“Both?” Father echoes.
The rider stiffens. “Both? Only Bartal Devlin has been summoned.”
The cold wind slices through my red hair, snowflakes catching on the freckles of my cheeks as I lift my chin and meet the rider’s gaze once more.
“Then I am summoned too,” I say. “Wherever he goes… I go.”
I wonder if the rider will protest. His jaw flexes, working like he’s ready to spit another command, but eventually he swallows it. He submits, and it feels like a victory. Something I didn’t realize I needed. A smug little smirk tugs at my lips.
“I’ll be right back,” I say.
I stride toward the house, boots crunching over frostbitten earth. The moment I twist the handle, the door doesn’t just open, it rips inward, flung wide by the wind, a curl of winter chill sweeping through our little home like an uninvited guest.
I move quickly to my bedroom, to the only real piece of beauty left in our lives. An intricately carved wardrobe, its panels painted with a spring meadow, flowers, driftingpetals, a bright ribbon of river weaving through endless green. I remember when the colors were fresh. When the paint glowed like sunlight and the blossoms looked soft enough to pluck.
Now the greens are faded, the yellows chipped and dull. But in my mind… it’s still vibrant. Still hers.
I curl my hand around the round wooden knob. It’s worn smooth from years of turning, but beneath my palm the carved initials still rise sharp as memory:L.D. — Lorraine Devlin.
My mother.
My throat tightens. I inhale once, steadying. Then, I open the wardrobe and reach for the meager furs we own. Nothing grand, just rabbit and fox, thin and patchy, cheap things meant for milder winters.
But they’re all we have.
I bundle the furs in my arms and rush out the door. I pull the first fur tight around my father’s shoulders, tucking it under his chin, but the dark-haired rider doesn’t even wait for me to finish. He snatches Father by his spindly arm and hauls him into the saddle behind him like he weighs nothing at all.
I swing the second fur over my own shoulders and clasp it at my neck. The blond rider leans down from his horse, pointed ears peeking through frost-dusted waves, his arm extended toward me.
I scoff at his outstretched hand. As if I need carrying like some delicate little thing.
Instead, I plant my boot in the lower stirrup, grip the back of the saddle, and haul myself up in one clean, practiced motion. The blond rider startles as I swing my leg over and settle behind him, my knee colliding with his ribs with far more force than necessary.
“I’m fine, thank you,” I say coolly. “Now can we get moving before my father freezes to death out here?”
The two riders stare at each other, silently weighing whether to follow my command or toss me straight onto my ass. But after a tense beat, the blond rider gives a curt nod, taps his horse’s flank, and the beast surges forward.
I grip the back of the saddle, the blond rider’s broad shoulders blocking most of the wind, but not enough as each gust slices through my threadbare fur. We leave our farm behind, the small, barren fields shrinking until they’re nothing but a smear of gray on the horizon.
The landscape that replaces it is worse.
Fields that should be green with early-spring shoots lie drowned beneath frost. Every fence post wears a crown of rime, and the trees, bare and skeletal, seem to claw at the sky as if begging the sun to remember them. Smoke curls from the chimneys of a distant village, but even that looks weak, as though the fire inside is losing its battle.
The riders say nothing. The only sound is the wind in my ears, the crunch of ice beneath hooves, and my father’s rasping breaths. Every one feels like a dagger.
After some hours, the riders rein their horses toward an inn nestled between two snow-dusted pines. The Wayside. Warm light spills from the windows. Candle glow, soft and golden and inside, a hearth with an actual roaring fire, not the smoldering embers we’re used to.
“We stop here,” the dark-haired rider says gruffly.
I dip my chin. “Thank you. I’m grateful for your kindness.”
“Don’t be,” the rider says dryly. “Lord Luceran wants your father alive. If I show up with him frozen stiff as a fence post, he’ll send me to the mines.”
I help Father down from the horse. His legs buckle when he lands, and the riders pretend not to notice. Inside, the inn’s heat steals the ache from my fingers, and the smell of broth and bread nearly makes my knees give out.
We take a corner table. The innkeeper brings bowls of steaming soup, thin, but warm and I guide my father’s hands to his spoon.
That’s when I hear them.
