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“And yet you run. Such a tortured soul you are. Is it really so hard to be the only hybrid?”

“I am far from the onlyhybrid –as you say. But to answer your question, yes, it is hard.”

Dawsyn pauses, her eyes widening. Surely, he is lying. It is impossible.

“How- how many of you are there?”

“I’m unsure. But I’d guess we make up at least three-quarters of the Glacian population.”

“But… how is that possible? How could there be so many?”

“The Glacians weren’t always so isolated, and they have a history of stealing away humans for far more basic desires.”

Dawsyn’s breath falters. “You jest.”

“I do not. So, to clarify, I’m not suffering a minority’s plight.”

“If there are so many, then why did I see no others in the palace?” Dawsyn argues.

“Ah, in that, Iwasa minority. The onlyhalf-breedto have been granted entrance to the palace… as an errand boy. But still, quite the honor.”

His derision is plain, and Dawsyn surmises there was no honor in it at all.

“Tell me, why you?” Dawsyn asks. “How did you get into the court, where no other hybrid could?”

Ryon sighs heavily. “It is a long story. Mostly, it is because I am at least half-Glacian, where the other mixed-bloods cannot claim as much. Partly, it is because of who my father was – a pure-blooded Glacian who was highly regarded by King Vasteel.” Venom coats his voice. “The rest is because I’ve plotted escape for a very long time, girl. And I usually get what I set my mind to.”

Dawsyn’s forehead furrows. A corner of her mind notes that her fingers are no longer numb, that the skin of her face no longer stings. “Vasteel,” she whispers to herself. Finally, she’s heard the name of the King.

“Before the palace, I lived in the Colony, a far cry from Vasteel’s court.”

“The Colony?”

“The village for mixed-blooded Glacians. Glacia is just like any other kingdom, Dawsyn,” he continues without prompt. “A population of peasants under the thumb of the ruling class – a clutch of dangerously self-important fools who possess too much power.”

Dawsyn knows little of what he refers to. The Ledge is no kingdom, and each cabin looks the same.

“But we do have one advantage,” he continues. “The pure are dying off, slowly but surely. It is why they need iskra.”

Dawsyn twitches at the word. “How can they die off if they have iskra to make them immortal?”

“Iskra can only stop them from aging. It cannot stop them from dying of other causes. You killed two without difficulty yourself.”

“Yes, but–”

“They cannot breed,” Ryon says, his voice drowning hers. “They haven’t birthed a full-blooded offspring in over a century.”

Dawsyn’s breath leaves her lungs. They cannot breed, but they can die. It is why her people were herded up the slopes, thrown over the Chasm. They were cattle, after all.

“And you?” she asks. “You leave for morality?”

“I do possess some morals – it’s true,” he tells her. “But no, girl, I do not leave Glacia to stem a bleeding heart. I leave it so that one day, I might return… and burn the fucking place into the Chasm.”

Dawsyn listens to the violent timber of his voice refract against the rock that encases them and hears its depth. He says no more of Glacia, of his people, his plans, and Dawsyn cannot bear to ask. She is too full with answers. Her mind reaches for them like the moon pulling tides from the shore, only to spit them back out onto the sand again and again.

Eventually, her eyes close, the tremors of her body long ceased. When she dreams, she sees her grandmother, climbing a slope to nowhere.

CHAPTERFOURTEEN