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All eyes now turn to Dawsyn, who shifts uncomfortably. “I don’t know ifaidingyou is what I did.”

“It is,” the mage says with finality.

“Dawsyn?” Salem asks. “But how, lass?”

“How indeed,” the mage mutters.

Dawsyn frowns. “The iskra, obviously. Of which I have very little control.”

“And yet you mastered it to save Esra,” Baltisse muses.

“I–” Dawsyn starts, but she has no response, which seems to be happening with increasing frequency of late. Instead, she looks around at them all, her self-consciousness swelling with each second they insist on staring at her. Eventually she turns on them all and stalks away.

“Peculiar,” Tasheem mutters to Rivdan.

To which Baltisse replies. “Quite.”

To which Dawsyn replies over her shoulder, “Shut up.” And she sinks back into her place on the forest floor, intending to feign sleep for as long as necessary.

When they wake next, morning is breaking and the smell of cooked food lures them from their various nests.

Gerrot sits before a fire, a large stick with several skewered fish in his hand. He rotates it slowly in the flames and the smell makes Dawsyn salivate.

They race to reach him first, and Gerrot points to a large stone with several more fish laid out neatly, ready to cook.

Tasheem groans with satisfaction, then bends to kiss Gerrot’s hollow cheek. “I knew I loved you, old man.”

Gerrot only smiles in his serene way, and offers her the first fish.

“Thank you, Gerrot,” Ryon says, resting his hand on Gerrot’s shoulder. “You must have woken long before you ought to for such a haul. Luck sided with you this day.”

But the river doesn’t sound so far away, and there is a glimmer in the old man’s eye as the others claim their share of food. Dawsyn suspects that he needed no luck at all.

She chooses a spot on the ground beside him and helps him stoke the flames, watching him smile gently at all he sees – the lick of the flames, the looks of satisfaction, even the sight of Dawsyn. He pats her leg now and then, for no reason at all, and Dawsyn does nothing but smile back. Such pure, simplistic joy is hard to turn away from.

Dawsyn tries to look at the woods around them and see what he sees. She tries to absorb the filtered sun, the warm breeze, the sound of racing water, the smell of cooked meat and be fulfilled. She wants to see her surroundings and be repaired, contented, but all she sees is what was taken and what ought to be returned.

Perhaps she helped to bring him here, Hector too. She only wishes it was enough to let her slide away into the world, to find her corner of it and live out her days unburdened by the rest of them up there on the Ledge. And why shouldn’t she do just that? The very people who plague her conscience are the same ones who didn’t believe her, couldn’t trust her.

Can she not be content knowing she tried?

Ryon has taken food to Esra, and she waits, like a coward, until he leaves Esra’s side before approaching herself.

She lowers her body next to the man. He lays on a pallet of furs and coats from the others in attempt to keep the worst of his burns from the ground, but Dawsyn worries it will do very little. On the Ledge, burns were easier to treat with snowpacks, but these burns are like none Dawsyn has ever seen.

“I know its unsightly, dearling,” Esra murmurs. “But I’ll sooner die if you stare at me like I’m not the best-looking gent you’ve ever seen. I couldn’t bear it.” His voice is slow and hoarse, and seems to pain him. He gazes at her through his uninjured eye. The other is mottled into something unrecognisable.

“As luck would have it, there is little competition amongst this lot,” Dawsyn grins.

“Liar.” He winces. “Though I can hardly blame you. Ryon has always made quite the impression, all dark and dangerous. The first time I met him, I threw my pants at his feet and offered him my virginity.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“No, I didn’t,” he sniffs. “I’m afraid my chastity was long ago misplaced.”

She smirks and silently thanks the Mother for the blessing of Esra. “Do you need anything?”

“Mother above, no,” he groans. “Baltisse has been feeding me the most ghastly concoction all through the night. Salem hovers. Ryon has brought me more food and water than I can bear. I asked him for a hand bath, but he declined–”