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Roznier looks, for the first time, afraid. She closes her eyes and wrings her hands together, her face drawn. When she opens them, they pierce Dawsyn anew. “Very well,” she says. “Then it is a deal.”

“I will need time to prepare,” Dawsyn utters, already backing toward Rivdan and Tasheem. “I cannot go to Glacia this night.”

“I will not come to drag you back, Dawsyn Sabar,” Roznier shakes her head. “Noryou,” she adds to Ryon. “Though I must bid you to stay just a while a longer. I told you before, this is a night for vengeance.”

“They cannot wait,” Dawsyn spits, gesturing to Tasheem and Rivdan. “Heal them.”

Roznier sighs, then nods to no one in particular.

Two mages step forward, one man and one woman, both adorned in layers of necklaces that rattle as they approach. They touch their hands to the foreheads of Rivdan and Tasheem, and Dawsyn squeezes her eyes shut as the blinding light erupts from their fingertips.

When it dissipates, Ryon bends to take Riv’s shoulders in his hands and shakes them. Gone are the patterns of blue and purple that had blossomed beneath the male’s skin. His jaw no longer hangs like a corpse. The male blinks his familiar blue eyes and finds Ryon’s. “Mesrich?”

“Can you stand?” Ryon asks, but Rivdan’s eyes are darting around the clan of mages and the pyre before him, and his hand goes to his shoulder, to reach a sword no longer there.

“No,”Ryon tells him sharply. “Go easy. You’re safe.”

“What the fuck is happening?” comes Tasheem’s voice.

Dawsyn tries to put herself in the female’s line of sight. “A mage clan,” Dawsyn mutters. “No sudden movements.”

Tasheem’s eyes widen, and she begins to check over her body, now whole and well.

“Stand, Glacians!” Roznier calls to them. A frenetic drumbeat has begun, though Dawsyn cannot tell where it comes from. The fire licks at the night sky, reaching impossible heights once more, and the mages surrounding it begin to sing disjointed verses, not together, but not apart from each other either. Choruses interweave and break free, and Dawsyn and Ryon tear their eyes away from the sight to look to one another. Ryon’s fingers find her wrist again and he pulls her slowly away.

“You cannot walk through the wards orflyout of them,” Roznier says, her voice reaching them despite the crescendo of noise. “Stay. Watch what the blood moon brings, Glacians. Watch what happens to those who wander too far from their nest.”

Dawsyn watches as Samskia skips to where a Glacian lays crumpled beside Rivdan. The roots that bind him fall away, and Samskia whispers something in the male’s ear.

When he fails to move, Samskia buries her long nails into the clothes on his back, and he wails pitifully. She pulls him across the ground, closer to the raging fire, and is joined by other mages, who shriek and claw like animals.

They lift his considerable mass from the snow as one and haul him into the flames. The sounds of the Glacian’s cries are quickly vanquished.

Dawsyn, Ryon, Rivdan and Tasheem watch on, frozen, as the Glacian within blackens, all to the sound of exultant cheering.

Over and over, the mages repeat the ritual, dragging hapless Glacians in various forms of enervation to the pyre, and throwing them in. Some never open their eyes or utter a noise, making Dawsyn think them already dead. Some scream so long, that even Dawsyn grimaces. But she finds she cannot bring herself to pity them. She cannot claim there is no satisfaction to be gained from watching their unnatural skin bubble and meld into their flesh. It brings her some measure of despicable pleasure to see the white wings that stalked her childhood skies burnt to ash.

“And the finest of our offerings,” Roznier suddenly calls, her voice enacting a hush over the raucous celebrations. “The very first Glacian himself!”

Dawsyn’s head snaps up. She looks at Ryon, but his expression is steely, set determinedly ahead on the orange flames.

Surely, not…

Samskia brings him forward, and he walks on two feet. His knees buckle some as he staggers; his wings are torn, his hair hangs in ropes. His face is skeletal, all traces of superiority now erased.

But it is him. Vasteel. And despite herself, Dawsyn’s breaths come sharper. She clenches her fists. “Mother above,” she mutters.

Vasteel, held prisoner this entire time. By a mage clan, no less.

He turns his head toward them as he reaches the edges of the pyre, his burning nobles heaped in its middle. He sees Dawsyn, and then Ryon, and he smiles serenely. “I will see you in that circle, Mesrich,” he says. “The one saved for us.”

Ryon takes three measured steps toward him, and Dawsyn watches the muscles of his shoulders ripple as he shoves Vasteel, lifting him off his feet. He falls atop the pyre, and his cries last longer than any other before him. Dawsyn watches his face within the blaze contorting into something unrecognisable, something that does not resemble any creature that Dawsyn has encountered. He screams until his voice chokes off, unable to draw breath, his body blackening.

It is many minutes before Dawsyn looks away. She needs to ensure that only cinders remain. Only ash, quickly swallowed by the passing breeze. She ignores the shaking in her hands and keeps her eyes trained on the form that was once the King of Glacia, and thinks,one less to find. One less to kill.

Eventually, some of the mages begin singing and dancing again. They eat and drink and circle the fire. The hum in Dawsyn’s blood rings soundly.

Roznier approaches Dawsyn and her friends, standing stunned in the snow. Despite the festivities, Roznier’s expression is grave. She touches Dawsyn’s hand with her own and presses her ax into her palm. “Go now. And blessings, Dawsyn,” Roznier says, squeezing her fingers. “You will surely need them.”