1.3 KiB
The wind had stilled, but the silence it left behind was heavier. Their boots breaking fresh crust over older snow and the distant clatter of antlers hung to ward ill fortune. In the trees, the frost clung to every bough like memory. Every breath smoked white.
The peaks opened ahead, no longer distant silhouettes, but rising teeth of the world—ice-slick ridges, broken spines, and trails carved by wind and old bones. The path narrowed. The air thinned. Their pace slowed to a crawl beneath the rising burden of hunger, cold, and dread.
Behind them, no horns sounded. No drums. No riders visible through the curtain of weather.
But the feeling of being hunted settled deeper with each step.
Halven walked quieter now, bent slightly. Sari scanned the ridgelines between squalls. Weylan spoke only when asked. Even Eris, ever watchful, seemed less like a girl with a spear and more like something older—drawn forward by instinct and lineage.
Only Telaryn moved with fire beneath her skin. She said little, but her gaze did not waver from the heights. Something waited there. A calling. A cost.
The Mourning Peaks lived up to their name. They swallowed the sound of footsteps and chewed the sky into shreds. The cold became a second skin.
It was in that white hush that the first scout returned—face pale, lips blue, breath shallow.
They weren’t alone.