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The mage’s eyes narrow, she seems contemplative. The molten gold of her eyes, so wild just moments ago, now turns still.

Dawsyn frowns. “What is wrong?”

“Call to it,” the mage says, as though Dawsyn hadn’t spoken. “Do not beg or demand it.”

“If I cannot beg or demand, then what can I do? Invite it out to stroll?”

“Yes.”

Dawsyn’s derisive huff bathes the mage’s face, still so close.

Baltisse grasps Dawsyn’s wrist and raises it in the remaining space between them. The movement is so sudden that Dawsyn has no time to react. It unsettles her. She did not know the mage could move so quickly.

“It is a creature, Dawsyn Sabar, remember? Already you are proving to be a slow learner. If you beg the magic, it will think you weak. It will not rise from its slumber. If you demand it, force it, it will bite. If you want the magic to rise at your will, then you will find the ways to coax it out. So yes, all-powerful girl of the Ledge, I want you to extend an invitation. Invite the thing out to play, and let it learn the boundaries of your leash.”

Baltisse’s eyes rise to Dawsyn’s hairline before returning to meet her glare. “You think I am the most arrogant of all?” she asks, her voice resonating in the open space. “I am not the one debating the mechanisms of magic with a seven hundred year-old witch.”

Dawsyn feels a chill sweep over her from head to toe.

“Mind your thoughts, Sabar,” the mage whispers, and yet it rings loudly in Dawsyn’s ears.

She refuses to let Baltisse see how disturbed she is. In her mind, her grandmother’s sharp voice calls her a fool for underestimating one as ancient as the mage. Dawsyn closes her eyes, loosens a captive breath in her lungs, and focuses once more on the imposter that sleeps inside her.

This time she does not poke it, or pull at it with her mind. With doubt in every word, she speaks to it, and awaits its response.Come out,she tells it.Let me show you the way.

At first, that glowing mass does nothing, but then… a flicker.

Come with me.Dawsyn coaxes again now, encouraged.Come and see…

Where?It hisses, reluctant still.Where?

I will show you.

The gleaming mass fills her body slowly as it wakes, stretching, feeling its way along her limbs. Dawsyn feels it move with rapt interest this time, her attention not marred by anger or urgency. She feels the prickle of chill as it moves within her. She notices the way her body reacts to its cold caress. Her blood rushes to heat the places touched, burning away the frost of the iskra into something pleasant. It is not the iskra that burns her, but a… balm. A cure. Something other. A natural reaction of her body, perhaps.

Dawsyn’s eyes open. Frost collects in her palms first, as before, slowly spreading to her knuckles and nails and wrists.

“Good.” Baltisse nods, barely glancing down at the hand still in her grasp. “Now, let it go back again.”

“What?” Dawsyn blurts. “I’ve yet to do a single thing with it.”

“And you won’t. Not today.”

“Then how am I to use it the next time I am locked in a dungeon?”

“A smarter woman would not find herself in dungeons so often.” Baltisse turns to leave.

“Show me how to use it, Baltisse! We are not done!”

“Yes, we are.”

Dawsyn feels the frost begin to retreat from her fingertips, disappearing from her skin. She boils, infuriated.No!

Yes,it whispers.

Suddenly, Dawsyn cries out. At her attempt to wrench the iskra forward once more, an abrupt bolt of pain lances through her belly, squeezing until she collapses, her body falling to the forest floor. She lies panting, her face pressed against the damp, rotting leaves. The magic licks its way back to its resting place, becoming nothing but a small, heavy mass once more.

Baltisse’s fingers sweep away the hair that half covers Dawsyn’s face, and watches with apparent interest as her breaths slow and her limbs slacken. “I told you it would bite,” she says, and holds out a hand.