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He cannot look away from the great white cat at his feet. Blood leaves the animal’s chest and freezes onto the snow, turning it pink.

He hears Dawsyn clambering down toward him and as he waits, watching her, he grows tense. He wonders if he has bitten off more than he can chew.

“Thank you so much for your help,” she says.

She has a way of speaking that unsettles him – calm and deadly. A way of promising pain without fury. Her face is trained, impassive. She does not reveal her fear, discomfort, or wrath. Ryon has to dig for it, scrape at it to see. It has only been in her breath when it quickens or her pulse if he’s close enough, but never in her eyes or on her tongue, which seem unswervingly collected.

He finally looks away from the cat to her, now standing above him, high enough to be at eye-level. She scratches her nose and pushes away her curling black hair, as though she didn’t single-handedly kill an animal twice her mass with a laughably small hatchet.

“It hardly seems as though you needed my assistance.”

“Or maybe you’ve finally come to the same conclusion I have – you’re better off carrying on without me.”

That is the opposite of what he wants. “Ah, but then the predators that roam these woods would only stalk me instead.”

She bends to retrieve her ax. “The first honest thing you’ve said to me.”

He raises an eyebrow. “I’ve told you plenty.”

“You’ve omitted plenty, too.” She wipes the blade on the snow and looks at him when he fails to answer. “What? Did you think me too stupid to notice?”

“Not at all, girl. But we will have to save my life story for later. The storm is almost here.”

As if he’d called it, the wind rushes up the incline, the promise of ice in its breath.

“Do you have another shelter nearby? We cannot stay in the open.”

“Yes,” he calls over the gust. “It isn’t much farther. Take my hand.”

Her head tilts, expression steely. “What for?”

“We need to hurry, and I will not hear it if you fall. Just hold my damned hand, girl.”

She takes it, her icy fingers locking over his in a vise grip, pale and small in comparison. He steadily leads her downward and eventually the grade becomes less perilous. Minutes later, Ryon can see the den in the mountainside, disguised by the thickets surrounding it.

When he reaches the knotted brambles, he takes out his sword and hacks, cutting them away. The wind howls in his ears and the frost blasts his exposed face. He can only gesture for Dawsyn to go ahead of him, through the break in the spindly vine to the shelter within.

Ryon quickly follows. Unlike the cave, this shelter was carved into the earth by his hand. But like the cave, it was only ever meant to be big enough for him. Another night spent curled into a ball, his wings vanishing when he knows better than to be unprepared.

They get inside and Dawsyn settles against the earthy wall. He takes the only other remaining space beside her, their thighs touching.

“Tell me how you came to map out these shelters of yours,” she asks. She shivers and presses her side along his, clearly needing warmth more than dignity. “You made it sound like it was forbidden to wander the slopes. Are you a rebel?”

He clears his throat. “All part of the plan.”

“To escape Glacia?”

“Yes. Like I told you, only fools attempt the slopes without a plan.”

She presses, “You have wings. You could fly away. Yet you planned to stay on the slopes?”

“The skies are searched with regularity by the guard. I never planned to go far. I needed multiple hideouts close by, both for when I finally found an opportunity to run and for when I could return to bring down the empire.”

“How did you get out before? To find these places?”

He runs a hand over his face, considering what to say and how much. “Carefully. I would fly into the forest at night and return again before the sun rose. Sometimes, I would use those nights to scout out places of shelter and I stored things there that wouldn’t be missed from the palace. Clothes, food, shoes…” He eyes her feet. “Lucky I did.”

“So, why not keep going, if you could leave undetected?”