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Dawsyn curses and looks around. The rock face is solid, and there are no caves. She’ll need to scout a place to camp – a warren, perhaps.

“I’ll return,” Dawsyn says, pulling off her coat, but the mage has closed her eyes once more, lids unmoving in sleep. Only small puffs of fog give away her breath.

She pulls Baltisse’s head away from the snow and lays her coat beneath it, wrapping the excess around Baltisse’s ears and the side of her face.

“Stay the frost,” she tells the mage’s still form. Then, she grabs her ax and rises from the ground.

Dawsyn’s feet pummel through the deep drifts as she runs downhill. She had been more than willing to make this journey back to Glacia alone, but the presence of Baltisse has brought her something she only now recognises as comradery. Loath as she is to admit it, she does not want to be left alone. Not again.Do not die,her mind bids the mage.Do not die.

The snow thins enough that her legs are no longer ploughing, and she stops at the sight of a cropping of great boulders leaning together, almost invisible beneath the snow. At its base is the black mouth of a cave.

She knows it might already be occupied by the creatures of this mountain. A mountain cat, perhaps. But she’ll be lucky to haul Baltisse even this far to reach shelter. She cannot afford to run farther. She has little choice.

Dawsyn wastes no time. Finding a rock large enough, she carefully approaches the cave mouth and hurls it inside, listening to the way it clatters against the walls. She waits. Nothing within stirs. Good enough.

She grits her teeth and makes haste back the way she came, following her tracks in the snow. The path feels easier twice trodden, but her legs still struggle against the drift. She uses her hands when she needs to, running, crawling when she must.

She climbs one incline, and then another. Each time her throat tightens to see her tracks before her, continuing upward. How far has she come? How will she carry Baltisse back here?

A distinct sound makes her halt.

A snap.

On the Ledge, there are keen differences between sounds signalling danger, and knowing them is vital. The sound of cracking ice is the worst. There is little one can do when ice gives way. The sound of cracking skulls is a hazard of the ice; it too becomes familiar when one lives atop it. But the crack of a stick underfoot is a distinct warning. It carries none of the volume or urgency of the former, but the threat is just as real.

Awareness skitters across her skin. Licks of instinct on her neck say she is not alone.

In her centre, the sentient magic awakens, undulates.

The forest quiets, as though aware of an intruder as well. Slowly, she slips her fingers to her waist.

The wind stills, her fingers grip the blade handle, and she spins.

When the blade leaves her fingers, it turns, end over end. It cuts through the air to the place where a man stands, sinfully dark against the white.

Before the knife hits the ridge between his eyes, he raises a hand. With a precise swipe, he snatches it from the air. As though he’d been expecting it.

“Malishka,” he says.

CHAPTERSIXTEEN

It took four men to transport him into the back of a wagon.

His legs and wrists were shackled, and he was held at sword-point – several of them, in fact. Though the guards could not know it, they had no need to fear his attack. An escape attempt was useless down here in this keep. If he meant to escape – and he did – his best chance had just been offered by Queen Alvira herself.

Ryon went willingly out of the keep. He allowed himself to be pulled and shuffled above ground, and then through a tunnelled exit. When the guards shunted him into the back of the enclosed wagon with barred windows, he made no attempt to stop them.

He heard the scramble of activity outside the wagon as the guards readied the horses and strategized their impromptu excursion to the town’s square.

“Keep the wagon surrounded at all times,” the captain’s voice instructed. “A walking barricade on each side, understand?”

“Yes, Captain,” came a chorus of answers.

They set forth, the wagon swaying and lurching across the uneven ground. It would take very little time to reach the statue of theFallen Woman.Ryon knew that the time for escape was now, while the wagon ambled on, and the guards were focused on the destination ahead.

He was cramped, his neck bending at an odd angle to fit within the small space. It would be difficult to manoeuvre himself without attracting the notice of the guards, but that was not his biggest challenge. His shackled wrists were locked to the bars on the walls. He would doubt his ability to simply break them. That is, of course, had they not chained him to a bar with a precariously loose bolt.

It rattled quietly, barely discernible beneath the clopping horse hooves and rattling wheels. Still, it seemed too obvious an escape. It couldn’t be a trick, surely? And yet, he had to wonder why he would be shackled to the only faulty bar in a row of many. Was it mere luck?