I knelt to pick a handful of frostmint sprigs from the ground. They glittered faintly even in the weak light, their scent crisp and bright. I slipped them into a pouch. Old habit. My hands needed something to do.
“Witch,” someone would be saying right now, maybe over a mug of ale. “Told you she’d bring trouble.”
And someone else would nod, relieved, because trouble was easier to stomach when it wore a face you already hated.
Let them tell their stories. Tomorrow, I’d be gone, and they’d have peace again—or something they could mistake for it.
By the time I returned to my cottage, night had crept in full. The fog had thickened, curling under the door like breath. I lit three candles and set them on the windowsill. Their reflections glimmered in the glass, three small suns fighting the dark.
I packed with care, though there wasn’t much to bring. Dried herbs—enough for a few tonics. My mortar and pestle, wrapped in cloth. A single book:Medicinal Flora of the Northern Marshes.Mira’s handwriting filled its margins—notes, corrections, tiny sketches of petals. I ran a thumb over her name, the ink long faded.
Mira would have told me to face this with grace. She’d have said,Maybe they’ll see what good can come from you after all.
But Mira was buried on the hill above the marsh, and good intentions hadn’t saved her either.
I looked toward the hearth. The fire had burned low, a soft red pulse. Above it hung the kettle, empty now. For a moment, I pictured someone else tending it after I was gone—one of the villagers creeping in to scavenge what they thought were charms and poisons. They’d find only roots and dried leaves.
That thought almost made me laugh again.
That night, sleep didn’t come easily.
When I finally drifted off, I dreamed of the moor. The fog was thicker there, silver instead of gray, and it moved like it was breathing. A figure stood in it, tall and faceless, the shape of frost on glass.
“You don’t belong to them,” it whispered—or maybe the wind did. The voice came from everywhere and nowhere, gentle as snowfall. “You never did.”
I woke with my heart hammering. The fire had gone out completely. The embers glowed faintly in the ash, like eyes closing.
Outside, the world was still.
Dawn bled slow across the marsh, thin and colorless. When I stepped outside, the ground crunched beneath my boots. Frost clung to the grass in pale lace. I could see my breath when I exhaled; it looked like smoke rising from a dying candle.
The escort waited at the end of the path—two soldiers and a single horse-drawn cart with the king’s crest painted on its side. The same envoy stood beside it, his cloak uncreased, his expression unreadable. He might have been carved from the same stone as the Frostfather’s statues.
“You’re prepared,” he said.
“As I’ll ever be,” I answered, clutching the strap of the bag that hung from my shoulder.
He studied me for a moment, perhaps expecting tears or pleas. When none came, he nodded once and motioned to the cart.
The villagers had gathered to watch from a distance. Faces I’d known all my life—farmers, smiths, the baker who never smiled at me but whose wife came secretly for remedies. Children peered from behind their mothers’ skirts. No one spoke.
Their silence said enough. Relief. Shame. A strange kind of reverence reserved for funerals.
I climbed into the cart, sat on the rough bench, and kept my chin high. The envoy took the seat opposite. The driver cracked his reins, and the horse began its slow climb out of Hollowmere.
With a start, the wheels groaned over frozen ruts, and the village fell behind, swallowed by fog.
The road north wound through rolling moorland, then up into narrow passes where the wind howled through stone like a living thing. The soldiers said nothing. Just as silent as the soldiers were, the envoy spent the journey writing in a small ledger, his quill scratching faintly.
I watched the landscape change.
Frost crept across the heather in white veins. Streams that once ran brown with peat now glittered like glass. The sky grew paler, the air thinner. I could feel the pull of it—the strange, heavy stillness that always comes before snow.
When the first flakes fell, I caught one on my glove. It melted instantly, leaving a bead of water behind.
“What do they want with me?” I asked finally.
The envoy didn’t look up. “The Winter Court has accused Rhaenor of violating the Concord of Veils. Our king seeks peace through diplomacy.”
