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But she will not make him falter so easily. He leans forward over her, his face inching closer. His lips twitch when he sees her hand go for the blade at her hip and he stops. Leering, he says, “Maybe I just want to gut as many of them as I can, whether they’re good or evil.”

And even with her paled skin, her blue lips, her bloodshot eyes and tangled hair, Dawsyn still has the gall to tell him, “I hope you’ve got a sword as big as your ego. You’re going to need it when you tear down an entire kingdom alone.”

Ryon grins. “That is the kindest thing you’ve said to me.”

“Glacian males are as basic-minded as the human ones,” she says, her eyes rolling in distaste. She gathers her legs tighter to her chest, wrapping her cloak around them. “We can’t be far from the valley.”

Ryon’s eyebrows quirk up. “What makes you think so?”

“The air feels… different. Thicker.”

He knows what she means. Glacians are designed for the mountain, but humans were never meant to sustain life up there. “I imagine many things will feel strange after the Ledge.”

She nods and looks out at the storm.

Ryon watches her instead. She should be dead. She should have shriveled up and surrendered by now. Her body shows the wears of the journey. Her shoulders are healing from where the talons mutilated her but not fast enough. He sees her hobble when she walks or runs, her face paling. They’ve kept themselves moving, their blood warm, but she might as well have no clothes for all the good the ones she has can do for her. Ryon averts his eyes then, remembering exactly what she looked like without clothes.

He swallows. “Are you hungry?”

A mumbled laugh slips past her lips. “I am rarely not.”

He believes her. She is thin, like every human he has seen pass over the Chasm. The girl knows hunger, knows the cold. For a moment, Ryon imagines what she would look like if fed, warm, and safe.

He finds some dried fruits and meat from the stash he keeps in the wall of this den and passes her half.

“Thank you,” she tells him, looking at the collection in her hand. “My sister liked fruit.” She says nothing more and dumps the small lumps into her mouth.

“I thought you lived alone.”

“I do. My sister was selected years ago.”

His jaw goes taut.

“You likely saw her. Maybe you even pushed her into the pool yourself.” She chews slowly, her head resting on the earthy wall, but she rolls her neck to glare at him. “Do not think your story of woe is enough to make me forget that, hybrid.”

His eyes narrow. “Perhaps I did. And what unforgivable things haveyoudone to save yourself, Dawsyn? Or are you claiming to be a saint?”

Dawsyn smiles scathingly and he cannot pretend that it does not amuse him.

“Go to sleep and find out,” she says, but under it, under the daggered sneers and velvet-smooth words, he can sense her discomfort. And the thought that he makes her uncomfortable, that she is not as unaffected as she appears, gives him pause. He doubts many have succeeded in making her anything but disinterested.

“Why? Will you steal my belongings and leave me with nothing?”

“No,” she says immediately, staring at him with nothing but malice now. “I’d kill you first, and then I would take it all.”

He unknowingly drops his eyes to her lips. There it is. That smart tongue. He chuckles darkly. “You would never get close enough for that, girl. You have a quick mouth but I’d wager my hands are quicker.”

Dawsyn’s gaze, if possible, darkens. “Many have assumed the same.”

“And where are they now?”

“Decomposing.”

He laughs louder.“Outyer ve femela ut de arde mai fiersha vis de arde vindeca,”he says beneath his breath, watching her eyes dart to his mouth.

She waits, expectant. And when Ryon says nothing, she becomes visibly frustrated.

He smirks. “It means,beware the female whose desire to hurt burns hotter than her desire to heal.”