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There is a flurry of action in response.

“Stop!”

“Halt!”

“Drop your hand!Now!”

“Do not kill him!” Alvira pants, teeth gritted. Her cheek mashes so tightly against the gate that her words are muffled. The tips of her toes barely reach the floor. This close, Ryon can see her clearly. Her veined skin beneath the powder on her cheeks; the sagging, hooded lids, pink with broken vessels; the lines on her forehead so deeply etched they could be scars. An old, decaying woman, hiding behind painted veneer.

“Where is she?” Ryon says lowly, voice gravelled – a quiet warning. The hot fury of his breath bathes the Queen’s face.

He watches fear bloom in her eyes. She gasps, struggles.

“Release her!” A guard orders.

“Cut his fingers free!”

Their voices are no match for his. “WHERE IS SHE?!” Ryon roars, a thunderous call all the way across the valley. It silences them. The Queen, for all her temerity, has the wherewithal to flinch.

He could break her bones in an instant, and he can see she knows it. It takes restraint not to, but there will be no need for control if Dawsyn is dead.

And his intentions, his train of thought, must be obvious to them all, because a voice suddenly says, “Don’t! Dawsyn isalive!”

He stills. It is not the Queen who spoke words so sweet, but the captain of the guard. Ryon turns his fierce gaze on her.Let it be true,he prays, though he does not dare to hope yet.

The young woman raises her hand to her chest. A vow. “Dawsyn Sabar is alive. I swear it,” Ruby implores, and perhaps she is lying, but Ryon somehow doesn’t think so. Her stare does not waver from his. Something in her expression exudes sincerity, however desperate she might sound. “Let go,” she continues. “Please. Any harm you do here will not serve you.Let the Queen go.”

Ryon tilts his head at Ruby. “Bring her to me.”

“You make demands?” the Queen hisses between rattling breaths, her face still pressed against the grid. “You dare to command my guards?” she spits. “Commandme?”

Ryon considers crushing the sound of her voice between his hands, but not yet. Instead, he pulls the woman tighter, incrementally so. Enough for the terror in the Queen’s eyes to shine a little brighter. Enough to remind her how close she is to a painful end.

“I said,” – Ryon’s grip twists – “bring her to me.”

The gate creaks with the added pressure, and the Queen gasps. “She is not here!” Her voice is a shrill, strangled cry. “I swear it! I swear to you. Now let me go!”

“She has escaped!” Ruby offers. Her hands fall atop Ryon’s, prying at them uselessly. “She ran! We do not know where. Let the Queen go, Ryon, please. If you don’t, you’ll never see her again.”

Ice begins to coat his hands. It lights his palms and crackles along his fingers until it reaches Queen Alvira’s clothes, and then her throat, wrapping around it like a noose.

“Captain! Cut his hands away!” calls a guard.

“No! Do not move,” the Queen gasps, her breath fogging the space between her mouth and Ryon’s. “I can let you go to her, half-breed,” she whispers. “I can unlock this cell today. Now. And you can walk free. But kill me here, and you’ll never see daylight again.”

“Go ahead then,” Ryon jeers, his teeth bared. “Unlock it.” And though the fire in his lungs burns on, the wound throbbing its own pulse, he feels the threat before him burning hotter in his grasp. He unfurls his wings, stretching them to the ceiling, filling the space.

As one, the guards stutter in their movements. They retreat, eyes to the expanse of his Glacian heritage.

“Mother above,” one mutters, mouth agape.

Ryon flaps down once in a heavy stroke, and the musty air in the room displaces violently, throwing the guards back another pace. Ryon’s feet leave the floor, and with him comes the Queen. Her body slides against the iron gate as they rise slowly, her gasps turning to small cries. Ryon hovers a foot above ground, holding the Queen tightly by her luxurious robes, relishing the sound of the seams beginning to split.

“Unlock it,” he commands.

“N-No!” the Queen splutters, her face growing red. And Ryon has to give credit to her endurance. “Not until you unhand me.”

She is not one to yield. Even suspended in mid-air at the hands of abeast,she is resolved. Ryon, meanwhile, feels the burgeoning pain in his chest beginning to splinter him from the inside. “RELEASE ME!” he roars.