Page 47

“Esra!”

“Right.” Esra clears his throat. “There are plenty of ancient journals that recount a rather different course of events during the Dyvolsh infection. Journals of noblemen, servants, even Yerdos herself. The real tale begins with King Kladerstaff, who ruled Terrsaw a fucking long time ago. He took long explorations over the sacred mountain, back when it wasn’t a frozen bloody wasteland, obviously. It was during one of these treks that he came across a tribe of mages living peaceably on the slopes. Amongst their small number was Yerdos. It seemed that Kladerstaff had grown bored of all the flesh afforded to him by the women of Terrsaw, because he had the tribe slaughtered, and took Yerdos for himself.”

“Rubbish!” Salem barks. But he is silenced by the resounding glares of the others.

Esra smiles sweetly at Salem, then continues. “Yerdos was taken captive and made to marry Kladerstaff, a man far older than she. He stripped her from her home on the mountain and forced her to use her powers to his benefit. I’d imagine his subjects were rather thrilled with him, procuring a magical wife who could manipulate the weather and ensure plentiful crops.

“But Yerdos did what all women ought to when tied down and forced to yield. She set a plague on the whole sorry lot of them. Turned them all into raving lunatics. And when Kladerstaff finally realised what she had done, he killed Yerdos himself, slicing her throat. Now, that’s where the old journals fall short. Of course, no one knows what happens to one’s soul once they perish, but I’d rather think a woman like that would return to the place she was taken from.” At this, Esra looks pointedly to Dawsyn. “And let hell reign down upon those who try to take her away again.”

Ryon hears his own breath fall heavily in the silence that follows. Dawsyn’s eyes are scrunched closed. In confusion, perhaps. “A mage,” he thinks she is saying.

“This version of the story makes better sense,” Rivdan says. “A vengeful mage, turned malevolent spirit.”

“What Yerdos was, and whether she cast the infection matters little,” Ryon says, his heartbeat beginning to race again. “We need only know that the same infection spreads among us now.” He looks to Dawsyn as he says it, and even in the dim, he can see the impending panic in her eyes.

“Moroz,” Salem is muttering. “Swear I’ve heard tha’ somewhere.”

“Moroz?” parrots Esra, his voice obtrusively loud for this glib discussion. “Baltisse’s spell?”

Ryon’s breath stutters. Dawsyn’s eyes have darted to Esra. “Baltisse?”

“She used it to cool my burns after the fire,” Esra tells them, looking down at his arm unconsciously. Beneath the layers he wears, Ryon knows the new skin remains mottled and scarred, despite Baltisse’s best efforts to heal him entirely.

“A cooling spell,” Dawsyn utters, her breath coming faster.

“Made my veins feel like they might freeze over,” Esra nods. “Didn’t Baltisse aid you with it once before, Salem? Something about burning urine?”

“I will kill yeh as yeh sleep, Es.”

“Riv,” Dawsyn interrupts. “You said that the Glacians drank iskra to cure themselves of Yerdos’ madness?”

“Yes,” Rivdan nods.

“Moroz,” Dawsyn says under her breath. She flips her hands and looks upon her palms. They glow dully, pulsing softly. Even Ryon can feel the sudden eagerness of her magic.

When she looks up, it is his gaze she finds. “The cold is alive after all,” she says.

CHAPTERSEVENTEEN

“Come with me,” Yennes said again, awaiting a familiar response.

Baltisse only shook her head. The mage stood at the basin before one of the wide windows, her gaze on the ocean.

Those windows still made Yennes uncomfortable, despite the lack of any other being in the bay. She could not rid herself of the sense of vulnerability. The cabins in Terrsaw were not built the same.

She stood with feet planted in the doorframe, though apprehension clawed at her throat. “I’ll go without you.”

“Then do so,” Baltisse said. “I’m sure you’ll find your way.”

That was just it. Yennes had no idea where to go, or indeed, where she was going. She just knew she could not remain in the bay forever, never seeing another scrap of Terrsaw. Baltisse had shown her maps. It was an unfathomable mass of land, stretching many sides. She didn’t need to remain here, so close to the Chasm, where the voices still found her in the night. Sometimes she was unable to discern if they were real, or the simple torture of memory.

It would aide her to leave this bay. Find another speck on the map, where she did not have to watch the waves roll and think about the way it felt to be drowned by them.

But more than that, she sought help. Favours. Favours that Baltisse would not grant her.

The mage still would not teach her to fold.

Despite knowing that she could not stay, turning away from the bay and outward made her falter. She knew nothing of this land. Knew nothing of its people. She erred on the stoop. Equally determined and frightened.