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Dawsyn takes Yennes’ hand and begins to lead her away. “Whatever comes,” she says, “will not have met a group quite like this.”

Yennes looks around at the glint of knives and swords reflecting firelight. At the hardened stares of people tried and tested on the Ledge. She seems to quell a little. Her hands slow, if only slightly. “I hope you are right, Dawsyn Sabar,” she says. “Or may the Mother have mercy on us all.”

“We’ve come this far,” Dawsyn reminds her. “Perhaps the Mother favours us already.”

Yennes grimaces. “If She truly favours us, She will make this journey upstream a short one.”

“Upstream?”

The familiar voice is close – to Dawsyn’s immediate left. This darkness is disorientating. How easy it is for shadows to lurk.

Nevrak stands there, his brows pinched in confusion. The Splitter, they call him, after his propensity for splitting skulls as easily as timber. The man’s grey beard reaches his chest. He stands easily a head taller than Dawsyn and he uses his height to his advantage now. “Did the woman say ‘upstream’?”

Dawsyn glimpses his tensed hands. She answers carefully, aware that others nearby have halted to listen. They turn to hear her answer. “Yes,” she says, and means to move on.

She takes not two paces before Nevrak calls to her back, attracting even more on-lookers. “But… Surely we should follow the water?” he asks. Dawsyn turns to see him looking at bystanders for their assent. Some of the men and women nod. “Does the water not lead to the valley, girl? You said you’d lead us off this mountain.”

Yes,Dawsyn thinks. But leading them to the valley means leading them into the arms of a queen who would entrap them once more. A queen who, learning of their presence in her kingdom, would see them as an invasion. A threat to the peace she’d traded them for in the first place.

Dawsyn has no intention of leading them out of the hands of one tyrant and into another. But, how to explain to them?

The people of the Ledge do not know of how Queen Alvira sold them to the Glacians all those years ago. Most were born on the Ledge, like her. They only know as much as she did before she left it.

How to tell them all now that she will lead them away from the promise of a green valley? How to tell them that, instead, she intends to lead them to a place unknown, toward mere possibility? How to tell them now without having them turn their backs, without them fleeing in the other direction? How can she be sure they will listen, that they will follow her to uncertain ends?

Dawsyn realises she cannot.

If they know, they will not follow.

They’ll run to Terrsaw.

To their recapture. To their end.

Dawsyn’s breaths come faster. Her fists ball. The faces around her wait impatiently. Confused. They grow ever more persistent with every wasted second.

Dawsyn spies the rest of their party across the way and they too stare. She silently begs them not to contradict her. Silently, she apologises to them.

“The water leads to an ocean,” Dawsyn says, loud enough that her voice carries. “We cannot reach safety that way.” This, at least, is not wholly untrue. “We will travel upstream.”

“In the opposite direction?” Nevrak asks. His voice hits her from several angles, refracting from the rock. “Where does it lead?”

Dawsyn does not hesitate. She turns on her heel to look back at Nevrak and meets his eye. “It will take us to Terrsaw,” she says.

She feels the emitted tension from Yennes. She notes the uncomfortable shift in the posture of her friends, now complicit in a plan made of lies. Remorse floods her.

But the Ledge people around her are unsuspecting. Their ignorance is what Dawsyn depends on. “The path will take us back,” Dawsyn says now.

“And have you seen it yourself?” Nevrak calls once more. His is the only stare that appears dubious, though there is uncertainty too. The deeply etched lines around his eyes flinch with it. His son stands at his side, and Wes imitates his father’s stance, though he is not half Nevrak’s height. He pushes his chest out, looks down his nose at her.

Dawsyn smiles coldly. She takes a step toward them and Wes’s feet shuffle back an inch.

She tilts her head to the side and laces each word with arrogance – the only language men like Nevrak are likely to understand. “I’ve seen a great many things,” Dawsyn says. “But I’ve no time to paint you a picture. By all means, walk yourself into that ocean,” she nods her head down the Chasm. “You don’t need to take me at my word.”

She can see Nevrak biting down on his tongue. His jaw rolls beneath his beard.

Dawsyn can suddenly feel Ryon standing close behind her. She feels the threat exuding from him, all the way to her bones.

Nevrak and his weasel son must feel it too. They back away several paces, conceding.