I led. That was my job. I put one boot in front of the other and read the snow and didn't think about the woman.
I thought about the woman constantly.
She’s fed, and she’s warm.
Those had been Vorn’s words. Words that I’d repeated back to him, and I'd meant them as justification. They'd felt reasonable at the time, and now, with the cold pressing in from all sides and nothing but open white in every direction, they felt like exactly what they were.
A way of not having to decide.
But Baxley had decided.
He’d made the call. He’d done what he felt was right.
I thought about that for a while, much like how you might turn something over when you already have a sense of what's on the other side but aren't quite ready to face it head-on, eventhough you know you have to. Even when you knew you’d be disappointed with the outcome.
As I walked, my attention turned toward my body. The cold was sharper than it should have been. That was the first thing I noticed — not wind, not temperature exactly, just a biting quality to the air that settled into my bones and didn’t seem likely to shift. I'd been cold before. I'd definitely been colder than this. And sometimes I would pull just enough warmth from the earth beneath me to take the edge off, a small thing, barely noticeable, just enough.
I didn’t do it often, I certainly tried not to do it when I was on a trail with others, only when it got to the point I was sure I wouldn’t survive. Like leading eleven merchants through the Cryarek Pass and living to tell the tale.
I reached for my magic and almost stumbled at how much was surging to be free.
My insides were tight with what I thought was tension, but now I suspected it was my magic, ready to boil over.
My magic was ready to be free. Or not ready… hungry. A pot boiling too high for too long, unnoticed, about to bubble over, its contents spilling and lost.
The confrontation, the suppression, that moment in the snow when I'd pressed my fingers to my sternum and forced it back down, had cost more than I'd acknowledged at the time.
I flexed my fingers inside my gloves. They were stiff. Colder than they should be. Because my magic was burning within me, and I couldn’t think of a single way to let it out and free it without announcing to every person here what I carried within me.
And I would sooner die than let them know.
I’d used a little of my magic twice, maybe three times, since I got chosen for this journey. It wasn’t any more or less than a normal trail. Why was my magic reacting this way now?
I remembered what Vorn had said about the Frosttaken. They sought out the Chosen. I was not Chosen, the Verei Kahn did not know of my existence, nor did they need to. I had no wish to join them or theirinstitutions.
I needed to expel some of my magic before it made the decision for me. I just didn’t know how to do that without being seen.
I kept my eyes on the trail and my mind on the problem as I kept walking forward.
A while later, Larana fell into step beside me. Not exactly beside me, slightly behind, the way she always seemed to position herself, at the edge of my peripheral vision rather than directly alongside. Close enough to talk, but far enough to deny it.
I waited for whatever she was about to say, because there was no coincidence she was behind me.
“You handled that well,” she said eventually.
I glanced at her sideways. Her face was wrapped against the cold, only her eyes visible, and they were doing what they always did, moving, checking, watching the tundra with that specific focus.
“I didn't handle it at all,” I said honestly. “I stood there while it resolved itself.”
“Sometimes that's just the same thing.”
I considered that. “Vorn's men are going to come back.”
“Maybe.” She was quiet for a moment. “Probably not. We killed three of theirs. They'll cut the loss.”
I looked back at her again. “You sound certain.”
“I've dealt with people like Vorn before.” Her voice was flat and entirely without elaboration.
