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Roznier eyes her warily. “How odd you are, Dawsyn Sabar. A woman of the Ledge who sympathises with Glacians. I see the blood-thirst in your eyes. You champion the Glacians and yet still want their life source destroyed?”

“I champion those who do not live freely,” Dawsyn says. “And I wish their oppressors a merciless death.”

“Hm. Just like Baltisse,” Roznier mutters to herself shaking her head. “Well, Dawsyn Sabar. I am sorry to say that the Pool of Iskra will remain until there is someone willing to draw all of its magic into their being and play host to it.”

Dawsyn recalls Baltisse speaking of similar acts, as though magic could simply be carried from place to place.“We carried it inside us and brought it to a place of Vasteel’s choosing; high up on the mountain where no one would dare go.”

“Andyouare not willing?” Dawsyn asks.

“Ah, but there is no mage alone who can play host to magic so dark and so large. Not for long, anyway. Mage magic and iskra were not meant to combine. Absorbing so much magic would only bring destruction. The detonation would be… cataclysmic, I believe.”

Dawsyn well knows how combustible mage magic and iskra are when they compete. “What of a human, then? Or a Glacian? Someone without the hindrance of mage blood.”

“But what human has the power to say the incantation? To invoke the energy needed to complete the task? It is a complicated spell, Dawsyn. That is the great trap of the magic we created. Magic that can only be undone by itself, butdestroysitself. If self-sacrifice were the only price, I’d have paid it long ago. But absorbing that magic turns us into a weapon only the Mother should wield. The cost outweighs the reward, I’m afraid.”

Dawsyn shakes her head. “There must be an answer.”

“Not without risking the annihilation of all,” Roznier says.

But has Dawsyn not lived with both dark and light inside her and learned to combine the two? Has there ever been another in existence who has held both in balance?

Dawsyn very much doubts there will ever be another like herself.

Roznier suddenly looks up to the sky. “Ah,” she says. “The blood moon is here.”

Dawsyn follows her gaze, looking to the pink hue of the moon’s surface. “What happens on a blood moon?” she asks. She has watched the mages prepare the fire and cook food enough for all, but there has been no mention of what comes next.

The mages converge around the flames – flames that grow inexplicably higher as daylight recedes.

Roznier chuckles. “We vanquish the unnatural, Dawsyn Sabar. Are you feeling vengeful?”

Dawsyn raises her eyebrows. “I am rarely not.”

“Then the blood moon brought you to us by design. Samskia!” Roznier calls, and a woman with wide eyes and bare feet emerges from the back of the circle. “Ve verdina oi Glacians,” Roznier tells her, and the woman named Samskia smiles wickedly. Her eyes dart to Dawsyn’s, and they turn molten, churning with anticipation. She quickly disappears. There one moment and gone in the next.

“Where did she go?” Dawsyn asks, frowning at the place where the mage had been.

“To fetch our offerings,” Roznier answers. “We’ve collected many this past season. Much more than is ordinary.”

Dawsyn’s feels a sudden thrill of fear. It begins at her scalp and travels down her neck, leaving gooseflesh in its wake. “Offerings?”

But Roznier does not answer. She stands suddenly and the mages surrounding fall quiet.

The hum in Dawsyn’s blood suddenly rings loudly and she shivers. It fills her completely as it had before, and she feels all powerful. Every inch of her suddenly strengthened, made new. She smiles at the warmth of it, the sureness of it. She sees that intangible light in every pair of eyes she encounters. They are all made of the same.

The mages begin to sing.

Their voices build and build, reaching ratcheting heights that give Dawsyn the sensation that the noise might burst within her, split her apart. She closes her eyes as it grows, letting it imbue her. It is heady, this music. It quickens her blood. It reaches into her chest and grips her heart, forcing it to beat in time with its tempo. And by the time their song finally dissolves, she opens her eyes to a setting she barely recognises, to a body she does not know. Her own skin feels blissfully unfamiliar.

But there is movement beyond the flames of the campfire, and she blinks to bring them to focus.

A line of bound bodies kneels. Bodies that had not been there before. Bodies tangled in roots that break skin. Bodies so broken that the heads sag upon necks, some slumping to the snow.

But there are three she recognises, three bodies her eyes stick to. Her heart defies her chest and becomes lodged in her throat, trying to escape her body altogether.

Her knees almost buckle. “Ryon,” she says, and it is only a breath. It barely passes her lips.

But he hears it.