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She lets her fingers trace along her thighs and over her hips. She watches them dip in at her waist and then outline the curve of her breasts. She unties her hair from its knot and lets it fall to her back and over her shoulders. She takes herself in.

She wonders if one day, she can will herself to change. She wonders if she has it within her to be more than just bitterness.

Hours have passed, and she has heard nothing. She had considered leaving the room in search of Ryon herself, but she was loath to find herself lost within the palace. Instead, she fills the bath and steps into it, lowering her body into its tepidness. Taking more care than she normally would, she removes the grime in her nail beds, douses her hair and scrubs her scalp until it stings. She finds a comb beside the basin and drags it through her hair over and over again until it no longer snags. Still, no one comes.

Night has fallen; the narrow window reveals it. Clothed once more in a shift, she tries to find sleep on the grand bed. She has never slept on anything like it. The mattress is so soft, she feels cradled by it. Experimentally, she stretches her limbs as wide as she can, and they still do not reach the edges of the bed.

Her body automatically wants to recoil. It only knows small spaces in which to find sleep, tucking onto narrow cots, curling in for warmth. The thought of sleeping the night on a bed so unending makes her wary. She feels defenceless there on the mattress. She does not trust this room, this palace. It is smeared by the image of Vasteel, and she cannot separate the two.

Dawsyn tries to comfort herself in the knowledge that the King has fled. He was chased from this kingdom by those he sought to repress. But even in his absence, a wicked tang sticks to her throat. In the space Vasteel once presided, another seems to have taken the mantle.

She does not trust Adrik.

She had been wary of the mixed-blood upon their first meeting, and the sentiment remains. Dawsyn’s skin had crawled to see him perched in a king’s chair, lording over his admirers while his councilmen presumedly laboured elsewhere, restructuring a kingdom for the people they freed. Ryon had nearly died in Terrsaw, and yet Adrik – his mentor, a man who had supposedly given him purpose – had acted with dispassion upon his return.

She had watched Ryon carefully in that receiving room. She could see the confusion, and then the understanding blossom in him as he watched Adrik’s comrades jest and drink. He had seen Adrik’s truest form in that moment, just as she had, she was sure of it.

Ryon.Where is he?Though to see the hybrid is to bring discomfort upon herself, she wants nothing more than to speak with him. She needs to know what he knows.

Would the Council fly the Chasm to the Ledge? Had Ryon convinced them to liberate her people?

The longer she waits, the more her stomach tangles into knots, her nerves feeding the iskra within. The magic is there, unfurling, seeking… something.

She cannot stay upon the bed a second longer. She cannot wait alone in this room.

Standing, she goes to the window, placing her hands along the cold wooden frame. So high above ground, her eyes can reach the peaks of the Pure Village and its steepled rooftops. She looks past them. Beyond is the Colony, where the lean-tos bend with the wind. The moon does not shine here, where the fog is a cloying blanket, meant only to smother its light. Yet light can still be found there on the outskirts, where the mixed-bloods light their wax and burn wood to stave off the dark. The Colony glows with dull obstinacy through the mist, making ghosts of the squalls that twist through crooked lanes.

Her stomach rolls, lurching in the direction of those small beacons.

She dons her fur cloak, pulls on her boots, and turns for the door.

Wary of the maze that is the palace, Dawsyn does not stray from the known path she walked earlier. She follows it back down a stairwell, out into a wide corridor.

It is, perhaps, foolish to be wandering alone – particularly here, in a place she does not know and where she has little in the way of friends. She ought to wait in that infernal room until Ryon comes with his answers.

He should have come by now, though.

Dawsyn guesses that the night is at its peak. The palace is quiet, save for an errant Izgoi here and there, stumbling drunkenly.

She is restless, and it grows worse the longer she wanders without finding what she seeks. She turns a corner to yet another hallway and finds someone she recognises. Finally. A man with auburn hair and beard, one she recognises as a member of the Council. He turns at the sounds of her approach, eyes widening at the sight of her walking the Palace of Glacians, hair in disarray, cloak unfastened.

“Miss Sabar? Are you well?”

“I need to find Ryon… Mesrich,” she adds. “Is he within the palace?”

Though as she says it, she knows, without question, what the answer will be.

And how can that be?

“He left, prishmyr,” the man says. She does not understand the word. “I’m not certain where.”

Dawsyn, however, somehowis. “Thank you,” she tells him, before continuing.

“He seemed… taxed. If you are searching for him, I’d let it wait this night. Ryon seeks solitude before company when his mind is occupied. I have prodded his temper often enough myself to know.”

To her surprise, it does not annoy Dawsyn to have the man assume to instruct her. “I have prodded his temper often enough too,” she grins. “His bite is not so terrible.”

“Then he must be more taken with you than evenIbelieved, prishmyr. Ryon Mesrich’s bite is well known in the Colony.” His smile was small, but sincere.