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A light flares before her, the blinding spark of a flame, and as the brilliance of it fades to a muted glow, a strange face is thrown into relief.

She backs away, her hand reaching for her blade and pulling it forth, but her back meets the hard contours of Ryon. Quickly, he clamps a hand around her torso, the other around her wrist.

“A smarter beast would duck, Adrik, before she throws the knife at your head.”

The man – a hulking, lined, gray-bearded mass – balks backward. “Ryon?”

“Yes,” Ryon says and then to Dawsyn, “Put it away, malishka. He will not harm us.”

“Malishka?” the old man repeats, eyes darting between the two. His brow furrows in bewilderment.

“Dawsyn, this is Adrik,” Ryon says. “Another mixed and the highest council elder of the Colony, self-appointed.”

Adrik shrugs.

“Adrik, this is Dawsyn. She is of the Ledge.”

Adrik’s eyes pierce hers with a kind of invading glare, as though he unpacks her, examines each side of her. In the many times of her life that she has been most vulnerable, never has she felt as exposed as she does now. Adrik’s eyes turn her inside out, slowly, deliberately, and she is loath to shrivel away from it.

“What a spine you must possess, girl,” he mutters, as though to himself.

For a moment, his stare lingers on the place where Ryon’s hand splays across her stomach. He turns and places the candle he holds onto a marked and worn table.

“You’re not dead,” Adrik says nonchalantly to Ryon, a smile now replacing the shock. The old male’s head brushes the roof of the tent, his long gray hair sweeping it as he moves.

There are no wings or talons to be seen. No ivory skin or unpigmented eyes either, but this man is certainly of Glacian descent. Like Ryon, it is in the sheer size of his shoulders, the length of his back, the span of his hands. It is in the thin clothing he dons with ease in freezing temperatures.

“Is that the lie Vasteel told?”

Adrik nods. “Says you were slayed on the slopes. Killed by a human girl along with two brutes. I take it, this be the girl in question.”

Ryon grins. “She didn’t succeed in killing me, though she gave her best attempt.”

“That was not my best attempt,” Dawsyn murmurs reflexively.

Adrik guffaws. “Yes, quite the spine, as I said.”

“What else did the King say?” Ryon asks.

“Nothing at all, as always. We saw nobles take flight not a full moon ago – six of them, Phineas included. I’d recognize those angelic wings anywhere,” he says, and promptly spits upon his floor. “Vasteel didn’t offer an explanation, but we watched. Phineas returned alone, and I figured that you were alive and well, sitting on a mound of Glacian flesh, patting yourself on the back. And as usual, I see I was right.”

“Phineas betrayed me,” Ryon relays, his voice dark.

“Well, of course he did, deshun. I told you many times that he would turn the other side of his sword eventually. He’s a pure brute. His loyalty to your father was only ever a shallow well–”

“A brute?” Dawsyn asks, her voice cutting Adrik’s in half.

“A pure-blooded Glacian,” Ryon tells her.

“Well, I pray you’ve brought back something to show for your time and effort, young Mesrich. Or you’ll be storming the castle with nothing but a few knives and a band of wrathful Izgoi.”

When Dawsyn frowns in confusion, Adrik smiles. “Our rebellion of mixed-bloods,” he translates.

Ryon pulls the sack from his shoulder, its weight obvious from the strain of muscles along his forearm, and gently lays it on the floor, careful not to let the steel within clatter. He unties and opens the hessian, unravelling the gleaming iron beneath. A dozen swords, several dozen daggers, a singular bow with a quiver of arrows.

Adrik appraises the collection for several long moments, his eyes alight in something like malice. “That ought to help,” he utters.

CHAPTERFORTY-THREE