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Salem shoos her away half-heartedly, blinking away his tears. “Leave it, lass. It was Baltisse who saved yeh.”

“It was both,” Dawsyn presses, letting the man back away. “And one day I will repay you.”

“You’d better not,” he warns, pointing a finger threateningly. “I’ll not have a young woman puttin’ her neck out fer an old codger like me.”

Long after night falls, Baltisse gives Dawsyn a meaningful look, and the latter nods. They have lingered far longer than needed. The second Dawsyn had stepped over Salem’s stoop, her reluctance had grown. She found that she wanted to stay here, at this bar, with Esra’s jewelled fingers poking her ribs in jest, Salem grumbling in a steady stream, Baltisse rolling her eyes and helping herself to the wine. But the night was wearing thin. Staying meant taking a bed for the night, and whilst there were plenty on the floor above, she knew how plagued the place would be with recollections of Ryon, pushing into her, lowering his mouth to hers. So, she stands and pushes away her tankard, amid Esra’s protests.

“It’s the middle of the night, you simpletons! Stay! I have a rather scandalous story I’ve been dying to share. It involves bed mites and Salem’s backside.”

“ESRA!”

“Mother save us,” Baltisse mutters, downing the last of her wine. “Glacia is surely the better choice. Sabar, we will gather what we need.”

Esra sighs, dejected. “Fine,” he mopes. “Why does no one ever wish to howl at the moon with me anymore, Salem?”

“Because more often than not, yeh end up bawlin’ like a baby with yer pants ’round yer ankles and yer head in a barrel. None of us are all that decent, Es, but I reckon we don’t deserve to see such a sight.”

“You are an incurable bore, old man.”

“Esra,” Dawsyn interrupts, though she wouldn’t mind listening to their squabbling until the night bled into morning. “Could I trouble you for some weapons?”

“Good god, woman! Weapons? I am but an honest liquor proprietor and I have absolutely no dabblings in–”

“Oh, shut up, Es,” Baltisse calls as she leaves the dining room.

“Right,” Esra returns, standing abruptly. “Let’s get you all kitted up then, shall we Dawsyn darling?”

Dawsyn follows Esra into the hallway, and then to a familiar storeroom. Built into the floorboards, Dawsyn knows, is a trapdoor – one that conceals a small cellar beneath. She watches as Esra heaves it open and remembers how dark it had been hiding down there in that black hole while Glacians raided above. She recalls the cold – not from the air, but from Ryon’s fingertips as his Glacian blood ran wild.

“Here we are,” Esra says, lighting a lantern, and without an ounce of fear, he jumps into the depths below.

Dawsyn makes to follow, but before she can, his black shaven head reappears, and he begins hefting objects through the hole, letting them clatter at Dawsyn’s feet. Swords first, then knives, sheaths of arrows, and finally a singular ax.

A battle ax.

Dawsyn bends to examine it while Esra grunts and curses his way out of the hole. Its handle is like none Dawsyn has ever held. Reinforced with steel halfway down the neck and etched with the Terrsaw emblem. It is ancient. The wood at the handle base has been worn smooth by a ghost’s hand, grooves where fingers once held it a thousand times to win a hundred battles. The twin blades still gleam, though they are thin. Countless passes through stone have shaved them down. They will pass through wood and flesh as though they were water.

“Dawsyn,” says Esra, his tone softer, more docile than she has ever heard it, and it makes her look up. “Is there anything I can tell you that will make you stay?” he asks. His shoulders are already slumped in defeat, the debate already won. She has already cast aside his concerns.

“I’m afraid not,” she tells him.

Dawsyn rises with the ax in one hand, four knives of various size and utility in the other.

“Anaxof all things?” Esra shakes his head, exasperated. “Take a sword, darling, or take the bow and arrows.”

“It’s a fine ax.”

“Its heavy and gaudy and you’ll not fell even one man with it before you keel over from back pain.”

Esra continues to rant, but Dawsyn only looks down at the ax, perfectly placed in her hand, and when Esra’s voice grows draining she spins it over in her palm.

In a flash of glinting steel, the ax flies through the air, bypassing Esra’s nose. It buries into the wall.

Esra does not finish his sentence. Instead, he chokes on the words as though they stick to his throat. He peruses her anew. The Sabar girl, the woman of the Ledge.

There is no malice in her stare, no quiver in her hand. Merely resignation, duty.

“Fuck me,” Esra murmurs, voice quivering.