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“Easy, boy,” Baltisse murmurs. “Close your eyes.”

Ryon turns his face away as light bursts from Baltisse’s palm. There is a keen ringing in his ears, one Ryon has come to associate with the mage, who has helped to heal his own maladies on more than one occasion.

When the ringing fades, Ryon turns to find Hector breathing in great, rasping heaves. Dawsyn helps him to stand, and the boy does so with little difficulty. He tests the ground beneath his feet, lifting them from the soft soil and regarding the muddy print his boot leaves in its wake. He blinks up at the sun, obscured by cloud but still bright. “I… It is warm.”

Dawsyn, for all her unyielding sternness, gives a bark of laughter, the sound escaping despite herself, it seems. “Yes.” She nods, smiling tiredly. “It is.”

Ryon can’t help but notice Baltisse, who is yet to rise from the ground. Her face is hidden, but it seems she is… regrouping, galvanising. Clearly, she is much less than fine.

“Dawsyn?” Ruby broaches. “What happened up there? What happened… to your hands? That light?”

Dawsyn’s eyes glaze, all vestiges of humour dissolving. She looks to the mountain, looming above. Ryon can only watch on as she appears to recall the events that transpired on the Ledge.

All await her answer, falling perfectly silent. They watch as her expression becomes intense with something akin to pain, and then flattens, evening to nothing but an impassive stare. Unreadable. Whatever emotion swept through her is visibly squashed. It seems she will not answer.

“Iskra,” Baltisse says from the ground. “It resides in her, still.”

“From the pool?” Ruby questions uncertainly, eyes widening.

“It’s a rather long story. One that will need to wait,” Ryon says. “For now, we must find shelter. There is an inn; it is not so far. We will be safe there.”

Baltisse’s head whips around. “Surely you don’t mean to burden Salem with–”

“Surely,I have no choice.” Ryon bites. “Let us go, before we are discovered. And vanish your wings…now,” he adds to those bearing them.

Ruby takes pity on Hector and guides him away from the mud puddle that has stunned him into a stupor.

Before Ryon leads their party away, he approaches Dawsyn in a manner that can only be considered cautious, like a man readying himself for punishment. “Can you… walk?” he asks, already cringing at the response he is sure to receive.

And she does not disappoint. Dawsyn turns to him, several feet shorter, but fierce all the same, and gives him her most contemptuous glare. “If I fall behind, you can always use that magic ring of yours to track me down.”

He ought not to respond, he knows. He wishes to ease the tension between them, not stoke it. But instead, he lets his juvenile mouth have its way. “You protest, but you are yet to remove its sister. I can see it around your neck.”

Idiotic. Masochistic, even.

Do her hands glow, or does the light deceive him?

She deliberately steps on his foot as she passes, taking the lead into the forest.

And still, Ryon notes, the necklace remains.

CHAPTERTHIRTY-FOUR

“Dawsyn? Wait… Dawsyn!”

It feels as though it’s all she has heard since waking. It is a ringing that grows ever louder. She squints her eyes, tries to escape it.

“Dawsyn!” Hector calls in earnest, reaching her side.

Hector. Her friend. Here in Terrsaw. She should speak with him. He must be afraid.

This morning he woke on the Ledge, as he has done each day of his life, and tonight he will lay his head down in the valley. She should be elated to see him. She owes him that much.

“I’m glad to see you alive,” Dawsyn manages, slowing to accommodate him. It isn’t a lie, but her mind is a churning current. It is hard to muster friendliness amongst the tossing waves. He quickens to keep pace alongside her, lifting his feet high, as one would in the snow. His steps are comically exaggerated. She remembers how hard it was to break the same habit.

“And you,” he says, and indeed he seems stunned by the very sight of her. He stumbles over trailing thickets, unable to remove his gaze.

And she stares back. He is familiar, and not.