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“Can someone enlighten me? What the hell is it that yeh lepers are mumblin’ about?” Salem wails, his crooked nose growing steadily redder.

“We leave tonight for Glacia,” Ryon tells him. “Dawsyn and I both… on foot.”

Salem lets loose a gust of ale-scented breath. He scrubs a hand over his worn face and says, “Right. Well then, let’s feed yeh up. There’ll be no hot food where yeh goin’.”

With that, the collection of humans and non-humans depart to the dining room, where Salem prepares food enough for a village. Esra disappears to retrieve every sword and blade he has managed to hoard, unceremoniously dumping them at Ryon’s feet.

“Es, thank you,” Ryon tells him, his hand clasping Esra’s shoulder, and no one could possibly doubt the sound of sincerity.

“Please, let’s never mention it. I don’t like those Queens. No doubt they’d drink my blood for soup if they came to know.”

“They’d drink worse,” Baltisse murmurs from her chair at the table.

All eyes turn to her, but the mage only takes another mouthful of bread and marmalade and shrugs her shoulders.

As the afternoon wears on and they help to clear the table of their meal, Baltisse takes Dawsyn’s hand. “Come,” she murmurs simply and ushers her away.

Dawsyn follows Baltisse back through the doors to the dining hall, looking over her shoulder once. She finds Ryon staring after them, his brow furrowed. Dawsyn gives him a weak grin to quell him. She senses that he should not follow. Whatever Baltisse has to say, it need not be heard by anyone but her.

Baltisse only takes them as far as the hall, rounding on Dawsyn with a grace that startles her.

“I suspect by now, you’ve learned the truth about your lineage,” she says immediately, her head tilting to view Dawsyn better.

“I have.”

“Good. Then, I want you to know that I was alive long before your grandmother was born and your great-grandfather, too. I’ve seen Terrsaw in many forms, and never was it finer than when it was in the hands of the Sabars. Mages weren’t always a welcome entity, but the former King and Queen… they saved me and the others from being burned at the stake.”

With that, she flips Dawsyn’s hand to see her palm and traces her fingers over the lines. “You weren’t born for the Ledge, Dawsyn Sabar,” she says, curiously eyeing her hand. “You will decide what you were born for.”

The mage places a small necklace in her hand, gold and delicate, unadorned by any gem or jewel. “There is absolutely no magic in this to protect you, I’m afraid,” Baltisse smiles. “I just want you to have something of me near your heart when you cut Vasteel’s from his chest.”

Their eyes meet, and as Dawsyn clasps the thin chain around her neck, she feels energy pass between them, in the way that only two women can – like ropes tethering, connecting them. It is the kindred binding of girls that she has lacked since the Ledge, since her den of girls, and she smiles darkly, knowingly.

“I’ll make it slow for you.”

CHAPTERFORTY

Ryon comforts himself in the knowledge that this time she is dressed for the journey, they have supplies, and there will be more opportunity for campfires now that the blizzards are sated with their incessant gale. How he hates the sound of wind howling – a menace. His Glacian blood allows him to stand in a glacial storm and be mostly unperturbed, but for the difficulty of seeing through the blasting snow and moving against the wind. And temperature does not disturb him. It’s the sound that drives nails into his ears, through to his brain, scratching along the cave of his skull. The first time he stepped foot in the valley, all he noticed was the absence of it.

Even in the fertile season, the mountain will still carry the gusts of wind down its slopes. It will push against them, and though it will hardly be forceful, the sound of it, so different to that of wind in flight, will grate deeply.

Protected by nightfall, they crouch in the shadows of mountainous boulders, a natural boundary to cage the slopes from the valley – a warning to humans and Glacians alike. The Boulder Gate.

Ryon carries crossed short swords on his back, those he inherited from his father. Over them is a rolled-up sack of every knife and sword he could carry and still take flight. Dawsyn has her own burdens. She squats beside him with her hair tied back, her furs fastened around her, her own bag of clothing and food on her back. Her hatchet ax is at her waist this time, secured into a belt procured from Esra.

Ryon reaches out to clasp her chin in his fingers, tilting her face to his. “If we are ambushed,” he tells her, “I am flying us out.”

She nods her head once. “We should go.”

He sighs, holding out his arms. He savors the feel of her molding to his chest, the feel of her arms wrapping over his shoulders. He summons his wings, feels the tension coil in his thighs, and then darts from the ground, rocketing like an arrow from a bow. He only flies high enough to scale the Boulder Gate and soars them into thick tree cover on the other side, partway onto the slope. He lets his wings fan to buffet the wind, and they slow abruptly before landing, his heavy boots spraying powder in drifts.

“I have not missed the snow,” Dawsyn mutters, her boots squeaking as they sink through it.

“If you change your mind, you’ll tell me?”

Dawsyn rolls her eyes at him, and it only serves to awaken his desire. “Not once in my life have I changed my mind.”

“Liar. You changed your mind in regard to me.”