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“Ofourkind,” Baltisse answered. “Magic courses through your veins as it does mine.”

“But I am human,” Yennes argued. “The magic I have was taken from the Glacian’s pool. I was not bornwith it.”

“And yet, you can wield it. The Queen will not care how it was gained, only that you carry it. You’re a threat to her, whether you acknowledge it or not.”

“I am from the Ledge,” Yennes pressed. “Will the Queen not be gratified by the return of one of her people?”

Silence follows, and then, “I have told you this part already. The Queen sacrificed your people to that Ledge… to the Glacians. She will not be pleased to see you back.” Baltisse turned and looked at her, halting their progress. “I bid you not to go looking for her, Yennes. Do not put yourself in her path. Explore Terrsaw if you must. Settle wherever you might settle and pay that fucking castle no mind.”

Yennes tempered the response that rose to her lips. It did not seem to matter much to Baltisse that there were people on the Ledge who still lived, trapped like animals. She did not seem to care for the gruelling conditions of their survival, the harshness of the frost, the proximity of the Chasm. She did not know the feel of talons through skin, biting into the tissue and sinew that held one’s shoulders together. None of it seemed a compelling argument to someone like Baltisse, living safely in her glass-window cabin in her quiet bay.

Nothing can save them,she had told Yennes over and over.Best you find a way to reconcile with it.

But if the Queen knew what it was to live on the Ledge, if the people of Terrsaw knew the truth – perhaps they’d feel compelled, as she did, to aide them. To bring them home.

Many years had passed since this Queen of Terrsaw had made her deal, and time, Yennes knew, brought regret.

“Dangerous thoughts,” Baltisse called from ahead, “find dangerous ends.”

Yennes bit her tongue.

CHAPTEREIGHTEEN

Dawsyn has been lying to herself for days. Lulling her doubts with the thought that the end to their struggles is just around the corner, or perhaps the next. She has told herself that every inch travelled brings them closer. She gave herself to the delusion that the end of the Chasm would bring the end of this affliction and all would be well.

Every time she has lain her hands on the sick, they have come away prickling. Whatever mediocre ministrations she had offered were not enough. They barely scratched the surface.

But now…

She can feel the eyes of her friends on her, and she pays them no mind. Instead, she turns her hands over and inspects her palms, admiring the rippling frost that comes and goes along the lines. The iskra courses just beneath the surface.

And then suddenly, as though it realises this might be its last chance, the whispers become shouts, bellows.

Seal your lips, cease your breath,

Rid the ache. TEAR IT OUT.

TEAR IT OUT!

But the words no longer have strings to pull her this way or that. It is only a hollow echo; it does not lull her.

She feels the burning cold of the iskra, the warm light of the mage magic, collecting to oust this thing that has made a home in her chest and heart and mind. A cursed plague, created by a seeker of light and warmth, can only be subdued with cold. With suffocating darkness. Even now, Dawsyn can feel how this entity shrinks away from the iskra.

Yerdos was defeated by Moroz. Dawsyn had always seen the latter as the enemy. How strange to see it as salvation.

Dawsyn closes her eyes. She finds the light in her mind, the one that burns resolutely with all the warmth she possesses, and she bids it to make way for the iskra. She fills her body with the strength of the cold, lets the burn flood through her. It travels the length of her limbs, makes claws of her blood. It burns away the grip on her chest and mind as furiously as fire.

“Moroz,”Dawsyn says aloud, and the magic within her rejoices.

Beyond her eyelids, the world turns into a brilliant spectrum of colour, and she is immediately reminded of Baltisse and the way her touch illuminated the world.

“Mother’s tits, give a man some warning next time, Dawsyn. My fucking eyes!”

“Yeh big baby!”

“Shut up!” comes Ryon’s voice, and then his hands are on her neck, her face. “Dawsyn?”

She opens her eyes.