Page 34

“Because the second the sun rose and someone noticed my absence, they would come looking. They would hunt until they found me and they would know I was a traitor. I needed to wait for a time when I could fake my death. When I next enter the palace, I need surprise on my side.”

He looks over to her and sees that she is looking at him, too. “King Vasteel allows no one but his personal guard onto the slopes. I had to wait for an opportunity. I was working my way up in the court, albeit slowly. I thought perhaps one day, the King would trust me enough to allow me to fly in his guard. And then you showed up. And you chose to run. I knew it was the best chance I could hope for. It is the only time the King allows others to fly the slopes. You are the first person stupid enough to try in a very long time.”

She does not react to the insult. “How long have you waited?”

“Ten years,” he says, looking away.

He hears her low sigh.

“It is a plan full of holes.”

“A plan reliant on no small amount of luck, but look how easy you’ve made it – not only did you accept their offer, but you also killed two of the hunters and sprayed their blood across the forest. If Phineas has not betrayed me, the others will quickly believe me to be dead by your hands, just like Kesh and Theodore. They will grow bored of their search for you and I’ll have disappeared.”

“Do you really place so much faith in Phineas?” she asks, unconvinced. “He didn’t seem to regard you very highly.”

Ryon sighs. “Yes, I can trust him.”

“He called you deshun,” Dawsyn recalls. “I do not know what it means.”

“It is an old Glacian word. It meansson.”

“And why did he use it with you?”

Her stony glare tells him that she will not drop the topic. She is fishing, feeling him out, finding the holes in his story.

He braces himself to tell it. “Phineas was my father’s closest friend, his confidant. They grew up together, close to the palace, and became noblemen. My father, Thaddius Mesrich, was the King’s favorite. He was good with a sword, good with everything, and the King promoted him to his side when he was barely of age. Phineas was brought along thereafter. They remained there for decades, drinking from the Pool of Iskra, guarding the King, living a life that those in the Colony could not imagine.”

If Dawsyn is perturbed by his words, it does not show. “What happened to your father… to Thaddius?”

“He grew weary of keeping the King’s feet warm, and eventually the bodies that entered the pool weighed on him. By man’s standards, he was never compassionate, but for a Glacian, he was, at the very least, empathetic. He began to wander into the Colony – he and Phineas both – forming relationships with mixed-blooded Glacians, all without the King’s knowledge. When he ventured away from the pure-bloods, he found the gap between. He began to see how conditioned he had been to believe that those with gold deserved it and those with dirt should be grateful for it.

“Eventually, a woman was brought over the Chasm, just another human female among the others selected that season. My father must have seen something in her or perhaps the guilt he bore just overcame him. As she was about to descend into the pool, my father claimed he could use a maid. The court laughed but the King allowed it.”

“Your mother?” Dawsyn guesses, her eyes finally betraying a hint of feeling.

Ryon nods. “My father smuggled her from the palace and into the Colony. He entrusted a family there to keep her safe. He planned to help her escape. Phineas begged him to give her up, but my father was taken with her. He quickly fell in love.”

“And then there was you,” Dawsyn says quietly, the words spelled in mist before her. “Born in secret?”

“But not a secret that was kept for long, I’m afraid,” Ryon says evenly, but his gut clenches, his jaw tightens, just as it always does. “The King was, and has always been, hell-bent on protecting the purity of Glacian blood. Imagine his fury when he found that the most trusted of his guard had sired a child with a human. He had them both thrown into the Chasm after he cut off my father’s wings.”

“But not you?” Dawsyn asks.

“The King was wrathful when he found what my father had done, but I think he regretted killing him immediately. He safeguards the pure-bloods like they are precious stones. I wasn’t full-blooded, but I was at least half and even that has become a rare thing. I was left in the Colony.”

The blizzard outside rages past, the world reduced to white and gray.

“Those in the Colony took me in, but it was Phineas who watched over me. He ensured I was treated fairly among the mixed, kept me fed and clothed when the Colony couldn’t provide. He had been demoted from the King’s guard by pure proximity to my father, and still he lobbied for me to be allowed into the palace. He trained me, coached me to become part of the court despite the dissent of the pure-bloods.” Ryon turns his head to Dawsyn and finds her watching him intently. “That is why I place so much faith in him.”

Dawsyn does not look away despite his glare. Her mouth, blue and cracked with the cold, is held firmly shut. Dark eyes shift over his face, reading him. “Do you plan to avenge your parents’ deaths, warrior?”

Warrior. It is a nice change of pace from ‘hybrid’. “Theirs… and all the rest.”

Ryon watches, surprised when those cracked lips of hers spread into a slow smile.

“Are you a heretic? An extremist? A martyr? Which?”

Such a smart tongue she has. He can see how she wields it – to incite uncertainty, wariness. He imagines it has served her well in her life, instilled fear into those who saw her as small and beatable. How quickly she would have shown them the errors in their judgement.