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And she almost doesn’t catch it.Almost.

She screams, the sound exploding from her lungs with a ferocity to rival the mountain itself.

The magic in her expands, and then breaks.

The light at her hand detonates, sending Polson soaring. There is a sickening crack as his head hits the ice, and then he lies still and unseeing.

Dawsyn does not see the way Polson’s blood courses a river along the ice. She does not see how the people run from her, or from the storm that threatens to drag them down this tilted shelf. She only feels her body convulse and thrash. Something inside grips her, squeezing her lungs. The iskra strains within, tearing her apart.

She feels Hector grasp her shoulders, his voice yelling to her, though she hears nothing. And then there are strong arms encasing her, encasing Hector and her both, and they are leaving the ground. Leaving the Ledge. It grows impossibly smaller below them.

Then there is nothing at all. No pain and no light. Just a numbing blackness, with a voice, slick and familiar, that whispers incessantly.

If only,it says, you would release me.

CHAPTERTHIRTY-THREE

Ryon’s wings strain against the wind as he ascends, the task made all the more difficult by the weight of Dawsyn, and the other – particularly the other, who pushes against him, wrestling in an absurd attempt to break free.

They are already over the Chasm, already headed for the ridge. If he falls now, he’ll meet a swift death. “Stop fighting!”

The man curses and grunts, trying to head butt and kick and peel Ryon’s forearm from his torso. “Let me go!”

Ryon considers it. His other arm is wrapped tightly around Dawsyn’s ribs, crushingly so. She is slumped, a dead weight. There will be bruises when she awakens. If this man would stopfighting…

“LET GO OF ME!”

He’d never meant to take him too, but the people of the Ledge were panicking, Dawsyn had lost control of herself, and they had to go. He had to get them away. And the man had been there, his arms wrapped around Dawsyn. To protect her.

Friend or not, he is proving a nuisance now.

The force of the gale drags him lower, his wings overexerting from the added burden. If they can get to the ridge, the mountain will offer a buffer from the storm. The recently repaired hole in his chest is straining with increasing intensity. One wing trembles and retracts an inch, and they dip threateningly. The man squirms again, and Ryon curses loudly.

He looks to either side. Tasheem carries Baltisse and Gerrot both. Rivdan with Ruby. The man is flying against the wind with more ease than the rest, and he meets Ryon’s eye. Rivdan must see the struggle Ryon is enduring, must see the plead in his eyes, even from a distance, because he moves lower, taking a position beneath.

Together, they soar.

Unevenly, gracelessly, their wings find ways to cut through the wind, and the ridge grows ever closer, promising respite. The mountain is bowled out on its side. They will fly low until they reach the Boulder Gate.

“Fucking Glacian SCUM!” the man shouts, throwing an elbow into Ryon’s jaw.

Ryon grunts in pain, the ridge passing beneath them, and he plummets over the rock face, the wind stilling almost immediately.

“UNHAND ME!”

“Very well,” Ryon murmurs darkly, and without warning, he releases the human from his grip, watching as he falls, his scream of terror frightening the ravens from the treetops below, and then Rivdan’s arm encases him.

Ryon adjusts Dawsyn against his chest, his arms aching. She turns her face to him. Her eyes are still shut, but her breaths are even.

He will take her to safety. To Salem’s inn. She will rest and eat, and she will be well. He comforts himself with the thought.

But what of her mind, when she wakes to learn that they have saved only one other?

Ryon sees again the desperation on her face as she tried to reason with those humans. Humans with missing teeth and cracked lips. Humans garbed in layer upon layer of clothing most would consider rags. Humans with eyes full of hatred. Full of fear. Full of their own battle-weary desperation.

Ryon had known instantly that they would not believe her, the second he’d summoned his wings, and he’d seen their eyes turn from dark suspicion to fear. To loathing.

They would not go.