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It doesn’t make sense, this particular betrayal, and she knows it. But she feels it still. Of them all, this infraction hurts most keenly. “Theyalldied. One after the other. And youvowedto me that youwouldn’t!”

She doesn’t know why these words should come now, nor why the faces of her grandmother, of Briar, of Maya, mixed with Ryon sinking to the palace tiles, eyes wide and unseeing, should echo themselves. She forgets the root of her argument, her fury. For a moment the feeling is misplaced, divided. She struggles to hold onto it. She blinks and shakes her head to dispel the images.

He takes her face in his hands, palms overwhelming her cheeks, wiping away tears she didn’t feel fall. She closes her eyes.

“I came back,” he says softly, ardently. His fingers implore her, try desperately to comfort, to reach her. “Dawsyn… I am well. Don’t cry.”

But she has little say in the matter. The very feel of his hands, warm on her skin, only serves to reduce her further. A singular sound escapes her lips. A small fragment of her pain.

“Don’t,” Ryon begs again, and presses his lips to hers.

Such sweet relief it is, for a moment, to feel his mouth on hers, to smell his scent, feel him draw breath.

His arms encircle her waist, collecting her, swallowing her into the wall of his chest.

How easy it would be to dissolve herself, let him consume her again. She remembers, now, how the cage of his arms felt like a sanctuary. It is heady, this toxin. Perhaps that is what he has been all along. A drug. A deception. A temporary suppressor of her judgement.

Fools entrust themselves to another. One must hold a clear divide between their mind and their body, but with him, when she is too near, it blurs. He has already made a fool of her once. She will not let it happen again.

Fools entrust themselves to men, and idiots to Glacians.

She pushes him back.

He stumbles, stunned, breathing too hard, eyes dazed and searching.

“No,” she says. She raises a hand to ward him off, but it wavers. If he ignores it – if he comes to her again… “Whatever…exists… between us,” she breathes jaggedly, “it will die here. Now.” She pauses, regaining her breath, pulling herself up to her full height. “We are done.”

“Dawsyn–”

“We aredone!” she says again, her voice truer this time.

Ryon’s hands run over his head, down his face. “It isn’t that simple.”

“Itissimple,” Dawsyn returns. “It wasn’t before. I was confused then. It was difficult to hate you and grieve your death at the same time.” She clenches her hands, forcing the trembling in them to subside. When she meets the hybrid’s eyes, she ensures he will find no indecision in hers.

“But you are no longer dead,” she says, coldly. “And now? It shall be easy.”

CHAPTERTWENTY-ONE

Dawsyn ensures the mage is interrogated as soon as she seems lucid enough to provide answers, though it takes much of the day and night.

When she hears the sound of Baltisse’s body shifting with wakefulness, she pulls Ruby into the mage’s view and holds her there until Baltisse confirms that her intentions are pure.

“Leave her be, Dawsyn,” Baltisse mumbles. “She is no threat to you. Quite the opposite. Though I am surprised to see you here, Captain. What happened to your unswerving loyalty to that Queen?”

The captain merely grimaces. “It swerved.”

The mage’s eyelids close, but she smiles ruefully. “It will cost you dearly, you know.”

Ruby only nods with morbid resolve. “I do.”

Dawsyn huffs, satisfied, for now, by Baltisse’s reassurance. She can admit to herself that she is relieved. She had not wanted to kill the captain.

“How do you feel, Baltisse?” Dawsyn asks. “We might try to return you to Terrsaw, to Salem, perhaps. If–”

“Salem?” Baltisse chuckles, but it sounds hoarse. “Might as well throw me to his pigs.”

“A healer, then?”