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“And he will give it,” Baltisse says bitingly. “He will do anything you ask him to do, Dawsyn, without question, without hesitation. As I said, love forfeits sense.”

It isn’t love,Dawsyn thinks, but it comes automatically – a useless reflex.

Baltisse sighs, presumedly having heard her. “It certainly isn’tsense. And I can read it clearly in his mind. He is desperate to atone. So, I will grant you the favour of fair warning, Sabar. If youusehim, if you take advantage of his remorse for the sake of a quest you know will fail, you will make me into an enemy.”

Without another word, the mage steps away.

Dawsyn watches the back of her hood move ahead and bites her tongue. Her first instinct is indignation. Does Baltisse truly believe that she would use Ryon, and then discard him?

But is that not exactly what she intends to do?

Dawsyn’s chest aches uncomfortably, but she pushes the feeling aside. This is what must be done. She has very few options. Ryon can make his own decisions. He can choose to bow out whenever it pleases him.

But he won’t. Dawsyn knows it, just as Baltisse does.

And if he, or any other should die in this improbable quest, it will be because she allowed it. The fault will be hers.

“My apologies,” Ruby says as the party reaches her and Ryon. “I was careless.”

“That is the next one,” Dawsyn answers.

“The next what?”

“The next lesson,” Dawsyn clarifies. “Watch the Chasm. Many who were born here have slipped before you. Are you all right?”

“Yes,” the captain answers. “Thank you, Dawsyn.”

“For what?”

“For bothering to try and save me.”

Dawsyn resists the urge to deny the fact. Instead, she nods, then strides through the space between Ruby and Ryon, without making eye contact with either. She takes to the pine grove, shrugging away the swirl of impeding thoughts that only serve to distract her from the task ahead.

She walks upon the ground of her first home with company of dubious loyalty: a half-Glacian she cannot allow herself to trust, his friends of whom she knows very little, the Queens’ most honoured guard, and a mage who threatened retribution not moments before. Together, they make the most tenuous of factions.

And there is the kingdom of Glacia behind them, who might intervene at any moment.

There is little choice. She is always with so little choice. She ploughs on through the snow, with no plan to achieve what must be achieved. Nothing ahead but the pine, the snow, the Face, and of course, those she means to save, should they only allow themselves to be.

Through the trees comes a familiar sound: rising voices, a cacophony of shouting, discord, and unrest.

“What is that?” Tasheem asks, her wings twitching at the hint of danger. “What is that noise?”

“That,” Dawsyn says, tramping onward through the wood, “is the sound of my people.”

CHAPTERTHIRTY-TWO

“What are they doing?” Ryon asks, his eyes ahead to where the trees thin.

Dawsyn sighs. “Fighting.”

The others fall silent, possibly awaiting her elaboration. The sounds of tumult continue, building and then ebbing.

“Fighting over what?” Ruby asks when Dawsyn fails to explain.

Dawsyn shrugs. “It cannot be the Drop,” she surmises, eyes flitting to the sky. They would have seen the Izgoi flying overhead. “My guess is food.”

“Why food?” Rivdan asks.