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Dawsyn presses her palms into her eyes, wanting to wipe the words from her memory. “You do not love me.”

Ryon stills. She can practically hear his mind whirring. “You deny me my feelings?”

“I deny your assignment of them,” she says, shaking her head. “It is not love that you feel.”

Ryon’s tone turns acidic. “What other name should I give this torment?”

Dawsyn does not have an answer. She merely knows that she is not one to love. Not with all that has happened. Not with all that she has done. All that she is.

Ryon’s chest rumbles with some unspoken frustration. “The only woman I’ve professed myself to,” he mumbles to himself. “And she contradicts me.”

Dawsyn scowls at him. “Would it truly be kinder to entertain false notions of love?”

“They are notfalse, Dawsyn.”

“They certainly cannot betrue.”

“I love you,” he says again.

“You cannot.”

“Andyoulove me.”

A bark of laughter escapes her. She shakes her head at him, shocked. “I don’t.”

He raises an eyebrow, and the gesture is so offhand, so out of place in the climate of their tension, that it aggravates her.

“Idon’t,” she repeats.

He watches her until she needs to look away, and she hates that she must cede this small war as well.

He speaks gently. “I heard your voice after Alvira ran me through with that sword.”

Her breath leaves her.

“I heard you call my name over and over, but I couldn’t see you. I was so sure they would kill you next.”

She cannot help but turn back to look at him. He is staring at her, unblinking. “You think yourself wicked?” he asks. “My last thought was how grateful I was that they killed me first, so that I would not be made to watch you die.”

Her throat closes around something. Something painful and urgent, but she swallows it. She can’t bear to have it known.

Ryon huffs his frustration and rises, turning to retrieve her ax from the dirt. He pulls it from the earth and turns it over, inspecting the carvings on its handle, the double-edged blade. He smiles wanly at it and then walks it back to her, proffering it in his palm.

“Why are you smiling like that?” Dawsyn asks, her voice quieter than she’d like.

He considers her for a moment, his eyes tired and sad, despite the smirk. “I’ve been plagued by the thought that you may never forgive me, that you may never see the truth. All of my loyalty, every last bit, lies with you,” he professes. “The thought that I might be doomed to a life trailing in your wake has… disturbed me. Now I need not be plagued. It’s fear that distances you,” he states, and it is gentle, kind. “Not anger.”

For the first time since their paths intertwined, she has no quick words to wield, and it is unbearably exposing. Instead, she says, “Leave me be.”

“Not a chance.” He takes her hand and lifts her from the fallen tree. “I need to go back and ensure Esra is well, and you will come with me.”

“I will?”

“You will,” he says, allowing her to slide her hand out of his grasp. “I know everything seems irretrievable, but you will see, this is the part of the story where the heroes rise from the dust and renew their energies to the task ahead.”

They walk back to the others in silence, though Ryon seems to buzz with an unnameable energy. His strides are surer, his head higher.

Their party lies dazed and broken in the clearing between trees, some human, some only in part. “Not a likely group of heroes,” Dawsyn remarks.