Page 29

“Where are we?” Yennes asked Baltisse then. The breeze that tracked over her clothes chilled her but did not sting. It whispered, rather than howled. And the sky was enormous, stretching endlessly over the ocean, unshrouded. Everywhere she looked, the land was covered in trees, shrubs the likes of which she’d never before seen. Surely, this was paradise.

“Terrsaw,” Baltisse said instead. “The very corner of it.”

Baltisse opened the door to the cabin and stepped within. “Come,” she said to Yennes. “You must eat.”

Eat. It had been an age since Yennes had eaten. Her stomach flipped at the mention of it. The mage set to work in her cabin, lighting a fire with a mere wave of her hand. She set a pot atop it and fetched limp game from her rafters – the plumage of the bird was unrecognisable to Yennes.

“Pheasant,” Baltisse told her. “Meat is what you need.”

Yennes hovered uncertainly in Baltisse’s doorway, staring wide-eyed at the cabin’s interior. Yennes thought it smelt peculiar – a mix of burnt foliage amongst other things. It left a strange taste in the back of her throat.

Through the windows, Yennes could see the scope of the ocean clearly. It stretched endlessly. It surrounded them. After her recent tussle with it, it made Yennes blanch. “Will… will…” she stumbled. She cleared her throat and tried again. “Will… the ocean–”

“It cannot reach you here,” Baltisse answered, not waiting for her to finish. “The tide is on its way out. Had you waited in the Chasm but a few more hours, you could have waded through the shallows to reach the shore.”

Yennes had no clue of what the tide was, but she knew she could not have waited for it to aid her. “The Chasm would not have allowed me to stay,” she said firmly. Her hands began to tumble over one another, revealing her frayed nerves.

“What could you mean?” Baltisse asked, her lips pressing together firmly.

“I… I ran from its voices.”

Baltisse’s gaze drifted over Yennes once more, and it only unsettled her further.

Without warning, Baltisse brought a large, square-edged blade down on the pheasant’s neck with a loud thwack, and Yennes jumped.

“We eat first,” the mage said. “Then we shall see about this Chasm and its voices.”

After the pheasant meat and vegetables were boiled and spiced, Baltisse ladled a generous helping into a bowl and passed it to Yennes. The smell emanating from the pot was almost too much for Yennes to bear. It was a task to take the bowl from Baltisse without snatching it from her grasp.

Though it burned, she devoured the stew in moments. When she held out the bowl to return it to Baltisse, it was inexplicably full once more.

“Have some more,” the mage ordered. “Slower, this time.”

Her belly was distended by the time she was done. It was the most food she had ever consumed in one helping. Her body did know how to hold so much, and she vomited soundly into a basin by one of the windows.

“I did tell you to eat slowly.” Baltisse grimaced, her nose wrinkling.

Yennes did not bother to apologise. It did not seem the woman cared much for the wasted meal. “Thank you,” she said instead. “For saving me. For the food.”

Baltisse stared at her. “But what are we to do with you now?”

Her posture was casual – cross legged in a chair by the hearth, her form slouched, and yet still. Yennes could not help but feel malice in those words. Danger.

“You can unclench those hands, sweet. I do not mean you harm.”

Yennes had no weapons to wield regardless, not since she left the Ledge and was stripped naked by Glacian brutes. Even if she possessed a blade, her hands could not cease their trembling. She doubted her ability to use it against a mage.

“Hm. I cannot imagine the life you have lived,” Baltisse said then, turning her gaze to the fire. “Imprisoned in such a place.”

Yennes offered nothing. Once, she would have said something cutting, quick-witted. But too much had befallen her. Too much had been stripped away. She could not summon the fierceness she once depended on.

“Tell me,” Baltisse said. “How many still survive on the Ledge?”

Yennes looked curiously at the mage. “Several hundred. Maybe less. I do not know.”

“Poor souls.” The flames danced in the mage’s eyes. She remained still for several moments more, seemingly lost in whatever thoughts plagued her.

“How many remain here?” Yennes asked, forehead creasing. “In Terrsaw.” She had heard stories of the valley as a girl. Stories that seemed more like fairy tales. It was the place her parents had been taken from. She had never given thought to those who might have survived the Glacian’s raid.