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But Dawsyn shakes her head. She rejects the thought. It is an intolerable one. She grips her thighs until it hurts.

“I don’t want it to be for me.”

Esra sighs shakily and wipes his wet eyes. In a hollow way, he says, “She was a desperately unhappy woman, Dawsyn.” He gently holds Baltisse’s fingers. “She spent much of her life blaming herself for the misfortune of many. She lived with blood on her hands. There was not a single word to be said that could save her from her own persecution. Salem and I had long ago accepted that.” Esra sniffs, peering down at the woman he had claimed as family. “I think she would be happy now, knowing that she helped these people. She freed herself from that guilt that had festered so long inside her. For that,” Esra muses, his voice weak and without conviction, “we must forgive her.”

Dawsyn takes her last look at the mage. She wonders how it feels to be released from responsibility. Released from self-persecution.

Ryon is suddenly there beside her. He kneels gingerly on Dawsyn’s other side, his pain evident. He presses a kiss to his fingers and rests them on the mage’s cheek for a moment. “Sleep well, my friend,” he says, his deep timbre reverberating. He lifts the cloak back over her, shielding Baltisse from the ugliness of this place in the world’s middle.

Esra muffles a sob. “Couldn’t we just–”

“She cannot come with us, Esra,” Dawsyn says once more. She tries not to let the steel find her voice. Not this time. “She isn’t here at all.”

Salem comes to pull Esra to his feet. His own face, illuminated by torch light, tells a story no better than theirs. “C’mon, lad,” he says gently, wrapping an arm around Esra’s hunched waist. “Leave Baltisse be. Yeh’ve harassed ’er enough fer one lifetime.”

Esra leans into Salem’s substantial frame, and the older man guides him away. Dawsyn cannot yet bring herself to follow.

She still hopes for a shiver of presence. She lingers in the vain hope to absolve herself.I’m sorry,she thinks. And even deeper.I won’t let another die.

An impossible promise.

“You always reminded me of her,” Ryon utters. He stares at the cloaked body, his jaw tight, dark eyes clouded. “She carved a place into a world that refused to make room for her, just as you have.”

“Aswehave,” she corrects him. But if there is a place within any kingdom they can claim as theirs, she is yet to know it. “I am unsure the world will ever make room for people like us.”

“Then we must insist it does,” Ryon says, standing to his full height, despite the pain it causes. He holds his hand out to her.

The people of the Ledge begin to wake. They stir in groups. Dawsyn passes intermittent fearful faces, thrown into haphazard relief by orange glow. They stare up at the thin line of daylight above, then around at the expansive nothingness.

Slowly, some make their way to the water that runs through the Chasm’s middle. They cup their hands into its shallow depths and feel it slip over their fingers, moving of its own accord. Their eyes widen, seeing for the first time water that flows, water that sings. They marvel at its strange dance.

“Will you speak to them?” Ryon asks her as they carefully traipse around the groupings.

Dawsyn supposes she has little choice. “They will need to be made aware of the provisions we have. There will need to be… agreements.”

“No fighting?” Ryon asks, though his expression tells her there is little hope for the endeavour.

“Yes,” Dawsyn says. “They’ve lived fifty years fighting for rations from the Drop. Now, they will need to…share.”Dawsyn sighs at the word and looks around once more. Already, the group shows how insistent old habits can be. She can see a woman named Helenia shoving the chest of an older man until he falls over backwards. Another group are tussling on the ground, likely over something as meagre as a torch.

She feels the enormity of the task ahead swallow her once more.

Then, Ryon’s fingers slowly slip between hers. She feels the pulse at his wrist jump alongside her own. When she looks up, his face is turned down to hers, reverent and gentle. She isn’t alone.

It will be like the slopes of the mountain, the untraversable plane they walked together to reach the ground. This newest undoable task will not be a solitary endeavour.

Dawsyn presses her lips to the back of his hand, holds it there for a moment, then lets it fall away. “Pass me a torch,” she says.

It does not take long to acquire the silence she needs to speak. Her voice, when raised, catapults from wall to wall, amplified by the Chasm as it climbs. The people within stop almost immediately when she calls out. They turn to her, their faces expectant.

Dawsyn stands beside the stream. In every direction she turns, she is met by the face of someone she recognises. All of them are here because of her.

She takes a deep breath. “Before we leave this place,” she calls, loud and gravelled. “We must make certain that we are of the same mind. We have provisions.” Dawsyn points to the sacks at her feet. “A small amount of food, and water from the Chasm. But the food will not last for any long period of time. Even less, should our desperation overcome us, as it did on the Ledge.”

There is a slow rumble among the crowd. Old neighbours eye one another. Grow defensive.

“The food will be dispersed fairly among us when we stop for rest. There will be no stealing. No fighting. If we are going to find safety, we must do so together, in a way we have never sought to unite before. Let our past quarrels be put to rest here. If we are to survive, it will not be the few. It must be the many, or we might as well have remained on that Ledge and let the Glacians continue to pick away at our numbers.”

Some faces look determined. Of what, Dawsyn can’t be sure. Some seem suspicious or resigned.