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Adrik smiles without humour, without even an ounce of sanity. “You were so easy to use, Ryon,” he says. “You believed everything, anything I said. Youidolisedme.”

“I did,” Ryon agrees, clenching a sword handle in either hand. “But you can make good on at least one of your promises.”

Ryon lunges forward, and his sword clashes with Adrik. The reverberations scream through his limbs, but he doesn’t allow the male a moment to find his footing. Adrik stumbles backward as he parries, grunting with exertion, eyes wild with something like fear. The male has spent most of his years scheming, strategizing. He is no real swordsman. He had relied on Ryon, leader of the Izgoi, to fight his battles.

It only takes a single bluff to fell him. Ryon pitches one sword at Adrik’s head and the male throws himself backward to avoid it. But Ryon is ready. He rushes Adrik onto his back, hearing the breath expel from his lungs on impact. Ryon kicks the sword from Adrik’s hand and presses a knee to the male’s chest.

“The Pool of Iskra is gone,” Ryon tells him. “Did you feel that blast? The destruction of all that magic?”

Adrik laughs weakly, brokenly. “Impossible.” But the laughter cuts off when Ryon’s second sword hovers over Adrik’s mouth. “Wait,” he utters, desperate. “Please.”

“You traded your honour for that pool,” Ryon tells him, feeding the sword through the parting of Adrik’s lips. “And now you’ll die knowing it was for nothing.”

He watches the male’s eyes go wide, watches his hands mindlessly grasp the sword, panicking. Ryon shunts the sword into the back of Adrik’s throat.

It takes several moments for this final King of Glacia to drown. Ryon uses every passing second to recall a different memory of the king, and then lets it die with Adrik.

Ryon pulls his sword free and does not spare the male another glance.

As though the King of Glacia’s death had sounded a warning, the tide of battle turns.

All around, white-winged Glacians take to the sky. One after the other they retreat, weakened by the warmth of the valley, unsupported by the Terrsaw guard. They leap for the skies and turn back to the mountain.

And Ryon’s chest loosens. They’ve won. They’ve finally won. And they are still alive.

Dawsyn,he thinks victoriously.Where are you?

Ryon cranes his neck to find a pair of wings he recognises. He searches the sky for Rivdan and the woman he loves.

But high on the hills behind Ryon, where the archers stand, a fervent call rings out: “ARCHERS!” it commands. “FIRE!”

Time seems to slow. Ryon’s blood turns cold.

It is the humans on that hill, wearing Terrsaw emblems, that finish the war. They follow no Queen’s command. They see the Glacians retreating, and it seems that they cannot simply let them escape. They let their arrows fly.

And Ryon’s heart sinks.Dawsyn!Dawsyn is in the sky. She and Rivdan.

The arrows shred holes through wings and chests. The soldiers on the ground cheer to see Glacians rain from the sky, landing with sickening thuds atop crumbling houses, broken chimneys and dry, cracked earth.

All around Ryon, they crash to the earth.

A flash of red hair catches his eye, high above.

He watches the arrows as they bury in Rivdan’s back.

He watches the male falter and try to fly on.

And then they fall.

They fall.

CHAPTERFIFTY-NINE

Her den of girls is warm for such a blizzard-worn night. The fire crackles, her shoulders are donned by threadbare blankets, and Dawsyn marvels at the absence of cold. Her toes do not curl up inside her leather boots. Her bones do not ache.

In the crook of her arm, her sister Maya huddles, peacefully asleep against her side, mouth agape. Her wild tangle of black hair tickles Dawsyn’s neck.

Briar stokes the fire. Her long-braided hair dangles over her shoulder and she flicks it back with a curse.