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Unable to stop herself, she presses her lips to his.

CHAPTERTHIRTY-EIGHT

When the light in the woods is dim and graying, they leave the rotting cabin, their refuge. The twilight air is warmer today, but it does not fool Dawsyn into hope. She knows well how the mountains do not revel in the warmth of the sun. In the night, the Ledge will be as frigid as always, even without the blizzards of the hostile season.

The woods echo their footsteps back to them but do not carry any other sound, save that of small animals, the trickling of creeks. It will take them all night and much of the next day to reach the inn – if they aren’t caught first by Glacians or guards alike.

It is the pastures that worry Dawsyn, the open fields with low-growing crops that will not conceal them, so daringly close to the Mecca, to the Queens. They will need to cross the fields before the night wanes. There are no minutes to be spared for rest, for error. Like they did on the slope, they will cut a relentless path without breaking stride.

The first change in the light comes as Ryon and Dawsyn reach a narrow path, recently used. They must be nearing the Mecca. The sky turns from obsidian to inky blue, and Ryon and Dawsyn share an ominous look.

“Come,” Ryon murmurs, and they begin to run.

Dawsyn ignores the protests from her feet, her legs. They cannot see the fields yet; the treetop canopy overhead is only just beginning to thin. Like shadows, they slip over the forest floor, the weak light now revealing the knotted roots and rocks that would trip them otherwise at speed. The woods do not thin, and the sky hastens to morning.

A desperate sound emerges from Dawsyn’s lips. They will not make it in time. Day will break while they cross the fields. Like easy game, they will be found from the sky and the ground. She forces her legs to quicken. She will not be stolen away by a queen made from treason. She will not be kept prisoner again by another ruler who confines her for their own gain.

There is a hollowness ahead, a break beyond the blackened trunks of trees, as though the forest falls away to nothing. Shuddering in relief, she breaks through the bracken and thickets edging the forest line, the barbs scraping any exposed skin. She stops instantly. Waist-high grass sways sleepily under the waning moon, and beyond, rows upon rows of crops line the gentle hills, undulating toward the place where the sun pushes back the dark.

Only a second or so passes before Ryon shoves through the brambles. Without breaking stride, his wings unfurl, broad and powerful. He takes her at a run, his arms wrapping around her middle like a vise. Ryon hurls them both forward, like he means to tackle her to the ground. His hand closes over her mouth to muffle her yell, and in the same moment she expects her face to hit the ground, she feels her body wrenched away instead. She hears the unnerving power of his wings breaking the air and opens her eyes.

Ryon flies them inches from the seeded tips of the grass, gliding them so low to the ground that Dawsyn could touch it if she reached out.

As soon as his hand leaves her mouth, she pants, “Do not drop me,” and wonders if he’ll hear it.

She feels the quiver of his chest against her back and knows he has. Ryon laughs at her, but his lips brushing her ear melt her temper. He holds her tighter. “Never,” he promises, and the thought ignites something primitive.

In the divide between night and dawn, they sweep across the fields like dark spirits, unseen and unheard by those who hunt them. It is long after they return to the safety of tree cover that the night finally succumbs to the light, and the fields cannot betray even their footprints.

CHAPTERTHIRTY-NINE

In the last legs of the journey to the inn, there are no sounds or sights to tell them that Glacians fly overhead.

“Why have they stopped searching for us?” Dawsyn asks over her shoulder.

Ryon strides with inordinate grace behind her. “I told you how closely Vasteel covets the pure-bloods. We killed five more of them when they found us by the river. Five pure-blooded Glacians he cannot spare. I’m surprised he ever sent them to begin with. He underestimated us. He will not do so again.”

“Whatwillhe do?” Dawsyn asks quietly. She pictures King Vasteel in his banquet hall, his gray-hued eyes sparkling with malevolence. “He does not seem like one with a tolerance for bygones.”

A chuckle comes from behind. “You know, in my youth, he would send his noblemen for me every so often. They would tie me to a post in the middle of the Colony and order one of the mixed-bloods to beat me or burn me.”

Dawsyn halts and then turns. “What? Why?”

Again, a dark laugh rumbles in his chest. “To ensure I hadn’t found peace. Perhaps to create enmity between myself and the others in the Colony.”

“Did it work?” Dawsyn asks him softly, touching the place on his ribs that knew the burn of iron.

“Yes, and no,” he says, cupping her cheek in his hand. “I never found peace, but as for making me an outcast in the Colony?” He grins, taking up her hand and pulling her onward. “All it did was make the mixed-bloods sympathetic to me. They were repentant, and I believe it is the only reason I wasnotcast out. In any case… no, the King is not one to let bygones lie.”

What a shock it must have been, Dawsyn thinks,when he outgrew the smallness they’d all failed to confine him within.

They reach the inn before the sun is overhead, and Salem opens the door before they can knock, his prominent gut preceding him.

“Blasted hell! Ry! Miss Sabar!” Salem calls, gesturing wildly for them to hurry inside.

Dawsyn sees Ryon roll his eyes, but a smile finds the corner of his mouth.

When Salem has shut and locked the door behind them, he turns, redcheeked, and wrings his overlarge fingers. “Thank the Fallen yer OK! Word from the Mecca reached me that two folks, soundin’ just like the two of yeh, were wanted for threatenin’ the palace! I about fell from me chair! What in God’s name happened?”