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Her neck bristles. The cat, possibly twice her size, stalks painstakingly closer. The only sound it makes is that of its breath.

Dawsyn lifts a miniscule blade from her waist by degrees. “Ready your wits.”

The animal suddenly raises its belly from the snow, increases its pace.

“Run!” The blade leaves Dawsyn’s hand, but Ruby does not turn to see where it flies, she is already staggering downhill, trying to fight her way through the snow, trying not to fall down the decline.

An almighty snarl pierces the air, sending birds into the sky, and Ruby looks over her shoulder to see the great cat baring its teeth, throwing its head into the air in pain. But still, it charges for them.

“Go!” Dawsyn yells, meeting her side. She moves quicker, already pulling ahead. “Faster!”

But Ruby’s leg suddenly sinks deep into a drift and her body lurches forward. With a gasp she falls to her belly.

“Ruby!”

She is already scrambling, pulling her boot free, desperately regaining her feet. “Go!” she shouts to Dawsyn. But she can feel the cat behind her, hear its great paws against the terrain, now too close to outrun. Its heavy breaths are at her back. Any moment those claws will rake the skin from her shoulders, tear her apart.

She whirls, sword in hand, in time to see the wall of white fur bearing down upon her. The mouth of the cat opens wide to reveal its daggerlike teeth. Ruby thrusts the sword forward.

The entire weight of the creature falls upon her, sinking her, burying her in the snow, and she is suffocating, slowly splintering, her bones screaming for relief. But she is alive.

The cat is unmoving. Hot liquid spreads along her chest and belly from the place her sword pierced it. She cannot move an inch. She can hear voices, shouts, but Ruby can only muster the wherewithal to panic as the wall of her chest trembles beneath the pressure, her lungs fighting against the slow caving of her ribs.

And then suddenly, blessedly, she hears a heavy grunt, and the cat moves, the weight rolls away; light and air find her again, and she gulps, stealing lungfuls of it.

“Ruby?” a voice says. Not Dawsyn’s, but the half-Glacian’s. Ryon.

She gasps, finding his face, as well as Dawsyn’s, hovering over her. “Are you hurt?” the latter says.

“I–” Ruby stammers. “I d-don’t think so.”

“Can you stand?” asks Ryon, lending her his hand.

Ruby winces as she reaches forward, grasping his wrist. He pulls her up gently. Helping her climb from the hole that would have been her grave had he not arrived.

The mountain cat lays unmoving on the snow, its white fur stained red by not one, but two wounds. The sword in its side, and the ax embedded in its head.

“Well,” Dawsyn says. “That’s one way to fell it.” She pants heavily, her hands on her hips. But her eyes peruse Ruby’s body carefully, checking for injury.

“Was…” Ruby says, swaying slightly. “Was I truly just attacked by a giant cat?” And had she really survived such a thing?

“It seems to be a rite of passage on this mountain,” Dawsyn mutters, she and Ryon sharing a meaningful glance. Dawsyn looks away quickly.

Ruby puts her hands on her knees and bends forward gingerly, spitting onto the snow. She glances up at Dawsyn through the matted strands of her dark hair. “Was that the second lesson?” she asks.

Dawsyn chuckles. “I’m afraid not, Captain. Though if it were, you surely passed.”

The mage’s strength has returned.

With the new morning, and the smell of meat on the fire, Baltisse appears lively, talking brusquely with Ryon about the risks of folding to Glacia.

“Folding this far very nearly killed you,” the half-Glacian says, his tone even, posture slumped casually along the cave wall. Ruby watches him closely. His eyes seem to keep wandering to Dawsyn as she tends the fire. Each time, his hands clench.

“It depleted me. I was notdying,” Baltisse sneers.

One of Ryon’s eyebrows rises. “No?”

Ruby is a novice in mage lore, such things are no longer spoken of very often, but she is almost certain that folding is a coveted skill. The old books associate folding with the most powerful of sorceresses. She imagines such a skill would be delicate – not one to be discarded and then picked up again so easily. But then again, this is the same mage who read her mind and demonstrated the ability to crush her, should Ruby prove a villain in their plans to release Dawsyn. So, perhaps this mage is capable of much more.