.”