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“Thirteen, on the day of my first cycle. I walked from the fringe to the palace that same morning and signed my servitude to Queen and kingdom. I was sent to the Boulder Gate a week later.”

Dawsyn chews on her tongue. Despite herself, she is intrigued. “It must have been very bleak.”

“Absolute torture, actually,” Ruby answers, her brown eyes lost in the memory. “There was nothing to defend the kingdom against, of course. The Glacians hadn’t been seen in Terrsaw in nearly half a century. No one dared pass to climb the slopes. It was… a test, I suppose. We stood in the snow for three days and three nights. Unable to sit or rest. Water, but no food. Horrendous. But nearing the end of it, I started seeing things –visions, Her Majesty called them. She was delighted when I told her. I saw a winged monster fall on my sword and the Queen proclaimed me a true warrior. She said it was a prophecy of my glory. And I believed her… at the time.” Ruby lets loose a breath that sends the floating snowflakes into a flurry. Her complexion turns sallow. “I was pushed through the ranks faster than the others. Much faster. I worked to prove myself worthy, of course. I devoted every part of me to the guardianship. It became my entire world.” She shivers. “Now, however, I know the vision I saw wasn’t a vision at all. It was merely hunger. Exhaustion. Fatigue. A hallucination, as were thevisionsof every other initiate guarding the Gate. One of the lads saw a siren lying naked on a boulder and wept at his good fortune.” The captain laughs, though her eyes remain hollow. “Our visions were the delusions that precede death, not predictions. That boy never found his siren. In fact, he died in a tavern brawl by way of a broken bottle. And I… I am not the one who will bring glory to Terrsaw,” she says, catching Dawsyn’s gaze. “That, I believe, was meant for you.”

Dawsyn presses her lips into a tight line, considering the captain’s proclamation. It is both like and unlike her own beliefs. Dawsyn believes shemustbe the one to free the Ledge, but not to fulfil a prophecy. She must go, because there is no one else who will.

“You are wrong,” she finally answers, tone dry, glare pronounced. “You speak of my destiny as though my loyalties lie in Terrsaw. As though the goal I seek is in their name, their honour.” Dawsyn shakes her head, bemused. “If I bring glory to anyone, Captain, it will be to my people on the Ledge. I will sooner free those who stole my wood, pushed me into the snow, dove over me for scraps of rations or snatched them from my hands, than defend the valley who condemned us to live that way. I am not one of them.”

“Aren’t you?” Ruby asks carefully, and Dawsyn frowns, confused by the question. “Their voices could be heard for days following your near-hanging,” she explains. “Your name was on every tongue, in every ear, all over the Mecca and into the villages, calling for your pardon.” She begins to tremble from the cold. “If you knocked on any door, begged sanctuary from any Terrsaw man or woman, I’d wager they would grant it.”

Dawsyn scoffs. “Do I look like the kind of woman who begs?”

Ruby laughs. “No,” she concedes. “You look like a Sabar.”

Dawsyn does not know how one like Ruby could claim to know such a thing, but understands that the captain is extending a branch of truce, however thin. She remembers the persistence with which Ruby had come to the palace keep, attempting to persuade Dawsyn to stay alive, by any means.I am sorry, Miss Sabar,she had said, and then, apparently, orchestrated her escape.

Dawsyn gives a long-suffering sigh, resolving to, at the very least, consider the idea that the captain might be decent.

“This place reminds me of my initiation. It is even colder here than it was then.”

“It will grow much colder yet,” Dawsyn mutters, but eyes Ruby’s stance with dismay. The woman is truly shaking now, from her hair to her boots. “Get off your ass.”

“What?” Ruby exclaims, taken aback.

“Get. Off. Your. Ass,” Dawsyn says again, drawing the words out, pointing to Ruby’s rump. “My guess is that you’ve lost feeling in it by now.”

And indeed, as Ruby makes to rise onto her feet again, she sways, unstable. She mimics Dawsyn’s position instead, holding herself in a squat, where her backside does not reach the shallow powder. Ruby’s legs shudder in this position for a few moments, and then the captain swears soundly, and falls to one side, her legs giving out.

Without giving it thought, Dawsyn laughs, and the sound feels misplaced, unsolicited here on this mountain, in such company. With it, her chest loosens a fraction – a singular inch. She watches Ruby roll onto her back atop the flattened rock cropping, groaning and cursing.

“I hope you’re a quick student,” Dawsyn says, rising from her crouch. In a gesture of no small importance, she extends a hand to Ruby, who doesn’t see it, too busy defaming the Holy Mother and all the spirits.

Rolling her eyes, Dawsyn reaches for the woman’s coat front and heaves her upward. “Your first lesson, Captain, is to keep your body off the fucking ground. Anything more than a few minutes and the frost will find its way in.”

Ruby ceases her grunting and pays attention, her large eyes widened. “Noted. And what is the second lesson?”

“The next will undoubtedly come,” Dawsyn tells her grimly, wondering how long it will take for Ruby to realise the gravity of her decision. “For now, you just stay the frost.”

“Stay the frost,” Ruby repeats. “Easy.”

Dawsyn barks another laugh, the sound stirring the birds in faraway trees. “We shall see.”

Despite Ruby’s confidence, there is very little about their situation that may be calledeasy.

By evening on the first day, Baltisse is able to at least stay awake long enough to hold a conversation, before falling back into a deep slumber. On the following day, as Dawsyn and Ruby re-enter the cave together, she is sitting upright, eating and drinking from their supplies.

Through the daylight hours, Ryon rarely leaves Baltisse’s side, and for that much, Dawsyn is grateful. He crouches beside her in a ridiculous effort to make himself smaller, repeatedly swapping out furs for snowpacks as her fever spikes and ebbs.

Dawsyn knows he does this for her sake as much as Baltisse’s. Since Dawsyn drew the line between them, he has attempted to stay on his side of it. He does not meet her eyes, does not address her unless necessary, and Dawsyn in turn acts as though he does not exist at all.

The performance is for nothing, however.

Merely stepping into the cave brings her a rush of awareness. Being near Ryon signals something within her, and it goes against every fibre of her instinct to ignore it, like a tie she cannot sever.

It terrifies her.

The very sight of him – here, alive – baffles her still. Even as she fights to avert her eyes, she wants to stare at him. She wants to ensure that every small detail of him that she traced for weeks, months, in her memories, remains the same.