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“The length of the journey…” Here, Dawsyn stumbles. “The length of the journey will be long. Prepare yourselves accordingly. Mind your sick, your young.” She pauses again, hesitant. She looks up to see Ryon; Rivdan and Tasheem are at his side. Yennes waits behind them. Her hands tumble over one another, her lips moving as though chanting a prayer.

Dawsyn squeezes her eyes shut, then opens them once more. “We… we are not alone in this Chasm,” she calls, and hears her voice echo back. It is soon joined by a resounding shudder of shock, a rumbling dissent. Dawsyn speaks again before it can grow any louder. “There may be creatures, here at the bottom. Should we meet them, we will defend ourselves, just as we were never permitted to do upon Selection. Here, you will fight your way through any obstacle. Any–”

“What creatures?” someone calls.

“We were not made aware!” Another shouts, and the sound of fear rings through the rest, stirring them. Bridling their own uncertainty. The tremors multiply. Breed.

Dawsyn grits her teeth. The magic within her bristles. “Quiet!” she calls, but the crowd takes no heed. The fear swells.

Dawsyn fills her lungs. “QUIET!” She bellows, and her voice rings down the Chasm, further and further, replaying in a continuum as it follows the water downstream.

She huffs, surprised once more by the immediate effect it has on the people. They stare, waiting, mouths still.

“We have met enemies before,” Dawsyn calls, ensuring her words reach all the way to the brink. “And when we meet them again, they will be unprepared for our ferocity. We can no longer allow fear to rule us.”

Some nod. Chins jut in the air.

“How many times did we stand before our homes, obedient lambs waiting for slaughter?”

Another rumbling, of assent this time.

“We are freed of that now! And if we are threatened on this path, it will not be met with compliance.” Dawsyn turns to Ryon, to Rivdan and Tasheem, to Hector, Salem and Esra. She finds them watching her, waiting. Grinning. “Hand out the weapons,” she calls. “And we will be on our way.”

The people raise their fists, cheer. They converge forward toward the Glacians, not away from them.

“Watch the Chasm!” one shouts.

“Watch the Chasm,” others chorus in reply. The chant slowly grows, turns to a war cry. It chases the songs that mumble to Dawsyn of blood and bones and ends.

“Watch the Chasm! Watch the Chasm!”

“WATCH THE CHASM!”

CHAPTERTHREE

The people of the Ledge ready themselves to journey. They don their hoods and pull sacks over their shoulders, sling bags across their backs. The children are fed meagre amounts and led to the stream to drink. All energies seem renewed, with the exception of a few.

Ryon, Tasheem and Rivdan wear the remnants of their battle. There is a gash along Tasheem’s cheek that looks days old, though it isn’t. She limps badly, her left leg barely able to bear weight. Rivdan is little better. He holds his arm close to his chest. Dawsyn remembers the sight of a blade sinking into his shoulder up on the Ledge. When they escaped the battle and fled into the Chasm, both seemed near death. It was Yennes who saved them, though her already depleted power made healing them to completion an impossibility.

Ryon is still wounded. Dawsyn watches him wince as he bends, his shoulders shaking, brought back from the brink of demise but not nearly whole. Dawsyn is bruised and sore but otherwise unharmed. It is the weakening of her own magic that bothers her most.

As for Yennes, the woman seems… unstable. She is exhausted. That much is clear. She had folded many times into this Chasm, healed and helped as many as she could, pushing her capabilities to their limits. But Dawsyn suspects it is not her expended labours that ail her now.

Yennes’ tightly curled hair begins to free itself from the head scarf she uses to encase it. She gives Dawsyn the impression of a cornered animal – fearful and frenetic, twitching at each sound and movement. As is her tendency, the extent of her discomfit is channelled through her hands. They fret and worry incessantly.

Dawsyn approaches the woman, grabbing her hands through the darkness. Yennes startles.

“Easy,” Dawsyn tells her, her voice low. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

Yennes gulps, eyes wide. “Dawsyn.” Her head whips back and forth. “We must go. We’ve remained still too long already.”

Dawsyn nods. “Are you well?”

Despite the chill, a bead of sweat falls from the woman’s hair line and slides down her cheek. “We must go!”

“Walk with Ryon and the others,” Dawsyn says. “Nearer to the front. It may ease your nerves to have them close.”

The woman gives a dry huff of mirth behind pursed lips, a shudder rippling through her. “I fear they’ll be no match for what lurks here.”