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“Tash,” he says. “Please, take us to Adrik.”

CHAPTERTWENTY-FOUR

When Ryon first showed signs of becoming full-grown, Adrik insisted that Ryon live with him. Leaving Ditya’s tent hadn’t been easy, but Adrik had plans for Ryon. The young Glacian knew well what they were and was eager to prove himself. He did not hesitate to accept the offer.

The Council leader was a god to Ryon then, the only one in the Colony fortified enough to bear the delivery of Ryon’s “penance” at the Kyph. Others had tried to share the burden with Adrik over the years. When the brutes came, one mixed or another had stepped forward with teeth gritted, apology in their eyes. The brutes then demanding they strike Ryon, or burn him, or cut him. Their grit was always short-lived. It was Adrik who picked up the whip when they could not continue.

Ryon had reached that fissure in time when a boy has the confidence of a man but the trust of a child – a malleable child. Adrik offered to mentor Ryon at this specific interval of his growth, and Ditya protested.

Ryon had reassured Ditya that he desired this change. He knew that Ditya worried for his safety, for his rebellious nature. Ryon challenged him nightly with his conquests into the forest, into the skies, into dark corners with females.

But Adrik was the Council leader, after all, and so Ryon left Ditya’s shelter, and as he had done so often, he went elsewhere to burden another.

Ryon soon learnt that Adrik could rarely be found. At first, the young Glacian revelled in his solitude. Ryon had space and privacy, and when he didn’t, he could sit in on the Council meetings. He was quickly appointed as a member, despite his adolescence. It was quite the honour – one unheard of in the Colony.

When Adrik and Ryon were alone, the older male would tell Ryon things a full-grown male should know. He spoke of war and glory. He fed Ryon his hopes for the future of the entire Colony. He spoke about Ryon’s father, and professed the truth about Thaddius Mesrich’s insidious nature, something that no other had ever shared with him. Then, he spoke about women, about sex, and Ryon felt like Adrik’s equal. He spoke to Ryon like he was a man already.

Adrik would bring females to his tent, and Ryon would leave, rather than listen to the sounds of their bodies in the dark. “A smart man would listen closely to the sounds, deshun,” Adrik would say, laughing easily. “You might learn something valuable.”

The women did not bother Ryon. He was used to slinking through the Colony at night. Sharing space with others his whole life had taught him the value in making himself scarce when needed. If Adrik was taking company, Ryon readily afforded him the privacy he never seemed to ask for.

Ryon didn’t feel at all discomforted with this arrangement until the night Adrik broughttwofemales to the tent. One was a familiar mixed who frequented their living space, and the other was Tasheem.

Tasheem, with her beautiful, flawless skin and bright stare. She was nearing adulthood herself. She had a tendency to throw stones at Ryon whenever he took flight. He’d never taken much notice of her, other than to shout names at her from the sky.

“For you,” Adrik had said simply, winking once to Ryon. Then he pulled the other female down to a cushioned pallet, already pressing his lips to her neck.

Ryon and Tasheem had looked to the grown pair, and then to each other, revulsion lining their young faces. Without a word, Tasheem took off out of the tent, and Ryon followed close behind, a steady flow of nausea filling his stomach.

He ducked his head through the tent flap and into the night air… and was hit with a blow to the side of the head.

Tasheem was standing several feet away, her hands full of small stones she always kept stashed in her pockets. “Get away from me, Mesrich!” she yelled, hand raised. “I am not your entertainment this night.”

In truth, Ryon had not experiencedentertainmentas Tasheem had called it. He had kissed girls, but it had gone no further. He had certainly not kissed Tasheem, nor did he want to.

“Ow!” he grumbled. “Wouldn’t want it, even if you were offering, Tash. Put the fucking stones down!”

“Adrik told me there was a special meeting happening in there!” Tasheem spat, pointing to Adrik’s shelter. A moan escaped from within the tent at that moment, and after a short pause, both Ryon and Tasheem muffled their laughter in their hands. “Very special, it seems,” she added.

It was the first time Adrik had ever left Ryon feeling… inadequate. He was almost full-grown, after all, should he not match the proclivities of the other adult males of the Colony? If he was one of them, should he not act so?

But there was that sense of wrongness, too. A sickening dread in his stomach. Why would Adrik push him to participate in such things, as though they were a measure of his maturity? What of Tasheem, who so very clearly held no desire toward him?

Ryon and Tasheem spent the night taking turns at flying over the Colony’s boundary, seeing who dared go the furthest into the woods before losing their nerve. When Tasheem yet again threw a stone at Ryon mid-flight, he pelted snow at her retreating head.

Eventually someone had alerted Ditya to the ruckus they were making, and he came to corral the two youths back into the safety of the Colony. He sent Tasheem back to her mother, and Ryon followed Ditya back to his home with a quiet sense of relief, of safety.

For once, Ditya did not scold Ryon for his recklessness. Instead, the man smiled and patted Ryon’s shoulder twice before returning to his own bed.

The next time Phineas came to visit Ryon, he told the pure-blood all about Adrik and his teachings. Phineas listened intently, his scowl growing by the second, and promptly ordered Ryon to stay with Ditya. Ryon did not argue. Though he understood very little of Adrik, he appreciated the profound relief he felt in his absence.

The next body entrapped at the Kyph was not Ryon’s, but Adrik’s, and his back was soundly sliced by the switch.

The portcullises that once barred entrance to the Glacian palace are open, allowing any being to come and go. It brings Ryon a sense of peace as they pass through the tunnel, a reminder of what they accomplished. Finally.

Tasheem leads them, a torch in her hand to light the bleak path.

Ryon feels Dawsyn near him, his neck prickling, and his hand outstretches of its own accord as though he means to take hers. He pulls it back to his side before she can sense it there.