The road narrowed into a ridge path hemmed in by ice-glazed pines, their branches heavy with last night's frost, hanging like the arms of weary sentinels. Each step crunched beneath Kael's boots, but it was not the sound of dry snow—it was the brittle kind, the sort that split underfoot like shards of glass, echoing with each motion in the stillness. The air had grown thinner, higher up in the hills, and Kael could feel the strain in his legs, not from fatigue, but from the constant tension that crept into his body whenever they drew close to unknown places.
Liora walked beside him, no longer the girl who once struggled to match his stride. The cold painted her cheeks with muted red, her lips pursed in thought. She didn't complain. Not once. That was something he both admired and worried about. A child should've been allowed the space to ache, to stumble, to whine about frozen fingers or steep climbs. But Liora had grown beneath his shadow, shaped by his fears and the silence he carried like a second skin.
He slowed to match her rhythm, his voice low as he glanced at her profile. "Tell me if you start to lose feeling in your hands."
She looked up, her eyes narrowing slightly with amusement. "Why? Will you yell at the cold?"
He grinned despite himself, and the knot in his chest loosened a little. "I might. Or bargain with it."
"You'd lose," she said dryly, and then a small smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. "But I'd still want to see you try."
They walked a little more without speaking, not because there was nothing to say, but because they had learned the kind of comfort that didn't need to fill every silence. Behind them, Wren moved like a pale shadow, her presence ever distant, yet undeniably there. She had not warmed easily to Liora, nor had Liora tried too hard to bridge that gap, but there was no animosity between them—only caution, as if both recognized something in the other they weren't quite ready to name.
Seran, meanwhile, had gone ahead to scout the pass. He was rarely still, rarely easy to pin to one place or mood, and Kael often wondered if that came from training or a deeper, buried need to keep moving, as though the moment he paused, something terrible would catch up to him.
Kael adjusted the weight of his pack and motioned toward a narrow bluff just ahead. "We'll stop there for water."
They reached the bluff within minutes. A trickle of water slipped from beneath a cracked stone, forming a half-frozen stream that pooled into a small basin naturally carved into the ridge. Liora knelt beside it, brushing snow aside before cupping her hands to collect the frigid flow.
Kael sat beside her, stretching his legs with a quiet grunt, then leaned back on his elbows to gaze out over the forest below. What once must have been a thriving valley was now a muted swath of white and gray, tree trunks standing like gravestones in a forgotten war. Smoke still rose on the horizon—thin, steady, and too distant to smell. But it was there. And that meant people.
"Do you think they'll be kind?" Liora asked without looking up.
Kael didn't answer right away. He watched the column of smoke twist into the gray sky before responding. "Kindness in these parts is like spring. Not impossible, just rare."
"I'm not afraid of them," she said.
"I know," he replied, then added, after a pause, "I just hope they aren't afraid of us."
The settlement was built against the edge of a frozen lake, surrounded by a makeshift palisade that had clearly been repaired and rebuilt many times. Its timbers were uneven, sharpened into jagged points like teeth gnashing outward. The gate was little more than two wagon doors chained together, manned by a hunched guard in a thick, patchwork coat of fur and leather. His beard was more ice than hair, and when he spoke, his breath formed little ghosts in the air.
"We don't take in outsiders without names."
Kael stood tall, Liora at his side, her cloak drawn tightly around her shoulders. Behind them, Wren and Seran waited in tense silence.
"I'm Kael. She's my daughter, Liora. These two—"
"I don't care for more names. Just yours and hers," the guard cut in, squinting. "And what you offer in return."
Kael hesitated. "We need rest. One night. We'll trade for shelter. Food. Firewood."
The guard eyed him, then looked toward Liora. "And the girl?"
"She's not for sale," Kael said, voice hard as iron.
A flicker of something unreadable crossed the man's face—perhaps offense, perhaps amusement. But he simply nodded once, turned, and banged on the gate twice with the butt of his spear. After a few long seconds, the chained doors creaked inward.
The village of Winterlight was a battered mosaic of resilience. The structures were built from scavenged stone, driftwood, and shattered tiles. Every corner looked patched, every surface coated in soot or frost. The people moved like figures carved from hardship—bundled in layers, shoulders hunched, eyes wary. And yet, as they passed, Kael noticed something else beneath the suspicion.
Children laughing somewhere just out of sight.
A pot steaming over a shared fire.
A mother braiding her daughter's hair by lantern light.
Even here, even now, life clung stubbornly to its rhythm.
The inn was more a hollowed-out lodge than a place of commerce. There were no rooms, only shared floors, a central hearth, and a ladder leading to a loft packed with straw. They were given a corner by the wall, and Kael quickly laid out their blankets while Liora watched the fire.
She didn't speak for a long time. When he finally sat beside her, she said, "It smells like my first winter with you."
He turned to her. "What do you mean?"
She smiled faintly. "Smoke. Wet stone. Burnt stew. You tried to cook that night. Remember?"
Kael laughed under his breath. "I tried, yes. You pretended it tasted good."
"I didn't want to hurt your feelings."
"You wouldn't stop coughing."
She chuckled, and the sound warmed him more than the fire ever could. "It wasn't that bad."
He leaned in close. "Liora, it was charcoal soup."
They sat in the flickering light, their laughter soft, their breaths slow. Around them, strangers murmured to one another, wrapped in their own little worlds of warmth and waiting. But for a time, Kael and Liora needed nothing else.
Just the memory of charcoal soup.
And the certainty that they had survived worse.
Later that night, a knock came at the inn's warped door. Wren rose to answer it, exchanging terse words in low voices. When she returned, her expression had changed.
Kael straightened. "What is it?"
"Elder wants to see you," she said.
"Just me?"
"Just you and the girl."
Liora stood before Kael could speak. "Let's go."
Wren's eyes flicked to her briefly. "Be careful. Not all who offer fire do so to warm your hands."
Kael nodded, then led Liora back into the cold.
They followed a narrow alley between houses, where light from high, slitted windows cast long beams across the snow-packed ground. At the far end stood a crooked building marked by red lanterns, their glow too warm for the frozen world around them. Inside, an old woman waited beside a low fire, her face lined like old bark, her eyes sharp as needles.
"I know what she is," the elder said before Kael could speak. "I felt it the moment she entered the village."
Kael stepped forward, instinct rising like a drawn blade. "She's my daughter."
"She's more than that," the elder replied, gaze never leaving Liora. "There's light inside her. Old light. From before the Sundering."
Liora looked confused. "What does that mean?"
The woman reached into a satchel and withdrew a fragment of crystal. It pulsed softly in her hand when Liora stepped near.
Kael stiffened. "What are you doing?"
The elder smiled, not unkindly. "Protecting what little hope remains."
Outside, the smoke rose higher into the dark.