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Farra sighs deeply, her shoulders slipping from their careful composure for the first time. “It was never my intention to manipulate or deceive. Baltisse asked me to help a girl made of iskra and mage light, and I came to help her.”

“She could have died by your hand!”Ryon roars, the anger finally peaking. “If Dawsyn – ifanyof us had died when you led Alvira to meet us in the Chasm, it would have been by your hand. Do not lie to me once more. You did not come tohelp;you came to ruin us!”

“I had no choice,”Farra says, desperation beginning to creep into her tone. “The Queen… I’ve long since stopped fighting the hold she has on me. But that endstoday,Ryon. Today, Queen Alvira falls, and the Ledge people will finally be free. There is a plan–”

“Are we to trust a plan outlaid by you?” Dawsyn says suddenly, stepping forward. Ryon sees the ice solidifying over her fingers. “A woman who folds into Glacia for the first time in thirty years, now that her son has outgrown the need for her rescue? Tell me,Yennes.Did you ever think of the boy you left in the Colony? Or were you too busy appeasing the Queens you serve?”

The tears that streak down the woman’s tired face are answer enough. “I wanted to come back,” she says looking back at Ryon. “But the Queens were watching. Baltisse convinced me not to.”

“Baltisse?” Ryon hears the name whispered from one of their group.

“I wanted to come for you, Ryon,” Farra says and Ryon sees the truth of it in every line of her face. “So many times… I almost did.”

“And here you are now,” Ryon utters, swaying where he stands. “For what did you finally find the courage?”

Farra nods, as though ceding the loss of his forgiveness perhaps. “There is a plan, one that we stand a chance of completing if we act quickly. I only ask that you listen,please.There is no time to squander.”

Ryon does not offer her a nod. He lets his eyes bore into hers, and he waits.

She swallows before continuing. “Queen Cressida has turned against her wife.”

There is a small intake of breath from Dawsyn. “You lie.”

Farra sighs. “She has orchestrated an uprising, a revolt. She and the captain of the guard, Ruby.”

The information is jarring. It stuns their party into silence. No one reacts. No one speaks. They listen warily, unsure if what they hear is sinister or of substance.

“By now, the Queen’s Jubilee will be over, and the citizens of Terrsaw will know that the Ledge is empty of people and its survivors have arrived in the valley. With a rebellion already growing, Cressida’s announcement will place Alvira in a very tight corner. Her only viable choice will be to stand with Ruby and the battalion of soldiers she has waiting in the Fallen Village, ready to defend the Ledge people, rather than sacrifice them to the Glacians.”

Ryon’s breath catches in his throat. “And yet you are here, staying out of the fray.”

“I am here because even with half the Terrsaw guard, it won’t be enough,” Farra says. “I came to rally any remaining Glacian I could. I came to know a few in my time here. I hoped I would find them, appeal to them.”

“And in that, you have succeeded,” Ryon says. “The sky is filled.”

“It’s a trap,” Dawsyn says at once. “It must be.”

Farra looks at Dawsyn for a moment, eyes soft and rounded in awe. “You are far braver than I, so you may never understand my weakness. Where you would have spat in the face of a queen who watched your every move, I obeyed.”

“No,” Dawsyn corrects. “You kneeled.”

“There was never another end to the Chasm, Dawsyn,” she says gently now. “I knew it in my core. In my blood. The voices within… they bid us to run in the opposite direction for a reason. I did what I thought was necessary to save those within it.”

“You were a coward,” Dawsyn says. “And we’ve no reason to believe a change in character now.”

Farra looks over her shoulder at the glistening pool and for a moment Ryon wonders if she has forgotten where she is or why she is here. But then she speaks. “Whether I am to be believed or not matters little. At dusk, the Glacians will meet the Ledge people in the Fallen Village, and a battle will ensue, with or without your help. But if our people lose, they will be herded back up those slopes, Dawsyn. Back onto the Ledge.” Her eyes aren’t pleading, nor determined. They are merely weary. They are weighted in regret. In shame. In the violence of her years.

“I prayed each day that you would grow and live well, Ryon,” she tells him softly. For a moment, Ryon can glimpse what life might have been like, carved by her hand. A life of soft glances and mild touches and quiet reassurance. A life removed from the one he lived. “You were meant to be born, just as you were, so that you might do great things, as all improbable souls seem to.”

She clasps her hands together and they intertwine with one another. “Some of us were meant to die. I’ve learned the cost of outstaying one’s welcome. I’ve wronged you. Hurtyou,” she says. “But I will make it right again, I swear to you. I only ask that you give me the chance to do so.”

Every fibre of Ryon’s being is at war, parrying with indecision. He should kill Farra… his mother. He shouldkillher. Not for revenge, but for the sheer likelihood that she is still a slave to Queen Alvira.

But something aches deep within him, and it begs him to leave her be. He finds he cannot lift the sword in his hand. He turns to Dawsyn, to the others. “Please, give me a moment,” he asks of them, and they do not hesitate to comply. All bear the same stunned expressions he likely mirrors, and they nod, backing away. Tasheem pulls Phineas away.

“Leave him,” Ryon tells her, looking at his father’s friend, his mentor. Tasheem grimaces. “Go, Tasheem, please.” And Rivdan leads Tasheem away, nodding once to Ryon.

Brown eyes appear before him, hands on his face. Dawsyn speaks, but he only watches her full lips and hears nothing. “Stay,” he says, interrupting her. He does not mean to say it, does not remember giving thought to it, but there it is. He wants her with him in moments like these.