Page 31

“Wake up.”

The voice is distant, calling over mountains, across Chasms. No, into the Chasm. Down, down its walls to its depths, where she waits.

“Wake up,” it calls again, and she ignores it.

What point is there in waking, here at the bottom? At her end? Wouldn’t it be kinder to stay in oblivion? Around her are the skulls and ribs and joints of those who jumped and fell and she lies down again among them, ready to share in their peace.

“Girl, wake up. It is morning.” The deep voice, too loud and close, jolts her.

Her eyes open and she blinks, discerning the shape of Ryon’s torso hovering over her. The growing light of morning finds them through the cracks of their cave and she can finally bring his face into focus – his cutting jaw, the curling black stubble, dark eyebrows over heady eyes. He holds up his hand, a piece of dried meat in his grip.

“Thank you.” She snakes it from his fingers, biting greedily.

“So, you do have manners then.” He smirks.

“Don’t get used to it.”

She is alive, and she should be thanking him for that, too. She shivers, but her toes remain pink and so, too, do her fingers.

“You sleep like the dead,” he says to her now. “And snore like a hog.”

She frowns. “The dead do not snore.”

“We have to go,” he says, shifting onto his other side, away from her.

In his hand is another sack, like the one he had in the warren. He grasps it in one hand as he crawls to the opening between rocks and heaves himself out.

Dawsyn follows. The light is dull. Heavy gray clouds shroud the sky, oppressive and threatening.

“Another storm,” Dawsyn says, her shoulders sagging. “This season will not surrender.”

“It will reach us by nightfall,” Ryon says, bending to the icy earth to empty the sack.

“Sooner,” Dawsyn argues. “Do you feel the stillness? Snow will fall by noon.” She feels the tiny fingertips of the storm reach to stroke her neck – a warning. Goosebumps rise over her scalp. She looks down at her cloak and dress, still damp despite the night of warmth.

“Here,” Ryon calls, and from the sack, he slings a heap of fabric at her.

Dawsyn catches it and unwraps the gray bundle to find pants and a tunic. Thin but dry. She shudders in relief.

“They will not keep you warm enough, but they won’t be as burdensome as that ridiculous dr–” He halts mid-sentence.

Dawsyn has already thrown her cloak off and onto a rock. Without hesitation, she tugs at the strings of the bodice, easily loosening them.

“What are you doing?”

She does not pause. “I am undressing.”

She pulls at the shoulders of the bulky collar, slipping it down one arm and then the next. She pulls it over her breasts, down her stomach and finally lets it collect at her boots. She stands there in nothing but a thin slip that fails to cover all of her. Her nipples harden against the thin scrap, starkly pink against the white. She hears a low groan from Ryon and spares him a glance in time to see him run a hand over his eyes and turn away.

“Are you sure you’ve seen a woman’s body before?”

He faces the snow-laden slope. “Like I said, females but no women. You could have found a boulder to dress behind.”

“And miss that look on your face? Why would I do that?”

The tunic reaches her calves, its sleeves a foot longer than her arms. She hefts them away from her hands and slides the pants on, struggling to find the ground again as her boots are swallowed.

Ryon turns back to her. “You look like a child,” he says, his smirk returning.