Marta's tent is larger than most, divided into sections by hanging furs. She leads me to what appears to be a workshop area, where bone needles and sinew thread wait beside partially completed garments.
"Sit," she commands, pointing to a pile of pelts. "Watch. Learn."
What follows is an education in practical survival that makes my courtly training seem pathetically inadequate. How to work sinew into thread strong enough to hold in a blizzard. Which furs provide the best insulation, and how to layer them for maximum warmth. The correct way to bank a fire so it burns through the night without consuming too much fuel.
Fuel that might be impossible to replace.
"Your hands are soft," Marta observes after watching me fumble with a bone needle for the tenth time. "Useless for real work."
Thanks for the encouragement.
But I grit my teeth and keep trying. The alternative is too terrible to contemplate.
We work in relative silence for perhaps an hour, broken only by Marta's occasional sharp corrections of my technique. Outside, the storm continues its relentless assault, but the tent remains warm and surprisingly comfortable.
I could survive here.
The realization comes with startling clarity. Not comfortably, not easily, but I could adapt if necessary. The thought fills me with something dangerously close to pride.
Maybe I'm stronger than I thought.
A commotion outside interrupts my musings. Voices raised in excitement rather than anger, and something that sounds almost like... celebration?
Marta sets down her work and moves toward the tent entrance with predatory alertness. "Unusual," she mutters. "Storm still rages."
The tent flap pushes aside, and Vorrak fills the entrance. Snow clings to his dark hair and beard, and he holds an expression I can't decipher.
"Come," he says simply. "Both of you."
We follow him back into the howling wind, where I discover that most of the clan has gathered around the main fire once again. But this time their attention is focused on something beyond the circle's edge.
Something moving in the storm.
At first, I see only a darker shadow against the swirling white. But as it moves closer, detail begins to emerge. Four legs. A graceful neck. The distinctive gait of a horse picking its way carefully across treacherous ground.
Impossible.
"Shadowmere," I breathe.
My mare steps into the firelight like something from a fever dream, her dark coat frosted with ice but her eyes bright and alert. She favors her left foreleg slightly, and her breathing comes in puffs of vapor that speak to hard travel, but she's alive.
Alive and searching for me.
She whickers softly when she sees me, tossing her head in the gesture I've known since childhood. Despite everything, the cold, the fear, the uncertainty of my situation, tears spring to my eyes.
She came for me.
I take a step forward, then stop as several clan members move to block my path. Hands rest on weapon hilts, and the tension that had begun to ease during Marta's lessons comes flooding back.
"Let her pass," Vorrak says quietly.
The warriors hesitate, looking between him and the chief elder. After a moment that stretches like eternity, the elder woman nods.
"Let her greet her spirit-guide."
Spirit-guide?
I don't pause to ask what that means. Instead, I run toward Shadowmere through snow that threatens to trip me with every step. She meets me halfway, lowering her great head to nuzzle against my shoulder in a greeting that feels like benediction.
