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And their skin is ghostly white.

“I hope you live to see the moon, night wing,” Samskia says, gliding toward the cave opening. “You were a fool to leave your woman.” With that, the mage disappears, stepping out onto the snow with bare feet.

Ryon turns his head as far as he can manage to his left, straining to see Tasheem and Rivdan. Their forearms and shoulders are encased in the same vine, their heads lolling forward onto their chests. Tasheem’s lips are rimmed in blood and drops of it seep from her mouth and fall to the ground. Rivdan trembles in his sleep. His eyes are only half-closed. Ryon can see the whites of them beneath the slits of his eyelids.

“Fuck,” Ryon breathes. He cannot strain against the vine. It only seems to wind itself tighter when he tries. In any case, his shoulders are too injured for the movement, stretched beyond their capacity from holding up his weight. “Mother help us.”

“Oh, I doubt the Mother will turn her head for the likes of us, Ryon,” a weak voice says.

It comes from the wall opposite, where the torch flames are beginning to flicker out and throw the bodies of the other captured Glacians into shadow.

Ryon squints and can just make out the shape of the nose, the lengths of steely hair, the sunken, translucent skin.

Vasteel lifts his chin to meet Ryon’s stare.

Ryon’s stomach lurches.

“The bastard son of Mesrich,” the former king says. “How odd that we should meet again.”

CHAPTERTHIRTY-FOUR

Abertha only screams for a few seconds before she slumps back, unconscious.

“Dawsyn!” Esra yells, falling back onto his arse. “What the fuck did you do?”

Hector is already snatching the rags from Esra’s hands and passing them to Dawsyn, who presses them firmly to the gushing wounds at the ends of Abertha’s foot.

“Why… good god, Dawsyn! Why’d yeh do tha’?” Salem gasps. He watches on in horror, his skin tinged green.

“Better to have it over with,” Hector intones, ripping fabric from the bottom of his tunic. He begins tying it around Abertha’s foot. “The flesh was dead.”

“But… fuckinghell!To cut off her – her – Could yeh not’ve tried to heal her, Dawsyn?”

Dawsyn chews on her tongue as she helps Hector wrap the wound. It will need to stay dry and clean – as well as can be kept in their current setting.

“Surely, there was something else you could’ve done!” Esra protests. He glares at Hector with something like disgust.

The bleeding is already slowing, Dawsyn notes.

“Dawsyn? Are yeh hearin’ me? Yeh should’ve given the girl some warnin’, atleast.She should ’ave some say o’er her own goddamn feet!”

“The flesh was black. Dead. I cannot bring back something perished.”

“But to cut them clean off like that?Mother above, Daw–”

“Would it have been better to wait?” Dawsyn asks, her voice rising. “To let the frost spread? Let her foster the delusion I could possibly restore what I cannot? As for hersay,Salem, what say has she? Dead flesh cannot stay. Frost that creeps in and takes hold can only be cut away.”

Esra scoffs, scrubbing his face with his hand. “Some warning may have been polite,” he says to both Hector and Dawsyn. “To hold her down like that…”

“We saved her the anticipation, Es,” Hector says calmly, carefully holding his bloodied hands away from his clothes. “Warning her wouldn’t have changed what needed to be done. Better that she didn’t have to think on it at all.”

“We did her a favour,” Dawsyn says, watching Abertha twitch and jerk in her sleep. The throb of the wound will awaken her soon. “The expectance of pain is as bad as the reality. We could at least save her from the former.”

“But when shewakes,”Esra says. “Fucking hell, Dawsyn. Surely she will be–”

“Grateful,” Dawsyn interjects, her raised voice making Abertha jerk again. “She will be grateful. She is Ledge-born and she understands the whims of frost as well as Hector and I.”

“I don’t know,” Salem mutters, pushing the hood of his cloak back over his head in agitation. “I don’t know about tha’.”