The knocks echoed through the cabin like the toll of a funeral bell.
Arya froze, her fingers clutching the blanket so tightly her knuckles turned white. Each echo reverberated in her chest, making it harder to breathe. Mira stirred in her sleep, groaning faintly, but did not wake. Only Ivy moved, rising to his feet with the calm precision of a predator. Firelight slid across the sharpened tip of his weapon as he raised it.
"Stay quiet," he mouthed, his lips barely moving.
The air thickened, heavy and suffocating. Whoever was outside had not spoken, not begged, not threatened. Just three slow, deliberate knocks as if marking them, reminding them that escape was an illusion.
Then silence.
The door shuddered under the press of a hand testing the wood. Arya's pulse hammered so loudly she was sure the intruder could hear it through the walls.
Ivy crept forward, pressing his ear against the rough planks. His breath was steady, controlled. Arya couldn't manage the same hers came in ragged bursts she fought to quiet.
Footsteps.
Crunch. Then another. Slow, deliberate, moving away from the cabin. The snow seemed to swallow the sound until only silence remained.
Minutes stretched into an eternity before Ivy finally stepped back, his face carved from stone. "They're gone," he whispered.
Arya's gut screamed otherwise. Shadows seemed to shift in the corners, her ears straining for a sound that didn't come. She wanted to ask if it had been the killers, but the word itself seemed cursed, too dangerous to utter.
Mira stirred again, blinking groggily awake. "What happened?" she rasped, voice raw with fatigue.
"Nothing you need to worry about," Ivy said, too sharply. His eyes stayed on the door, never on her.
Mira's brow furrowed. She winced as she sat up, clutching her wound. "There was someone out there. Wasn't there?"
Arya hesitated. "We don't know. They knocked… then left."
Mira's lips parted, alarm flashing in her eyes. "They never leave," she whispered. "If they find you, they finish it."
Her words chilled Arya more than the winter wind. She turned to Ivy. His jaw was tight, his gaze hard. He didn't believe they were safe either.
Dawn was slow and gray, painting the snow with a dull, lifeless light. None of them had slept. Mira sat hunched near the dying fire, arms wrapped around herself. Ivy lingered at the window, his broad frame still, his eyes sweeping the tree line. Arya paced between them, restless, her thoughts gnawing at her like rats in the dark.
Finally, she broke the silence. "You said they were mercenaries," she asked Mira. "Do you know who hired them?"
Mira's gaze flicked toward Ivy before returning to Arya. Her lips pressed into a thin line, as though she weighed how much truth she could risk.
"I don't know for certain," she said at last. "But I heard them mention a name." She lowered her voice, as if afraid the walls might be listening. "The General."
The title lingered in the cabin like smoke that refused to clear.
Arya's throat tightened. "Who is he?"
"I don't know," Mira admitted, her voice trembling. "But they fear him. More than anything else. If he commands a town wiped out, it's gone before sunrise."
Arya felt sick. The massacre of her people hadn't been chaos. It had been an order, deliberate, precise. Someone had chosen her home. Someone had erased it on purpose.
She turned to Ivy, desperate for… something. Anger, outrage, grief anything. But instead, his expression shifted into something darker, something old, a shadow of a man haunted by ghosts.
"You know something," Arya whispered.
His eyes flicked to hers, then away. "I've heard the name," he admitted.
Mira's suspicion sharpened. "From where?"
Silence. Ivy's jaw worked before he finally said, "I was a soldier once. Not for long. Not proud of it. But the General's name it was whispered even there. A shadow. A ghost."
The fire popped, making Arya flinch. She stared at him, her heart torn between relief at his honesty and a surge of betrayal. He had hidden this from her. He had walked in shadows she couldn't begin to understand.
Mira's bitter laugh cracked into a cough. "So you were one of them."
"No," Ivy snapped, his voice like a whip. His eyes burned with sudden fire. "I left. I left because I saw what they were becoming. Don't ever mistake me for one of those butchers."
But Mira only smirked, eyes gleaming with mockery. "Maybe Arya believes you. I don't."
The silence that followed was thick as stone. Arya's chest heaved as she looked between them Mira's gaze sharp with accusation, Ivy's with fury—and she, stranded in the middle, torn apart by doubt.
Later, when Mira drifted back into uneasy sleep, Arya pulled Ivy aside. "Why didn't you tell me before?" she whispered.
His jaw clenched. "Because it doesn't matter. I left that life."
"But if you knew about the General if you knew what they could do why didn't you warn me?"
His expression softened, though the hardness never left his eyes. "Because I didn't want you to look at me the way you are now."
Her breath caught. She wanted to deny it, to insist nothing had changed. But doubt had already crept in, twisting her thoughts. She was afraid not of Ivy, but of the shadows his past might drag into their future.
Before she could answer, Mira stirred again. Ivy caught Arya's wrist lightly. His voice was low, urgent.
"You don't have to trust me," he murmured. "But I need you to survive. Trust me enough for that."
Arya's chest ached. She wanted to say yes. She wanted to believe. But the words lodged in her throat, unspoken.
When the sun rose, pale and weak, Mira's eyes snapped open. She pushed herself upright, her voice hoarse but firm. "We can't stay here. They'll come back. Maybe they never left."
Ivy nodded grimly. "Then we move. Into the woods."
Arya's stomach clenched. She didn't want to open the door, didn't want to see what waited outside. But she knew Mira was right. Staying meant dying.
They gathered their meager supplies blankets, scraps of food, a half-empty jug of water. Ivy went first, pushing the door open with his weapon raised. Snow glared bright and cruel in the morning light.
Arya followed, Mira leaning heavily on her shoulder.
The forest loomed ahead dark, endless, full of secrets.
Then Arya saw it.
Half-buried in the snow, just beyond the threshold.
A footprint.
Fresh. Not theirs.
Leading away into the trees.