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“Perhaps I find you intriguing.” “I’d try not to, Captain,” Dawsyn says dully. “The last person I intrigued was dead soon after.” An image of the hybrid upon the throne room floor invades Ruby’s mind.
True words, but spat out like venom. Ruby had not recognised the voice behind them, had never seen Alvira’s face crease with such hatred. A Queen who had erected monuments to the Sabars, led prayers for their resting souls. Two different Queens.
while those on the Ledge slip into the Chasm.” Ruby groans, smacks her hand against the iron as she turns to leave. “Your arrogance will be what kills you.” “Your Queen will be what kills me.”
“Because you fear them,” Dawsyn interjects. “Imagine what my people will do to you, when they learn you sold them like cattle.”
It is just as Dawsyn’s body stills that the people of Terrsaw finally overrun the guards barricading the gallows.
“And what happens to the ones who wish you ill?” “I wish them ill in return,” Baltisse answers, trudging on through the darkening wood. “Although my wishes tend to come true.” Dawsyn smirks. She supposes they would.
“I don’t want it,” Dawsyn whispers, a tear slipping free. “I do not wish to be tethered to anything.” Baltisse squeezes her hand as her eyes shut. “It was never for you to decide.”
She shivers. “So many battles still to be won,” Baltisse murmurs to the girl of the Ledge, and it sounds like a curse.
“Them?” she sneers, eyes sparking. “I will gladly hold them down while you remove their fingers and weight their feet.”
Whether the shape moves or not, he is loath to take his gaze off a Glacian.
The captive is, however, aware. He can hear the guard’s even breaths. He can smell the stench of mildew and piss. He can’t move. Can’t speak. Can’t fight. But he can hear. He can think. Ryon Mesrich never truly lost consciousness at all.
He wonders at times if this might in fact be death. Frozen in a static body, reliving his trauma through the sound of his memories.
Before the knife hits the ridge between his eyes, he raises a hand. With a precise swipe, he snatches it from the air. As though he’d been expecting it. “Malishka,” he says.
“We are done!” she says again, her voice truer this time. Ryon’s hands run over his head, down his face. “It isn’t that simple.” “It is simple,” Dawsyn returns. “It wasn’t before. I was confused then. It was difficult to hate you and grieve your death at the same time.” She clenches her hands, forcing the trembling in them to subside. When she meets the hybrid’s eyes, she ensures he will find no indecision in hers. “But you are no longer dead,” she says, coldly. “And now? It shall be easy.”
“And should you find your way into Adrik’s mind,” Dawsyn says. “What, exactly, do you expect to find?” The mage’s eyes twinkle in response.
If she asks it, he will die to achieve it, she knows. It is perhaps the most dangerous imbalance between them. Baltisse had said as much to confirm it. For all he did to endanger her, she does not wish to use him, to take advantage of his remorse.
“I know everything seems irretrievable, but you will see, this is the part of the story where the heroes rise from the dust and renew their energies to the task ahead.”
“I know,” she says, surprising him. She looks up and smiles weakly. “I’m working on it.” Ryon’s heart stutters, a flood of warmth spreads within his chest.
But though this thought tumbles to the forefront again and again, it does not take precedence over one matter that concerns her more: She cannot use these powers to liberate the Ledge. And lastly, she may not live long enough to liberate it at all.
She thinks Ryon might be right. There is not enough distance in this valley to keep them from colliding.
Baltisse’s eyes spear Dawsyn now, daring her to interrupt. “You see, it was not her own life she feared losing, but yours.”
continues. “Whether we know what awaits… or not.” Yennes nods again, her head bobbing with deranged compliance. “Into the Chasm,” Dawsyn says to them all. “And then through it to its end.”
No, there is only one path. One option. Through the Chasm.
Dawsyn sees her friends coming toward her, ready for the journey ahead, and wonders if loyalty isn’t the greatest hindrance of all.
But she is growing more and more certain that this hybrid was sent here to humble her. She cannot bring herself to ignore the stress in this face she has come to… love. The word startles her still.
Ryon, who knew far more of Baltisse than Dawsyn ever will. Because the mage is dead. Yennes shuts her lids. Salem folds her hands. Ryon kisses her forehead. The mage is dead.
