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Dawsyn’s mind hums insistently, the bright spark pulsing behind her eyes. “Something to keep one out,” she says. She does not know where the knowledge comes from, but it is there, throbbing behind the beating drum of her own mage blood.

“Yeh said she were thrown?” Salem asks, his eyes assessing Abertha. “What’d yeh mean, thrown?”

“I mean one moment, she was standing amongst that tree line,” – she gestures toward the cedars – “and the next she was on her back.”

“Well,” Esra says, pulling the waist of his pants higher. “Let us see what foe lies beyond!”

“I wouldn’t, Esra,” Dawsyn warns, but the man has already passed, striding determinedly toward the opaque wall of grey that he so obviously cannot see. “You’ll be sorry.”

“Come out, you cowardly f–” His sentence is cut short by the high-pitched shriek he emits as he sails through the air, landing a foot before them and spraying them with snow.

“Mother’s tits!” Salem shouts, backing away, his eyes darting around the forest. “What the fuck was that?”

“Abarrier,” Dawsyn answers, staring with fresh awe at the strange magic. “A ward.”

“Glacians?” Hector asks, pulling forth a long dagger from his sleeve. He looks to the skies, as though white wings might suddenly appear above the treetops.

But Dawsyn’s eyes remain on the magic. “No,” she says. “Mages.”

CHAPTERTHIRTY-FIVE

Yennes awoke with Baltisse’s voice echoing in the chambers of her mind. She told her what a fool she’d been. How heedless she was. How she knew nothing of this kingdom and how it worked.

Her head rolled back and connected with something unforgiving – a wall. She was surrounded by them.

What little light there was revealed stone, an iron grid, and little else. Her hands were shackled to the wall. She could not use them to push hair from her face. Something viscous ran down the back of her neck, a rivulet of blood from where she’d been struck.

Bright spots clouded her vision when she blinked, but she had enough wit left in her to summon the iskra. It wound its way willingly to her palms, as though it had been waiting for her to finally wake.

“Bruvex,”she whispered and the iron links around her wrists broke. Her numb arms dropped to the ground, and she winced as the blood rushed back to them. Next, she tried the iron gate, but the same enchantment made no mark whatsoever. Some invisible protection, perhaps. A magicked lock.

“Baltisse,” she whispered weakly. “Where are you?”

But Baltisse was back in her cove, doing as Yennes should have done, keeping her distance.

The only tell-tale sign of passing time was the candle that sat inside the sconce beyond the gate. She watched it burn down and guessed at the hours that passed. With each one, the slippery voices of the Chasm returned, louder than before. The torment she could not rid herself of. They whispered that they were a part of her now. Sewn into her skin. Married to the flesh.

And Yennes whimpered. She cried and prayed and pleaded with the Mother. Whatever strength she’d harboured in reserve was gone now. This world had taken every last piece. If humans were born to withstand a measure of trial, then she’d had the portion of three.

She let herself crumble and did not care for the sounds she emitted.

“My, my,” a voice said, jolting Yennes from near sleep. She looked to the gate, the candlelight now eclipsed by a figure. Alvira. “How pitiful you are. This place has a way of smothering the fire within a person, but I thought it might take a while longer to stamp outyours.”

Yennes did not bother to lift her head, she simply closed her eyes, aware that whimpers still escaped her lips, but not much caring. She hoped the Queen was here to finally kill her, do what the Ledge and Glacia and the Chasm had failed to.

“Have you had enough now, iskra witch?”

Yennes nodded.Yes,she thought.I’ve had more than my share.

“Then I’ll offer again what you were too stupid to accept before. You will cure my wife, and I will let you live. Surely, it is not such a terrible trade?”

Yennes moaned. She did not wish to live.

“Oh, come now. I think you’ll find Terrsaw a grand place to start a new life. Think of it, witch. You could find a home. Lure a husband. Have a child–”

Yennes’ eyes snapped open.

“–you could leave the past where it ought to remain and start anew. Is that not why you escaped that hellish place? Surely it was not to die here on my floor.”