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She wants to ask him where the others are, ask him if they are alive. But the dark edges of her mind are collapsing, gently folding inward.

Dawsyn feels him grasping her arms to pull her upright, but she sways and so he doesn’t let go. She feels her legs knocked from beneath her as Rivdan bundles her body to his chest, and she opens her eyes.

All around them, chaos ensues. Bodies rise from the earth and continue the fight. Steel against steel in the dark.

How fitting, Dawsyn thinks, that they should wage this last war in the dark.

Amid the fray, Ryon can be seen, taller than the rest, narrowly missing the descent of a fired arrow. Their eyes meet, and though she cannot understand why, he nods. Shouts something.

Rivdan’s wings unfurl. They stretch over either shoulder, lifting.

Suddenly, Dawsyn’s head clears. She turns to see the determined set of the male’s jaw. She sees his returned nod.

“Put me down,” she says, though she cannot hear her own voice. “PUT ME DOWN!”

But Rivdan is already airborne, already pulling away from the ground with her in his arms. She thinks the words he mouths over and over areSorry, Prishmyr. I’m sorry.

The ground falls away, the tangles of Glacian and human becoming smaller and smaller. And Dawsyn is too weak to struggle against him, and not stupid enough to try, so she merely shouts and begs him not to take her away. Not without him.

Dawsyn’s shouts do not persist for long, for they are not alone in the sky. Soon, from the darkness comes ghostly shapes of several Glacians, tailing them.

Rivdan dips beneath them, wheels over them in tight circles, and Dawsyn’s stomach twists with every movement. She can barely make sense of the direction in which they fly, but she hears the outraged shriek of a Glacian when Rivdan tears into the membrane of a wing with his talons. She feels the strain of every muscle in his chest as he outflies them, carrying her to safety.

And there is nothing she can do but hold on.

Below, Dawsyn can just make out the winding serpent of the river, glistening in the distance beneath the moonlight and spilling all the way out to sea, and she means to tell Rivdan to follow its path.

Suddenly, the air is filled with a keen whistling. Arrows fly past them, puncturing the wings of nearby Glacians.

At first, Dawsyn does not realise they are falling.

Rivdan’s eyes, so close to hers, go wide. He rolls, his wings sticking to his sides, and she finds herself looking up at the moon, and then further, to the cloud-shrouded mountain top. A shudder ripples through him. She hears a harsh grunt of pain and then nothing more.

The moon falls away, or perhaps Dawsyn and Rivdan do. The wind howling past her gives weight to it. The plummeting sensation in her stomach makes her brace for impact, but Rivdan’s arms remain wrapped tightly around her and she is not afraid.

When they collide with the ground, darkness, familiar and heavy, is there to greet her.

CHAPTERFIFTY-EIGHT

Blood runs down the back of her neck. It makes his stomach lurch. He nods to Rivdan.

Ryon ducks beneath a flying arrow and watches Rivdan leap into the air, Dawsyn cradled against his breastbone. He swallows the bile and exhales in a gust.

She’ll live,he placates himself.She’ll live.They both will.

The ground has stopped quaking but remains charged with some invisible energy and he can think of only one thing that could make the world shake like that. When he looks up to the mountain, he can see snow cascading furiously down its slope, barrelling over trees. The sound is immense.

But none of it is enough to keep the Glacians on the ground for long. Many are already in flight. The others already have their weapons back in hand. The fight continues as though it had never stopped.

“The bastard son of Mesrich,” comes a voice. Adrik staggers toward him, one leg badly slashed. His face is creased with fury, but still the sword in his grasp is steady.

Ryon faces him. He can feel that same bloodlust coat his tongue.

He remembers every backslap of his childhood. Every cleverly crafted word that came from Adrik’s lips. “Do you remember what you would tell me, Adrik? When that moniker was thrown my way?”

Adrik spits blood to the ground.

“You told me that one day I would shove my sword down their throat, force them to swallow their words.”