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Thoughts of filling her empty stomach are abated, however, as they break through a thicket onto an expanse of rolling hills. Everywhere she looks, she sees the crumbling remains of homes. Their roofs caved in or simply strangled by vines. Wagons lie overturned, their contents long since rotted or scavenged, the timber blackened by mold. Here and there are pieces of furniture, most burned and slowly swallowed by the earth. The land gently suffocates that which has been left in its grasp, like a predator to prey. Mud-brick chimneys lie strewn, collapsed beside their hosts; blackened trinkets crack underfoot as Ryon and Dawsyn wander through.

This is the Fallen Village, once populated by her ancestors before they were sequestered to the Ledge. She can imagine the paths where feet fell the most, where wagons were towed through the busy lanes. Another decade or so, and what little remains of her grandmother’s village will be buried, as though it were never there at all.

Dawsyn wonders if they’re stepping on the bones of her people, too, or if their bodies had been hauled to Glacia and thrown into the Pool of Iskra.

Ryon does not speak as they traipse through, avoiding the barrels and carts. He offers no words of condolence but Dawsyn wouldn’t know what to do with them regardless. The death that was etched to the earth here does not belong to her alone. The broken and buried are not hers either, but still, the sight of it ignites a wrath in her. Not one that she earned, but one she was born into. One that, despite its age, demands retribution, whether it belongs to her or not.

Eventually, the remains of the village become few and far between and their feet find a dirt path. It winds through thin woods.

“Almost there,” Ryon mutters, and Dawsyn feels her body sigh in relief.

She feels the distance traveled in every blister, every cut, every sore spot of her body. The mountain – her prison – looms behind her, stretching to the heavens. Its peak, the Ledge, Glacia – none of it is visible to those below.

She knows she should be dead rather than walking along green ground. She knows her eyes were never destined to fall upon the world below the Ledge. She was not born to walk the valley. And yet she does. She has survived the Ledge, the Chasm, the slopes, and now, she is here. So destiny, she supposes, can fuck itself.

Her eyelids grow heavy as she drags her feet after Ryon’s. A larger building looms. She can make out the many windows through the breaks in the trees, but the light has begun to fade, the color bleeding from the land and with it, her mind lags, drifts.

Is that smoke?Perhaps she is close to fire – warmth. Perhaps Ryon’s hand is around her arm, pulling her through a doorway. Or perhaps she sleeps already.

“Fuckin’ hell, Ryon. Who yeh got there?”

“A friend. She needs a room – quickly, I’d say. She’s about to settle on your stoop.”

“That’d scare away the payin’ folk now, wouldn’t it? Take the two rooms on the first floor. There ain’t anyone I’m expectin’ tonight.”

In the morning, Dawsyn will remember her feet stumbling. She’ll remember a voice telling her to take one more step, one more step. But she will not remember how her head came to find a pillow. She will not remember how her face and hands came to be clean or how her feet came to be unwrapped from their terrible bindings. She will not remember why she felt light, like something buried for so long, now uncovered.

It is dark when she wakes. It takes a few moments to guess where she is and then moments more to determine if she isn’t dead or dreaming. But alas, the pain in her shoulders remains, her swollen feet ache from their tight strapping, and her belly quakes.

But there is a small hearth with a burning fire. The cot below her is matted with soft straw and cotton bedding. She is warm. She cannot remember the last time she felt as comfortable.

There is no body wrapped around hers, stealing and giving heat. The parts of her that do not face the fire are not even chilled and it is bliss.

The door to her side opens and into the tiny room steps Ryon, imposing in the narrow space. In his wake comes the smell of cooked meat. Dawsyn sits abruptly.

“You brought me food?” she asks him, her belly clenching.

He comes to the cot and places a bowl in her lap, heaped with broth and lumps of turnips and meat. Ignoring the spoon he holds out to her, she lifts the bowl to her lips and drains the broth, relishing the feel of it, even as it scalds her tongue. When she is done, she snatches the silver from Ryon’s hands, shoveling a heaped spoonful to her mouth and swallowing on a groan and then another. It is quite easily the best meal she has ever consumed.

“I was coming to wake you. You’d been asleep for too long,” he says, watching her keenly.

“How long?”

“A little more than a day.”

She pauses. “A whole day?”

He nods. “Thought you might starve yourself to death if you didn’t wake soon. Seems I was right.”

He passes a tankard of water to her then, and she drains it.

“Did you clean me while I slept?” she asks bluntly.

He is unabashed. “Yes,” he says. “But only your hands, feet, and face. You’re welcome.”

Ryon lets her finish the meal, his eyes following the motion of her lips, her hands. She wishes he wouldn’t. The parts of her that are touched by his gaze burn hot. It is hard to ignore, but her hunger helps. She does not slow for etiquette, even when her stomach heaves and threatens to spill over.

When the food and drink are gone, she feels a heaviness. Her body, sated, tries to return her to sleep. She fights it by studying the room more intently. Dreary and dark, the walls are bare, but for lit sconces at irregular intervals, the hearth, and the small window revealing the night.