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“The old man lives,” Esra replies dryly. “Hurrah.”

“Ow! Fuckin’ trousers are full o’ stones.”

“The only rock-solid thing they’ve ever rubbed up against, no doubt.”

“Mother almighty.”

Suddenly, a flame illuminates the dim. A halo of light erupts from a torch. Hector’s face stands in its glow. He replaces the flint to his pocket, and squints at the faces surrounding him.

Tasheem and Rivdan are awake. They sit alongside each other, stooped over bent knees. Salem and Esra continue to bicker as they lumber to their feet, seemingly unhurt.

And there, just behind them, is the form of another. A face obscured by shadow.

“Who’s there?” Hector says suddenly, seeing the figure in the same moment Dawsyn does. He thrusts the torch threateningly in their direction, a blade sliding into his palm from his sleeve.

The figure rises slowly, unsteadily, then steps forward. Her untamed, auburn hair gives her away immediately.

“Abertha?” Dawsyn asks, her voice cracked, but loud enough that it travels.

The girl nods, her eyes remaining on Hector’s blade.

He is already lowering the weapon. “Bertie,” he says. “You remained?”

The girl looks around at their group – at Esra and Salem shaking pebbles from the legs of their trousers, to the wounded Glacians barely able to sit upright. And then she looks to Dawsyn. “Yes,” the girl says, her voice purposely firm.

“Why?” It seems unfathomable to Dawsyn, that she should still be here.

Abertha takes a fortifying breath. “I do not know where that path leads,” she says, nodding upstream into the gloom. “But I can’t imagine why you would lead us away from Terrsaw, unless there was something there to be avoided.” She chews on the inside of her cheek for a moment, glancing at each of them in turn. It is the first time her nerves show. Eventually, her eyes find Dawsyn’s again. “You saved me twice. I’d bet you could manage a third.”

Dawsyn wonders if the girl can see the fresh moisture in her eyes, or if the Chasm has at least given her the mercy of discretion.

She remembers seeing Abertha play in the snow drifts as a child, closely guarded by her mother. She would watch from the grove for longer than was wise, haunted by visions of Maya playing those same silly games. She quickly learned to avoid crossing the girl’s cabin. She learned to avert her eyes, lest Maya fill her mind once more and suck the will from her body. Those first years alone offered no reprieve, no solace. Her only chance was to keep her mind on the work, her eyes on the Chasm, and pray the hole inside her closed.

Even now, Abertha stirs the ghost of Dawsyn’s sister, who would have been of similar age, had she been born to a different corner of the world.

“I do not know if there is another end to find,” Dawsyn says. She will tell it all to this girl. She will do what she should have done all along. “We have not seen it.”

Abertha’s eyes do not leave Dawsyn’s. The girl waits, shrewd and patient.

“But I know what there is to find in the opposite direction,” Dawsyn continues. “I know that the Queen of Terrsaw… she does not seek to offer you sanctuary in her kingdom.”

“Why not?” Abertha asks forcefully. “Tell me.”

And Dawsyn does. She tells the girl the tale of Princess Valmanere Austrina Sabar, who fled to a village on the outskirts to warn them and was swept up in the raid of the Glacians. She tells Abertha of the bargain Alvira struck with the Glacian King and of the fear that guides her plans. She tells Abertha of the plan she concocted to find another place – any other place – big enough for their people to occupy, without the threat of Glacians or Queens or the cold.

When she is finished, Abertha’s mouth hangs open. And strangely, after all she has heard, the first thing she utters is, “You’re royal?”

The others chuckle meekly and it serves to warm Dawsyn, if only slightly. “So I’m told,”

“Right.” Abertha squares her shoulders. “Then I should like to follow you.”

Dawsyn shakes her head. “It may be to your own detriment.”

“So be it. If I’m to follow one royal or another, it will be one from the Ledge. We should make haste.”

Dawsyn sighs. She does not know how they can simply stand and walk on. They are battered, wilted versions of themselves. Each time they rise, something comes to cut them down. She cannot even begin to reach the mage power, nor the iskra. Both hide like whipped animals – abused and indignant.

“I’m not dying in this hole,” Tasheem says from her spot, though her face is pinched with pain. “If those fuckers want to launch themselves into enemy territory, so be it. But I’m seeing the sky again,” she says, turning her face upward.