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Searing pain. She feels the clear tear of flesh upon her neck, feels her skin and sinew yield beneath the puncture of something sharp and piercing. But beyond that, she feels the frozen breath against her skin.

She reacts, turning to drive her dagger into whichever unfortunate beast dared to sink their teeth into her. Dawsyn catches the female in the side, inserting the blade again and again, wild with rage, until she feels the bite relent, sliding from her flesh with sickening slowness, the female’s colorless body slipping to the ground.

But it is too late.

Dawsyn feels it already – the poison.

“Cease, and we will surrender!” comes a desperate voice.

“Surrender first, brute, and we will cease.”

Dawsyn turns to the skirmish and finds that the hall has fallen still and mostly quiet. Only several Glacians remain standing. The Izgoi hold them to a corner, and some hover above to ensure no escape route can be found.

A clamor comes from Ryon as his fists hit the stone. Dawsyn turns as he pulls the last talon from his skin, teeth gritted, hands shaking. He curses darkly, spitting to the floor, and then comes to stand, albeit gingerly.

“Dawsyn?” he calls immediately, his low voice an ungodly rumble.

“Here,” she utters, moving her unwilling legs to him.

Ryon sees her, his eyes slipping all the way over her, and they come to stop on her throat. First, his eyes widen, and then he bares his teeth, once so human but now a demon’s. He bellows, fury drenching each note, filling each corner of the hall. Those nearby blanch, and Ryon?

Ryon becomes a creature of night and death.

His wings unfold once more, stretching in an instant, and he leaps into flight, coming to land within a second upon the gasping female at Dawsyn’s feet, the very female who bit her, poisoned her.

The female Glacian lies prone, her torso ruined by Dawsyn’s blade, already close to death.

Ryon’s taloned foot closes over the female’s throat as he leans over her, his whole frame shaking, maddened. “You do not deserve anything as easy as death,” he growls at her, and without further preamble, he roughly hefts her white form from the ground, flies her over the pool, and throws her down, its substance moving to greet her with its insatiable hunger. The Glacian falls and falls, and when the magic folds over her body, the hall falls to silence, save for the grateful hiss of the pool.

Beneath the great arched ceiling, Ryon hovers above the Izgoi, turns his murderous glare to the few cornered Glacians. “Seize them. Take them to the dungeons,” he says, his voice ringing in that frightening timbre. “Guard them. Be sure they use no magic to escape.”

And as the Izgoi scurry to claim their prize, Ryon comes to land before Dawsyn, in time for her to fall. In time to wrap her in his arms.

CHAPTERFIFTY

If the magic is light and smoke, then the poison is oil, black as tar, and both surge within Dawsyn’s core, battling to possess her.

The poison is heavy; it pulls her down. She submits, there in the dark, aware only of those two types of matter. The poison leaks through her, claiming her by inches, and it hurts… God, it aches.

From somewhere above the depthless maw of her mind, Ryon’s voice calls to her, pleads with her, but she can see nothing. She feels little else but the swift decay of each cell, and it feels familiar. This is the replica of a dream wherein she lay at the bottom of the Chasm, her bed – the bones of her people. The dark and cold unites around her. The place where she dies.

Stay the frost.

I can’t. I am cold.

Watch the Chasm.

I can’t. I am within it. I am tired.

The cold is not alive.

Do not let it take me, she thinks.Do not let it in.

She is lost within herself. The oil is polluting her, and she cannot stop its spread. It reaches down into her very center, its tendrils stretching to caress the magic, to provoke it.

Do not let it take me, she begs the magic.Do not let it in.

Little by little, the poison takes, gaining precious increments, prodding the magic, daring it to wake, ready to swallow it whole.