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“You’ve overreached today,” Dawsyn mutters. “You’ll be the next corpse in here if you do not rest.”

“Only fools tell old ladies what to do, lass,” she mumbles, closing her eyes. Seconds later, she emits a soft snore.

Weak, hungry, and near freezing, the rest sleep on and off for hours, days even. There is no way to tell. No Glacian or slave comes by to take out the dead and the smell grows. They see no food or water and eventually, Dawsyn grows frustrated.

Do they intend to starve us to death? To what end?If the Glacians planned to devour them, there’d be no need for delay.

Deidre cries when she isn’t unconscious and Mavah threatens to slap it out of her. At some point, Dawsyn crawls to her side, letting the length of her body meet the girl’s. Dawsyn pretends that she needs the body heat and not the comfort it brings.

The thundering of heavy footfalls sound, followed by the clanking of the portcullis.

The four remaining humans in the stone cell stiffen, sober and awake. Deidre whimpers.

Before them come two new Glacians and two humans – Page and Gerrot.

The Glacian in front swears, his ashen hair bristling. “Two down already? A weak bunch.” He looks over his shoulder to his fellow Glacian, who stands in the shadows. “Perhaps evenyoucould have found us better prey, Ryon.”

The Glacian named Ryon huffs his amusement. “Their bodies might yield some lingering iskra yet.”

Iskra – a word Dawsyn does not know and yet it feels familiar.

The first Glacian holds his hand to the door of their cell. As before, ice seems to creep out from the Glacian’s fingers. It climbs insipidly, a living thing, around the rungs of the gate. As though the ice speaks to the metal, the door clanks loudly open and then rattles across the stone floor.

“Prepare them,” the beast barks at Gerrot and Page.

They hurry in, their arms carrying an assortment of jars and bandages.

From her side, Dawsyn hears Mavah harrumph.

“A little late, dear,” she says weakly to Gerrot.

But they clasp hands again, an entire conversation flowing wordlessly between them.

“Fucking old goat!” The Glacian crosses the threshold to the cell and has his heel to Gerrot’s back within two strides. His talons suddenly appear, where before there was nothing but a man’s cracked and dirtied feet. They graze Gerrot’s back, and the stooped man flinches violently, whimpers.

“Do not take liberties, human. You know the consequences well.”

Gerrot has already dropped his eyes. He moves away from his wife.

Mavah glares at the Glacian. “I’d take the liberty of cuttin’ that beastly thing from yer leg if yeh come near enough.”

Dawsyn stops breathing.

A wicked smile curls into the Glacian’s jaw as he levels his taloned foot with Mavah’s face. “Try.”

“Jorst, His Grace awaits us,” Ryon, the other Glacian, calls.

From the shadows he steps out, and Dawsyn finally sees him well. She stares, stunned.

The man she believed to be a Glacian is winged, and yet… Instead of ice-white, his skin is black. Certainly not that of a Glacian. Neither is his hair – dark and thick. He has the build of the beasts – bulking, muscled, vast – but while the Glacian named Jorst looks cut from stone, this other one seems… human.

A hybrid – something halfway between man and not.

Ryon’s eyes seem to sense her staring. He bares his teeth, white and glistening, and Dawsyn looks away. She remembers the spread of poison in Carl’s veins and shivers.

Gerrot is suddenly before her, pointing to her shoulder. She lowers the sleeve to bare Mavah’s bandages for him and he hastily unwinds them, ignoring her grimaces. He picks up a needle and deftly threads it in front of her before giving her a meaningful look.

Dawsyn nods her understanding as her stomach rolls. She has enough time to clench her teeth before she feels the bite of the needle against her abused flesh. She gasps at the feel of his fingers, tugging the thread through again and again. At least he is quick. He stitches the gaping pools of one shoulder and then the other, and finally, mercifully, he applies a salve. Initially, it is relieving, cooling her skin, but soon she finds it uncomfortable, freezing. Gerrot redresses her shoulders with the bandages while she grits her teeth, and then he moves on to Deidre, who wails throughout the ordeal.