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“–to the end.Yes,Yennes. There is no one in this fucking Chasm with a better grasp on the depths of our dilemma than I.”

Dawsyn’s voice rises with each word. She runs her free hand over her face and ignores its trembling. Three days they have been in the Chasm. Just three.

“There is nothing to be done,” she murmurs, struggling to reign in her temper, her fear. She cannot ask that these people fast from water without knowing if it is indeed contaminated. Dehydration will weaken them faster than any infection can. “We will help who we can, and hope that the end of this journey draws near.”

Yennes hesitates, biting her lip. “And if it does not?”

Dawsyn closes her eyes. She breathes deeply, fortifying herself. “Then we will get everyone out.”

Yennes does not say the obvious thing, that the Glacians are still weak, that Dawsyn has not yet folded successfully, that Yennes’ own magic is dwindling, that getting these peopleintothe Chasm was a feat all on its own, a challenge of which will not likely be matched.

Instead, Yennes says, “We fight against time now,” and then she looks about her. “We ought not waste too much of it remaining idle.”

Dawsyn raises her torch to illuminate as much as she can and sees her people sleeping in their disturbingly deadened way. People who she will allow to drink from this Chasm, despite the sickness it may or may not spread. “Idleness is our enemy,” Dawsyn mutters, only it is not her own voice she hears. It is her grandmother’s. It is Briar’s.

Yennes sighs. “Indeed.”

“Please, say nothing of the infection. It will not serve to spread panic.”

Yennes nods once, then turns away.

But it is sheer, undiluted panic that Dawsyn feels herself, watching Yennes leave. She coughs again and feels a stab of corresponding pain in her chest, in her throat. It is all she can do not to sink to the ground where she stands and submit to sleep.

Seal your eyes and sleep… lie here with us…

There is only one resurfacing thought that stops her, that forces her to turn back.Ryon,it tells her. It promises to fill her, ease her.Find him. Then sleep.

So concentrated is she on this promise, that she doesn’t see the person waiting there in the dark until it is too late. A man blocking the path mere feet from where she stands, well within hearing range.

Dawsyn falters as he steps into view. Her heart plummets into her stomach.

The man leers at her.

“Nevrak,” Dawsyn says.

CHAPTEREIGHT

In a meeting room of the Terrsaw palace, a likeness hangs of the former King Kladerstaff. It seems an apt placement to Alvira, to have him preside over every decision of strategy that pertains to Terrsaw. After all, he has long been hailed the greatest tactician in the kingdom’s history. Alvira stares at the painting now and recalls the story her father – a nobleman – once told her, of the ancient Terrsaw King who sought to rid his kingdom of the Dyvolsh infection.

The tale of the terrible Dyvolsh was her least favourite. She would have preferred to hear of the tailor’s daughter who sailed out to sea and returned with exotic fabrics, or the tale of the Mirror Queen, who was swallowed by her own reflection when she looked too closely. However, six decades of retrospect lends Alvira the surety that the Great Purger Kladerstaff was more educational for a future Queen.

The tale goes that Kladerstaff’s subjects were falling into the grip of some unseeable disease. It would tire them first, weighing their muscles until they ached before it invaded their chests. Within a week it would take their sense of time and place, then descend them into an incurable state of delusion. Mere days, and the disease or the madness would claim them completely.

Dyvolsh,the kingdom whispered in the old language –the devil. They bolted their doors and shuttered their windows and refused even the most desperate of their neighbours, terrified that Dyvolsh would seep into their homes, under their skin, and drive them to insanity.

A woman tied her ankles to a horse’s saddle and let it pull her through the Mecca. A man sat in his cabin while it burned around him. People of all ages hurled themselves from rooftops, plunged knives into their bellies or tied ropes around their necks. Scenes of unimaginable violence were escalating, and the unaffected seemed powerless to stop it.

All the while, Kladerstaff watched from the palace windows, unable to find the source of the infection, unable to locate the crucible that plagued his kingdom. It seemed they were completely helpless to the blight. Kladerstaff was a benevolent king, a kind and merciful ruler of Terrsaw, and yet his people were being ravaged under his watch, and he could not avail himself to stop it.

That the delusion was contagious became apparent quickly. Families would fall to the illness one after the other, and then their neighbours. The disease spread like ink spots on a map, slowly blackening each doorway in an ever-expanding radius.

First, Kladerstaff ordered his people to stay indoors, but such an order could only keep for so long before the water pails ran dry and the food was gone. Despite it, Dyvolsh found his way through the kingdom with relentless pursuit. The deaths continued, each more gruesome than the last.

Kladerstaff’s own wife soon fell ill. Born on the mountain, she had taught the populace of its beauty, its resource, and of the protection it offered, barricading them from the fiercest of winds. Queen Yerdos was her name, and she was widely adored. The people believed the Holy Mother had sent the woman to Terrsaw herself, for with her came favourable weather.

Queen Yerdos stopped eating. Kladerstaff thought it was stress that stole her appetite, for she loved the kingdom and was as helpless as he. But then, she awoke in the night, coughing and retching, and it was clear that the infection had staked its claim on her. Kladerstaff was removed from the bedchamber, separated from his wife. He was forced to leave her with Dyvolsh.

A week later, as Queen Yerdos died, a patron saint was born. The Queen broke a vase and ran a shard of glass across her throat. Her blood pooled on the bed she had shared with her husband, and she was known thereafter as Saint Yerdos – beholder of the mountain.