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She scoffs but cannot help her hand that reaches to hold his jaw. “You’re a damned liar.”

CHAPTERFIFTY-ONE

Dawsyn cannot revel in the fall of the Glacian King while those on the Ledge remain trapped. It feels wrong to leave them there a second longer now that there is no gatekeeper to hold them. The first thing she does as they leave the throne room is request that Ryon fly over the Chasm and start liberating them immediately. Selfish perhaps, after all he has endured, to push for more. But Dawsyn must ask it of him, for who will if not her?

“Consider it first,” Ryon bids. “If I were to fly into their midst now, what would they think? Who would trust me? They would see only a Glacian. They would try to kill me.”

And Dawsyn worries that they would. She has little in the way of friends on the Ledge. Would they halt to listen, even to her, if she tried to explain?

“There is nothing more to be done today,” Ryon tells her, luring her to him with the husk of his voice, the shadows of his beautiful face. “Come. It has been too long since I last slept, and I cannot do that unless you are near me.”

Dawsyn smiles at that, lets him lead her down a corridor. “You once told me that you had no need for me at all.”

Ryon grimaces.

It was not so long ago, and yet he seemed a demon to her then, a night creature – the very cold itself.

“If you’ll recall, I’m a damned liar.” He steps into her space, running his hands along her collarbone. His fingers trail up her throat, to her lips. It is no small effort not to let herself fall into him. One hand lowers to her waist and she wishes he’d take her away. But behind the desire in his stare is a conflict he silently wars with. He tries not to frown but she sees it. His fingers twitch against her with restlessness. The words of the fallen King echo again in Dawsyn’s ears –your mother, a human girl. She died to bring you into this world, just as all the others do.

Just as all the others do.

All the other human women who bear the misfortune of breeding with a Glacian.

His face had hollowed before her eyes. She blanches at the memory. “You are not responsible for her death, Ryon.”

He says nothing, and if it weren’t for the tick in his jaw, she couldn’t be sure he’d heard her. The fingers along her neck turn glacial, and she places her own hands over them, tempering them. Her words have only brought him some kind of internal onslaught of pain… of guilt.

Some day, Dawsyn will give Ryon every piece of his mother she can find, and he will know it all, if only to take away this unrest she feels beneath his surface.

Ryon sighs, clasping her small hands in his. “I did not know of the humans dying during childbirth, Dawsyn, I swear it.”

“I know,” she tells him. And she does. She knows for all the bad parts of him, there is a multitude of good that would see him cold and lonely before he risked her life.

They say no more on the matter. Dawsyn grins up at Ryon, unafraid. She lets him wrap her up beneath his arm and walk her down the corridor, and as they pass an alcove, a cluster of humans traipses cautiously from the shadows.

The slaves.

Their eyes dart warily.

“It is quite safe now, I assure you. Come now! Out you come.” Herding them out of their confines is a blood-splattered Izgoi who appears to have part of his earlobe missing and a tankard in his giant hand, looking exactly as terrifying as he claims not to be. “You are free, human people! Come rejoice with us! You may do as you please! Personally, I’ve been favoring the sport of pissing on the carcasses of brutes, but to each their own desires!”

Gerrot shuffles past, and his worn stare finds Dawsyn’s. He is exactly as drawn and weary as when Dawsyn last saw him, skin hanging from bones. At the point where he comes to pass her, he pauses. He cannot speak, cannot seem to look at her squarely. Dawsyn wonders if he can look at her without seeing his Mavah, bleeding into her hands.

Unexpectedly, the man reaches for her – the girl belonging to the Terrsaw princess of his childhood. His gratitude sends tremors through his hands, his lips, and she nods. He smiles wanly, sighing like the last breaths of hostile storms, saying with his eyes what his mouth cannot.

Her fingers squeeze his. She wants to tell him of how Mavah’s death will not be in vain, but she finds she cannot promise it. Gerrot nods once and then shuffles on with the other slaves, now freed from their strife. At last.

CHAPTERFIFTY-TWO

Dawsyn and Ryon stand before the gates to the Terrsaw palace. Their hands – free of any weapons – are raised in peace, their eyes on the Queens’ guards, who point their swords and arrows toward them.

Without the need to stay hidden, it took only hours to fly from Glacia and descend into the valley. It was no simple task, getting Ryon into the skies. Dawsyn argued relentlessly with him until he agreed.

The people of the Ledge have to be freed, and Dawsyn and Ryon need the help of Terrsaw to do it. No person on the Ledge will trust a creature with wings. She knows well how the people of the Ledge cut before they listen. They’ll think her a traitor, a conspirator. They will see Ryon’s wings and remember all the ones that were hauled from their midst. She is not fool enough to believe her voice alone will erase the depths of their fear.

They need other human ambassadors to go there, to explain. More than that, the people of the Ledge need homes in Terrsaw, food, medicine. Most on the Ledge were born there. She imagines their transition into Terrsaw will not be without its troubles.

There is another need to see the Queens.