“Don’t worry, sweet girl. We’ll get this load off you right away.”
She’d deliver these crates out ofspiteif nothing else. The cargo, she didn’t mind—Fi had moved energy capsules before, for clients with the decency to warn her. Withholding information? Alerting trade wardens to a rendezvous? Someone needed to educate Cardigan in black-market etiquette. Preferably with a slap to the face for good measure.
From her cart, Fi retrieved a coat to layer over her silviamesh: sable elk hide with a collar of snowy hare, more strips of decorative white fur sewn up her ribs and arms. She already wore her snow boots, fur-lined with solid traction. With a guiding hand on Aisinay’s neck, she led them out of the forest.
The first signs of civilization came as a stomp of hooves. A snort. The forest opened to a clearing where a herd of aurorabeasts grazed for stalks beneath the snow, bison-like creatures with nubbed horns and dense coats, green energy glowing along humped backs. A ranch house sat amidst the conifers, windows dark. Fi kept her distance from the building, picking up a narrow path down the hill.
The village of Nyskya lay ahead, nestled into the valley like gold dust sprinkled over snow. Glowing windows peered from buildings of dark timber and steep-pitched roofs for sloughing ice, densest at the valley floor, fading into black shiverpines along the slopes. One road cut through the heart of the village. The wide copper piping of an energy conduit ran down the center, smaller channels branching into the surrounding buildings to fuel light and heat.
Beyond that necessary infrastructure, there were no imposing energy factories. No train tracks or trolleys or looming government buildings. People here cut timber and smithed steel. Herded aurorabeasts and hunted pelts from the forest. They sold what they could, but the village prided itself on self-sufficiency.
The perfect place for a smuggler. Fi had lived in Nyskya—well,adjacentto Nyskya—for seven years, spoiled by privacy and easy access to Curtains. She led Aisinay down a less-trodden path, keen on avoiding attention with a cart full of contraband. Heading straight home would be the smarter option, but after a long afternoon of coward clients and energy expenditures, Fi was ravenous. The last thing she wanted was to cook her own dinner.
They stopped behind the village tavern. Fi spent enough nights behind taverns—either puking her guts out or winning fist fights—to appreciate this one as impeccably clean, the trash bins lined up with bear-proof lids, door painted cheerful red. A copper lantern hung above the entryway, powered by a silver energy capsule. She nudged open the door.
The heat of the kitchen thawed Fi’s cheeks. From the hall beyond came the din of the tavern, but her attention narrowed on dishes clattering upon metal counters. The clack of a knife. Thesmellof roasting fish and cream sauce and Void knew what else. Fi wanted it.
She crept past conduit-powered stoves and wire shelves, wielding the focus of a thieving raccoon. A wisp of a woman stood across the room, chopping onions. While her back was turned, Fi inspected a soup pot, melting at the aroma of salmon and dill. She filled a mason jar, screwed on the lid, then wrapped the hot glass in a kitchen rag. In exchange, she plucked a small energy chip from her pocket and left it on the counter, more than enough for the meal.
On her way out, Fi snatched a couple of spiced ginger cookies off a cooling rack. A strip of elk jerky from a cannister.
Back outside, the cold met her like a jealous lover. Fi hunched into her coat and the warmth of her spoils. The soup and cookies she stashed in her cart. The jerky she held out to Aisinay, who devoured the treat in a snap of fangs.
They both tensed at the crunch of footsteps in the alley. Aisinay’s ears perked.
Fi reached instinctively for the hilt of her energy sword.
“Lurking behind taverns again?” called out in a heavy Winter accent.
A familiar voice. Ajudgmentalvoice. Fi’s groan turned to a puff of steam.
Her accuser met her with arms crossed, chest broad from the thickness of his flannel-lined coat more than muscle underneath. Ice crusted his dark beard, a dust of snow on hair pulled into a messy bun. A ruddy cast to pale cheeks suggested he’d been walking in the cold. Always keeping an eye on things: his aurorabeasts outside town, the people inside it.
Always able to sniff Fi out like a foxhound, despite her best skulking.
She pulled her coat into a mock curtsy. “Good evening,esteemedmayor.”
His brow quirked. “Are you avoiding me?”
“Not successfully, it would appear.”
Fi crouched, feigning interest on the wheels of her cart. Thankfully, nothing looked loose, despite the hurried retreat. When footsteps closed at her side, she hid an eye roll behind the veil of her hair. She wastired, she just wanted to gohome, she—
“Come on, Fi-Fi. Why the sour mood?”
“Don’tcall me that.”
“Or you’ll do what?”
Swift as a frost asp, Fi struck at the snow beneath her boots, packed a snowball, and hurled it at his face. He staggered, sputtering ice. Served him right. For anyone but her brother, that snowball would’ve had a rock in it.
Boden Kolbeck, mayor of Nyskya, glared at the smuggler crouched before him.
Then he dove for a snowbank.
The war was brief. Boden’s snowball glanced off Fi’s silviamesh. She struck one more to his chest and a third to the back of his head. When he kicked a drift of powder, she shouted and shielded her face, an opening for a tackle. Two rolls across the ground, and Fi had him in a headlock. Boden might be three years older, but he exercised by strolling his village, not swinging energy swords. Fi had him beat in both grit and underhandedness.
He tapped her arm in surrender. Fi released him, and they collapsed against her cart, breaths billowing mist in the cold night air.
