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Dawsyn hesitates for a moment. She knows very little about propriety, even less about mixed custom, but despite herself, she feels obliged to say, “I don’t know your name.”

She means only to inquire, but the words come hard and closed, like she merely sought to air the statement. “I mean,” she says, breathing deeply, willing her shoulders to relax. “What is your name?”

Lines appear at the corners of his eyes as his smile deepens. “Rivdan, miss.”

She nods, unsure of what next to say. Instead, she looks past Rivdan, to the flickering light of the sconces that will guide her to a tunnel, if she is not mistaken.

She hears Rivdan sigh. “Can I accompany you, at least?”

“No,” Dawsyn answers immediately, and then adds, “Thank you.”

“I thought not. Take care on the ice.”

But Dawsyn is already walking on, an inexplicable drive propelling her forward.

Once outside of the tunnel, the wind is not so tempered. It chills the skin on her cheeks, and she has to bury her hands inside her cloak, but the cold is not ravenous this night. It is slower, lazy in its grasp, and Dawsyn’s body remains warm enough as she hastens through the Pure Village, knowing only the vague direction of the Colony, keeping the looming palace at her back.

The distinction between the Pure Village and the Colony is painfully apparent. There is an empty channel of space between the last building and the first makeshift shelter, where the wind disturbs the fresh powder unobstructed. It might as well be a chasm.

Dawsyn slows as she passes the Colony homes, weaving amongst them in the dark. Ahead, the outline of a post appears, its top exceeding the height of the tents and shanties. Confused, she walks toward it, rounding shelters, her feet hardly heard upon the powder.

Finally, she comes to a break in the maze. The shelters leave an open space, leaning away from the wooden instruments in the centre, as though recoiling from them.

A tendril of wariness caresses Dawsyn’s neck. At first, she thinks it is the ominous quality of a place such as this, so quiet and empty. It automatically brings about a sense of threat. There are stocks, chains, a tree trunk long since cut and stripped and erected here, Mother knows what for.

The awareness licks at her again, raising the hairs along her arms, and it is only then that she sees him.

In the dark, Ryon sits at the base of the wooden post.

Dawsyn freezes at the sight of him. She notices, though she is remiss to, the settling of her restlessness. The fist within her chest that had stayed clenched and unyielding evaporates as she takes him in.

He looks straight at her, perplexed, as though unsure of whether she might be a trick of the dark. His wings are vanished. His boots are spread apart, knees drawn up slightly where he rests his forearms. His shoulders rise and fall heavily. He looks away from her, his head shaking somewhat.

Dawsyn approaches, stopping as soon as she can be sure he will hear her above the gentle wind. “I was looking for you,” she says. “You did not come back after you met with the Council.”

Ryon raises his head and meets her eye, his jaw ticking as it does when he is agitated, his eyes unfathomably tired. It makes her want to go to him. It makes her want to comfort him. An urge altogether unsavoury.

“I’m surprised you would come so far to seek me,” he says absently. “I apologise. I should have come to find you earlier.”

He appears spent, enough to already be asleep, and Dawsyn wonders why he would come here, to this dismal place, so very far away from the palace. “Why didn’t you?”

His gaze clouds with something like dread. Dread forher, she realises. He dreads her reaction to whatever it is he must say.

“The Council won’t agree to fly to the Ledge, Dawsyn,” he tells her, voice carried swiftly away.

Dawsyn’s gut hollows and falls away. Yet, it is what she’d expected. Adrik solidified the answer almost as soon as they’d arrived. What she hadn’t expected was that the weight of this burden might rest as heavily with Ryon as it does her.

He looks how she feels. Powerless. Depleted.

All this way. They had come this far.

Dawsyn looks around at the Colony and understands now why Ryon came here: he wanted to spare her these feelings a little longer.

“What is this place?” She does not need to know where they are, really. She does not exactlycareto know, either. She wants to push Ryon to recount every word uttered in that Council meeting. She wants to rage about the injustice of it. She wants to demand that Ryon fly her across the Chasm tonight, right now. But she can’t.

She can’t even raise her voice to him. She can’t watch him blanch there where he sits, awaiting her wrath, as though he is responsible for those on the Ledge.

Instead, she says anything else. She keeps her voice even, rather than worsen his guilt.