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“No.” She holds her fingers up to the flames, groaning as the heat bites into the skin.

“Here,” Ryon says, holding a small, empty bowl toward her. “You must be thirsty.”

She snatches it from him and turns to the edge of the warren. She ducks her head into the tunnel and reaches her hand up. She scrapes snow into the steel bowl and wriggles down again, back into the warmth of the den.

It is painful to watch the contents of the bowl as it melts, then simmers, then boils. Even more so to wait for it to cool enough to consume. Her hands shake as she lifts the water to her lips, not from cold this time, but from need. It is Ryon who retrieves more snow for her, refilling the bowl twice more, taking none for himself.

“You’re not thirsty?” she asks upon finishing her third helping.

“No.”

“Did you take your fill from thepool?” she scorns.

In her head, she sees again the King addressing his white-winged subjects. “Before the hunt, we drink!”

The Glacians roared their approval and charged the pool. Before she was hauled away by Jorst, she watched, astonished, as the Glacians clamored and clawed to dip their goblet into the pool’s magic, drinking its gleaming matter. Their expressions were exultant, orgasmic, as they swallowed.

Ryon’s expression is flat. “I’ve never drunk from the pool.”

She hesitates. “Not to your taste?”

He does not answer the question, though his eyes turn steely, his jaw twitching. Dawsyn is reminded of how quickly he could squash her, should he wish to.

She tries another. “What was it? That substance in the pool?”

Ryon produces a burlap sack from behind him and digs around inside it. He pulls out dried meat and some nuts and hands them to her. Her mouth salivates and she takes them thanklessly.

“Iskra,” Ryon tells her as she eats, watching her chew. “The pool’s magic absorbs human souls. Their… core, you might say. The energy that they are made of. We call it iskra.”

Again, Dawsyn hears the word in Valma’s voice – a memory of a story woven in among the rest. “What does iskra do when it is consumed?” she asks.

“Keeps them alive.”

“Keeps them immortal, you mean?”

“Yes, that.”

“But not you.”

“No,” he says. “Not me.”

And Dawsyn thinks but does not voice how strange she finds it that he should draw the line at drinking human souls when he seemed willing enough to harvest them.

“What about the Glacian magic?” she asks now. “I saw them conjure ice from their hands to open the gates, the portcullises. Is that the iskra, too?”

“Yes,” he says simply.

“You do not possess it then?”

“No.” His tone does not leave room for further questions and their conversation ends as the blizzard howls outside, unaware it is past its season.

At some point, the Glacian lies, curled on his side, his body cramped in the tight space. “My name is Ryon, in case you wondered,” he says, eyelids closing.

“I know,” she murmurs, finding her place against the earth. Several moments pass and then, “My name is Dawsyn Sabar.”

“I know.” He yawns. He rolls away from her and says no more.

They both sleep fretfully. Dawsyn has one ear to the storm, knowing that when it blows over, they cannot remain still, but sleep drags her under again and again. It claws her back into its warm depths like an old friend. It is almost impossible to shake it away when she finally hears it – the willowy last breaths of the blizzard, finally relenting.