The bear surges, growling deep in my chest, not loud but thunderous all the same.
I press the knife against my thigh, jaw locked, forcing the words out. “Exile means patience. Exile means silence. No entanglements.”
But the laugh carries again, softer this time, like a flame sparking against dry wood, and the vow splinters in me.
I remember Arvid’s warning weeks ago, his voice gruff as he muttered over nets, telling me that ignoring a call has a cost. He spoke of the Seal then, but I feel the weight of it now, doubled. Ignoring her has a cost too, and I’m not sure I have enough left in me to pay it.
The Syndicate men move closer to her camp. I see one adjust his coat and the brief gleam of a pistol under his parka. My muscles coil, patient, waiting. I could end them before they reach her. Two bodies buried in the snow, gone by morning storm. No one would ever know.
I force myself still, crouched in the dark. My vow holds by a thread, but the bear inside me presses harder, demanding I rise.
A voice drags me from my silence. “You’re watching them too.”
I turn my head slightly, catching the shadow of Arvid leaning on his cane, wrapped in furs. He’s not looking at me, but at the men below. His eyes are pale as the ice itself.
“You should be inside,” I mutter, low.
He chuckles, dry and rasping. “Inside doesn’t keep you safe from men like that. Only watching does.” He studies me a long moment. “You’ll let them pass?”
I don’t answer. My silence is answer enough.
Arvid taps his cane against the rock three times, a habit he’s never explained. “Sometimes letting wolves roam only gets your sheep slaughtered. But it’s your choice, boy. Always has been.” He turns, his figure swallowed by the dark, leaving me with nothing but the sound of his fading steps.
Below, the Syndicate men pause, scanning the bluff. One speaks into a radio clipped to his collar, voice clipped and efficient. “Thermal signature confirmed. Moving to grid B. Possible civilian presence.”
Civilian. That’s what they’ll call her. A target.
The bear shoves hard against my chest, and this time I don’t push him back.
My vow was silence, but silence ends tonight.
I crouch lower on the ridge, knife steady, eyes fixed on their backs. I will wait until they make the wrong step, and then I will move fast enough they never see me coming. They will think it was the storm, or bad footing, or the land itself that turned against them. But it will be me.
The Seal under my ribs beats again, hard enough to ache, as if Darius himself pulls the tether. I whisper into the night, words carved from stone. “You will not touch her, Roman. Not while I breathe.”
The men keep walking. The drone hums above. And her laugh still lingers, warm and reckless against the silence, the only sound that matters anymore.
I told myself exile was enough. Tonight proves it never was.
6
ANGIE
The storm comes in fast, faster than I expect, the kind of whiteout that locals warn about with a shake of the head and a muttered prayer. One moment I’m snapping shots of the floes grinding against each other, the camera buzzing faintly in my gloved hands as it logs the data, and the next the wind smashes against me like a wall, snow lifting in sheets so thick the world vanishes.
The dogs howl before I can even brace myself. They rear in their harnesses, their paws digging for traction as if the storm itself is a predator snapping at their tails. “Whoa, hey, easy, it’s just a tantrum,” I shout over the shriek of the wind, my voice too high, too thin against the roar. I dig my heels into the ice and yank on the line, but the sled tips sideways as a gust slams through, and I’m thrown hard to my knees.
Snow bites my face and fills my collar. My goggles frost instantly, and when I swipe at them it only smears ice across the lens. The dogs are a blur of fur and panic, barking and lunging, and the line jerks so violently my shoulder screams.
“Calm down, you lunatics, we’re not dying today!” I call, my teeth chattering so hard the words come out broken.
Another gust rips through, and my legs go out from under me. I hit the ground, snow swallowing me up to my chest. I claw upward, but the wind piles more over me, a living, breathing thing trying to bury me alive.
The recorder at my collar crackles faintly, my own voice from earlier playing like a cruel echo. “And still, ladies and gentlemen, we have something that absolutely shouldn’t exist.” My laugh from that recording drifts back, eerie in the storm, and for a second I think I’m hallucinating.
Then strong hands close around my arm.
I gasp as I’m yanked upward, the snow tearing free of me in chunks. A shadow looms above, massive and solid, the storm bending around him as if even the wind knows better than to fight him directly. I blink against the blur, and all I catch is fur hood, broad shoulders, and eyes like ice lit from within.
