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“As you please.” He comes to a stop. Carefully, he moves her away from his chest, letting her feet find the ground.

Dawsyn teeters and his hands find her waist, holding her steady. Dawsyn sucks a breath through her teeth at the feel of his hands encircling her, brushing her lowest ribs.

“Are you stable?” he asks from behind her, his voice oddly raspy.

“Yes.” But the ground seems close.

“Whoa,” Ryon gasps, catching her before her face hits the snow. “Here, sit. Drink.”

He helps to lower her to the icy ground and passes her a waterskin. She grabs it with weak fingers and drinks slowly, her stomach cramping horribly.

He carefully watches her, and she knows what he will say before he says it. “You cannot continue.”

“Watch me,” she mumbles, passing the skin to him. It sloshes as her hand trembles.

He mumbles a low curse. “There is no one in the skies, looking for us, and I think we are low enough now.”

“Low enough for what?” she asks sluggishly.

He meets her gaze and holds it. “To fly.”

A laugh leaves her. “Unfortunately, I was not born with the same appendages as you.”

He grins. “I have noticed.” His eyes flicker to her cheeks, where she imagines the skin must be showing warmth. “I will carry you.”

“You will drop me.”

“I’d never,” he says mockingly. “I promise.”

She frowns, her head knocking relentlessly. “Can I hold my knife to your eye until we land?”

“You are far too small and weakening to be intimidating.”

She groans. Time spent resisting will only be wasted and she has no time. She cannot stretch out her survival on this mountain much longer. Who knows how many minutes, hours, were lost while Ryon carried her useless body down the slope?

“Fine,” she tells him, readying herself to stand.

“But first, your ax, please,” he says before she can rise, his hand upturned.

Dawsyn looks from the maze of his palm to his face and barks out a laugh. “If you want to keep that hand, hybrid, you’ll put it away.”

“We had a deal.” He frowns down at her, but Dawsyn sees amusement lighten it, like she is a game to be enjoyed.

She feels a rush of warmth along her collar, but lifts her chin, smiles faux sweetly. “I do not recall.”

“Understandable. You’ve weakened severely in a short span of time, become distracted, easily confused. I’ll speak slowly.” He lowers onto a knee, as though conferring with a child. “I told you I’d get you into these skies.”

Dawsyn sighs. She reaches to her back and pulls the ax head from her waistline. She does not care much for this particular ax. There were many before it. It will not be long before it splinters and breaks and she’ll need to replace its neck or its eye. She is not fool enough to place sentiment in something so impermanent. She looks up at Ryon and holds the blunt handle for him to take.

He smirks with the victory of a man having won his silly game and makes to take it from her.

Dawsyn flips the neck of the ax and has the blade across his wrist in the next moment, her other hand pushing his forearm to the snow. A single bead of blood traces a slow path over the cliff of his arm.

“You know,” she says, her lips now uncomfortably close to his ear. “I’ve lost plenty of axes to tree trunks. You can only beat something so long before it breaks. I’ve had them stolen. I’ve lost a blade to someone’s neck, one to the Chasm, I’ve even gifted an ax to another,” she pauses, and does not drop her glare when Ryon turns his face to hers, despite its proximity. “But I’ve never surrendered one. And when the day comes that I must, it won’t be to a Glacian.”

As another drop of blood follows the first, Ryon only stares at her, his breath a little shorter, his skin a little warmer. And when he finally speaks, his voice is a little rougher than before. “A deal is a deal.”

“You wagered that I’d beg you to take me into those skies,” she counters. “In this moment, Ryon Mesrich, which of us seems more likely to start begging?”