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“When was the last time a Drop was made?” She does not look over her shoulder to see his expression, but when no answer comes, it is answer enough. Dawsyn closes her eyes momentarily.

It has happened many times before. The Glacians neglected to bring their scraps and rations to the Ledge. There was no rhyme or reason. No cause to be discerned. The time between Drops would lag, and the people on the Ledge would grow slowly hungrier. There is only so long one can stretch their food stores. There’s an infinitesimal amount of game to be hunted on the Ledge. The ground does not yield enough to farm much other than turnips. After the Chasm and the cold, the most deadly thing on the Ledge is hunger, and the way it possesses the mind.

And now she must throw herself into the fray and ask that they lend an ear.

Impossible,she thinks, and yet she must try. Perhaps… perhaps the hunger will make them desperate enough to risk giving themselves to the mixed-blooded Glacians she has led here.

The raucous echoes heighten, and a pained shout rings through the air.

Perhaps not.

“We should stop them,” the captain says impatiently, staggering forward.

“Have you a sword, Ruby?” Dawsyn asks.

The captain pauses. “Yes?”

“Good. Get it out.”

Dawsyn takes the lead once more, stalking purposefully toward the cause of the noise, jaw set and stomach churning. She speaks without lowering her voice, for it will not be heard above the sounds of discord. “Ready your wits,” she says to them all. “And stay quiet. I will speak for us.”

“And if they do not listen?” Ryon asks from behind. He has stayed much closer than she thought.

“Then we take to the skies,” she tells him. “And pray we are fast enough.”

Through the trees she emerges. Dawsyn alone, holding her ax at her side. “Stay back,” she says to the rest, and steps from the shadows.

She takes in the familiar scene before her. Amidst the cabins, a circle of her people jostles and jeers at the spectacle within. Two men wrestle upon the snow, their faces imperceptible. One, in fact, is so bloodied and bruised Dawsyn assumes he fights blind.

Not food, then. Pine.

Only the claim of trees brings two people into a match such as this. When the tree in question cannot be identified as belonging to one person or another, a fight to surrender – or more often, to death – is the decider.

The man with his back to the ground suddenly throws his quarry off and struggles to regain his feet. One of his legs drags, quite obviously broken. Still, he manages to land his opponent with a blow to the head as he straightens, sending him back to the snow once more.

The victor drags his wasted leg to circle the man, readying to deliver a death blow. And Dawsyn sees his face clearly.

Hector.

It is as though she’d shouted it. The same moment she recognises her friend, he lifts his weary head, and his eyes find hers over the crowd.

She sees her own name form on his lips, his eyes wide and disbelieving, and then he disappears. The bodies of the spectators conceal him as he falls, his competitor rising to stand over him, and Dawsyn’s breath stops.No!

She begins to run.

The man leers down, lifting his fist to strike again.

Dawsyn shoves two onlookers aside, half falling into the circle, where the snow has turned pink and slick. She lifts her ax, an ax so obviously not hewn and crafted on the Ledge, and regrips it at the neck, swinging the handle wide until it contacts Hector’s opponent, the wood making a sickening thunk as it collides with the back of his head.

The man falls, though Dawsyn doubts it will be with any permanency, and the crowd, taken aback, falls quiet.

Dawsyn spins the ax in her hand and holds the blade aloft. “Stay back!” she warns, for she knows the shock will soon turn to violence.

Silence. The crowd does not number more than twenty, but the silence is deafening.

“Dawsyn Sabar?” one mutters. And then another. The men and women back away, drawing their weapons from their waistbands, pockets, sleeves.

“But she wasselected.”