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“Youknewthem,” Cressida corrects. “Many years have passed since, Yennes.”

“The ones I saw in the palace didn’t lament those left on the Ledge,” Ruby confirms. “Why would they turn on Adrik, and help to save them now?”

“Because they are not our enemy,” Yennes says forcefully, more forcefully then either Cressida or Ruby have ever heard her speak. “And if someone else has taken rule of Glacia and that fucking pool, there will be those who wish against it. Those who will do anything to be rid of it for good.”

“Be rid of it?” Cressida asks. “It cannot be done.”

Yennes sighs, hesitates. And Ruby senses something banking up in the silence. A mounting swell. A shudder in the constellations. Yennes finally releases a gust of breath. “There is a way,” she says, “And I can trade the knowledge for the Colony’s allegiance in this fight.”

Ruby only stares, stunned, her sword tip hitting the ground.

Yennes continues, as though she hadn’t just split the sky above them, poured its secrets to the earth. “They will agree. I am sure of it.”

Cressida’s breaths are hushed. “Do you speak truthfully?” she utters. “Do you truly know how to destroy the Pool of Iskra?”

Yennes seems to shrink as she answers. “I do.”

“How could you possibly?” Ruby exhales.

“I knew its maker,” Yennes says simply. “And she showed me the way. We only need the one with means to see it through.”

CHAPTERFORTY-FOUR

The blood moon rises quickly and Dawsyn watches on as the clan prepares their celebration.

There are dozens of them. The mages greet each other with nods and small touches of palms but rarely speak. They work and weave amongst one another like a current, harmonious and synchronised. Dawsyn wonders how many centuries in each other’s company it took to achieve such peace.

There are children too. They play in the snow and disappear into the trees, leaves dancing at their heels. The other mages pay them little mind, at ease with the sight of them disappearing into the woods. Their wards will protect their young, after all.

Roznier seems something of a leader to Dawsyn. The others confer with her quietly on occasion, approaching with a light touch of a palm and then speaking with deference. Whatever she says in return, it is spoken in the old language; Dawsyn does not understand a word.

The mages stare curiously at Dawsyn, and it makes her wary, but none approach. None seem to question Roznier bringing her here and so Dawsyn only watches this community, hewn from the mountain like her, living so conversely from that of the Ledge people.

“How easy you make it seem,” she says to Roznier late in the afternoon, as the light begins to ebb. “To live amongst one another, with the cold.” They are seated on a log bench before a large campfire. It burns brighter and hotter than any Dawsyn has seen. She almost forgets she is on the mountain, that the cold exists at all.

Roznier accepts a plate of food from a passing mage and offers it to Dawsyn. “It is easy to be peaceful when one is abundant,” she says simply. “I imagine it was not so on the Ledge where those Glacians caged you.”

“No,” Dawsyn replies flatly.

“I’ve had many years to think on the matters of peace and abundance,” Roznier says conversationally. “Greed is what impedes peace, invokes war. Greed is what led Baltisse and I to create the Pool of Iskra. Greed is what led Vasteel to drink from it. The Glacians were born from greed. They are made of it,” she says. “In that, we can take some solace. They will never know peace.”

Dawsyn agrees. But it is not Vasteel or even Adrik she thinks of. It is those in the Colony of Glacia. It is Rivdan, Tasheem… Ryon. They may never know peace either. All for the greed of another. “Not all of them deserve it,” Dawsyn says in reply. “Not all of them drink from the pool.”

“Ah. You sound just like Baltisse,” Roznier says. “She often tried to convince me of the same. But whether they drink from the pool or not, they remain unnatural beings.”

Dawsyn cannot agree this time. She thinks that nothing seems more natural than Ryon in flight. How can something so beautiful be an abomination? Heat prickles beneath her skin.

Roznier chuckles darkly. “Even the mutts among them have the pool running through their veins, Dawsyn, if not by their own choice.”

“Then surely you are to blame, Roznier,” Dawsyn says. “Were it not for you creating the magic that transformed Vasteel, no Glacian would walk these slopes.”

“Indeed,” Roznier agrees easily. “Though as I’ve said, I have had much time to consider my actions, and whilst there are parts of my past I cannot forgive, I at least know I did not act with ill intent. None of us did. Not in the beginning, anyway.” Her stare becomes far-reaching. Dawsyn wonders what she sees. “If I had the foresight to know what would become of the pool, I would have thwarted its creation. I would destroy it now, if I could.”

Dawsyn becomes still. “Destroy it?” she says slowly, watching the mage’s narrow eyes for any hint of jest. “Can such a thing be done?”

“Everything made can be unmade.”

“I grow tired of poetry,” Dawsyn says evenly, though her mind runs rampant. “Speak plainly, mage. Can the Pool of Iskra truly be destroyed?”