The world ahead had thinned into a white that felt less like weather and more like judgment.
Snow stretched in an unbroken expanse, swallowing the ground in a quiet that pressed against the lungs. The clouds overhead hung low and heavy, a slab of cold stone suspended above the earth. Wind moved without haste, threading through the vast plain like a patient predator.
Kel walked at the center.
Reina on his left.
Landon on his right.
Their formation was not deliberate show—just something that had… settled. The way their footsteps naturally arranged themselves. The way the space between them balanced weight and watchfulness.
They walked without speech.
Breath rose in faint grey ghosts from their mouths.
Kel's cloak, a dark cut against the pallor, trailed slightly behind him, the hem gathering snow. His bow rested in his left hand, his fingers curled lightly around the grip. The quiver at his hip brushed against his side with each step, the soft rattle of fletching barely audible over the muted crunch of boots in frost.
Reina's coat was tighter, close-fitting around her waist, designed for movement rather than comfort. Her hair was tied back high, one loose strand caught occasionally by the wind, flicking like a black line across her pale face. Her gaze traveled always ahead, but her attention shifted, tracking both periphery and the subtle shadow of Kel beside her.
Landon's cloak was a heavier thing, built for the kind of endurance carried by mountains. His steps were solid, imprinting deeper into the snow. His gauntlets were reinforced leather with metal plates sewn beneath—practical, unadorned. His sword hung at his hip, scabbard dull from use.
Kel's mind traced the faint outline of the mountains ahead.
Still distant.
But larger now.
Their jagged edges tore at the lower rim of the sky, their peaks swallowed by rolling fog and snowfall. The air carried a different weight here—a biting clarity, as if they had crossed an unseen threshold.
We're leaving the reach of Ashstone's patrols, Kel thought. From here on… no witnesses except the snow.
The wind shifted.
Only slightly.
But Kel stopped walking.
Reina halted half a breath later.
Landon after her, hand instinctively drifting toward his sword.
The silence of the field did not change.
Yet it felt… strained.
Kel's eyes narrowed.
He let his senses unfurl.
Not in any mystical way—just the sharpened attention of someone who had died too many times in another life and had learned to respect small wrongness.
The snow around them lay undisturbed.
Too undisturbed.
No prints of beasts.
No disturbance of small fauna.
Even in harsh lands, something always moved.
Yet here, for a stretch ahead of them—
Nothing.
His fingers tightened slightly around the bow.
He spoke calmly.
"Reina. Landon."
Their attention snapped fully to him.
"We're not alone," he said.
Landon's jaw set. Reina's shoulders eased downward, her posture lowering subtly—less visible height, more readiness.
Kel's gaze drifted toward a slight rise in the snow ahead. A shallow hump, just a little too consistent in shape. To the left—a cluster of low bushes, frost-laden, their branches weighed down as if hiding something heavier beneath.
He exhaled.
Ambush pattern.
Not sophisticated. Hungry.
Good.
His right hand reached back.
An arrow slid from the quiver with minimal sound.
He nocked it.
Drew halfway—not full, so as not to betray full tension.
He raised the bow slowly, angling it toward the shape near the rise.
The air around them held its breath.
Reina's fingers brushed the hilt at her side.
Landon widened his stance.
The wind whispered.
The snow ahead shivered.
Then burst.
Shapes erupted from the ground and the hidden pockets of frost—white-grey fur tearing free, fangs bared, claws gouging through crusted ice.
Not Duskwolves.
These were smaller.
Stockier.
Their fur was thicker, clumped with frozen spikes. Their eyes were a deep, unnatural blue, glowing faintly against the white.
Kel recognized them immediately.
Frostgnash Hounds.
Not individually strong.
But tenacious.
And they rarely hunted alone.
Three leapt from the rise directly ahead.
Two from the left brush.
Another pair broke from the right, charging low through the snow.
Seven.
Kel didn't bother counting twice.
He simply moved.
Opening
Reina drew her sword as the first hound lunged.
Her blade left its scabbard with a controlled, economical motion—no flourish, no wasted arc. The metal caught faint light, reflecting it in a cold line just before it met fur.
She stepped forward.
Not back.
Her boots carved a clean mark into the snow as she shifted weight, struck, and twisted.
One clean horizontal cut.
The nearest hound's throat opened in a spray of crimson across white, its momentum carrying the body past her as it crashed into the ground, a trail of blood marking its fall.
She didn't watch it land.
Her shoulders turned, adjusting to the second.
Landon moved at the same time.
His sword exited its sheath with heavier sound, weight and steel combining in a low, brutal ring. He did not step lightly.
He stepped through.
His first stroke wasn't graceful.
It was decisive.
He brought his blade down in a vertical arc against the hound launching from the left—meeting it mid-leap. The impact crushed bone, split skull, and drove the beast back into the snow with a sickening crack.
Kel's first arrow flew at that same heartbeat.
He had drawn it as the creatures erupted, loosing when their leap arcs had just formed.
The arrow whistled—not loud, a thin, eerie tone cutting across the white.
It pierced the eye of the central hound bounding toward Reina's blind side.
The beast's body jerked as the shaft buried deep into its skull. Its legs folded beneath it in mid-air, turning a lethal pounce into a collapsing heap that fell short of her by a meter, sliding limply.
Snow sprayed.
Blood misted.
Three down.
Four more rushed.
Kel's eyes narrowed.
His breath left him in a controlled exhale.
He moved without thinking of the curse.
Without thinking of strain.
Only of distance and timing.
Close Combat
The remaining hounds altered course.
Two slanted toward Landon, one circling to his flank.
The other two came for Reina from opposite sides, jaws snapping, frost clinging to their muzzles.
Reina's expression did not change.
Her eyes went flat.
Her movements sharpened.
She stepped toward the first, sidestepping its leap. The beast's claws caught only cloth, missing flesh by a hair. As it passed her, jaws snapping on empty air, her sword flicked upward—an almost lazy motion—and opened its belly with a rising cut.
Steam and blood spilled onto the snow as the beast skidded past.
But Reina's gaze wasn't on it.
Her eyes were already on the second hound.
It lunged low, teeth aimed for her thigh.
She rotated on her heel.
Her free hand shot down, palm striking the beast's snout, redirecting its bite just enough. Its jaws snapped on air.
Her blade came down.
A clean, merciless stroke to the back of its neck.
Bone gave way.
Snow accepted another body.
Landon's fight was heavier.
Two hounds came from the front, one from the right, their movements synchronic in desperate hunger.
He planted his feet.
His sword swung in a broad, controlled arc, edge biting toward the closest.
The first hound dodged, instincts sharp.
The second didn't.
His blade buried into its shoulder, sending it tumbling sideways, yelping in rage and pain.
The third hound snapped at his right leg.
Landon didn't retreat.
He drove his boot into its face with brutal force, a muffled crunch echoing as teeth shattered. The beast staggered.
He moved in, eyes narrowed, sword coming up for a downward thrust—
An arrow passed his shoulder.
Thin.
Silent.
It buried itself in the staggered hound's throat.
Landon didn't flinch at the close shot.
He simply altered his swing, redirecting to intercept the first hound rushing him again.
Steel and flesh met in another savage collision.
Kel's Range
Kel's body moved like it had mapped each of them in advance.
Reina's lines.
Landon's arcs.
The beasts' angles.
The snow-chewed field had turned into a shifting diagram of trajectories, all of which he read and adjusted to.
He was no longer the boy from the banquet, swinging wooden swords in quiet desperation.
His stance was set: knees slightly bent, weight divided evenly, shoulders relaxed but firm. The bow in his hand was an extension of that posture—wood and string drawing back with him, not against him.
His fingers stung each time he released.
The string ate at his skin.
The curse barked in his chest, complaining.
He ignored it.
Another arrow left the string.
It pierced the wounded hound scrambling toward Landon's side, entering just behind the ear. The creature dropped mid-lunge, body hitting the ground in a boneless heap.
Three breaths.
Six corpses.
One remaining hound, realizing too late that the hunt had turned.
It hesitated.
Just for a heartbeat.
Then it whirled, snow kicking up under its paws as it turned tail, attempting to sprint into the white.
Kel tracked it.
His eyes narrowed, lashes barely moving.
He turned his torso, drawing the string back slowly this time—aiming not with desperation but with a cold, measured line of intent.
Wind cut sideways.
Snow drifted through the gap between him and the fleeing beast.
He compensated for both.
Range… thirty.
Wind… light cross.
Target… retreat speed, moderate.
He exhaled.
Loosed.
The arrow sliced through snowflakes, disappearing briefly in the blur of white—
Then reappearing.
It skewered the hound through its back, just between the shoulders. The creature stumbled mid-run, legs spasming as it collapsed, sliding to a stop in a quiet heap.
The field went still.
Only the wind remained.
Only the cold.
Only the steam rising from fresh bodies, blurred into faint mist that drifted away as if the world refused even their memory.
Aftermath
Kel lowered the bow.
His shoulders ached.
His fingers trembled faintly.
He only allowed it to show now, after the last threat had fallen.
Reina remained poised for a heartbeat longer, eyes scanning, blade still held in a ready line. Only when she was certain no more movement hid beneath the snow did she slowly retract the sword, flicking it once to shake off blood before wiping it clean on a rag tucked into her belt.
Her breath came steady.
Faintly heavier than before.
But not shaking.
Her gaze turned to Kel.
Her irises, dark and sharp, flicked briefly to his hand.
"How many?" she asked.
Not about the monsters.
About his arrows.
Kel glanced down at his quiver.
"Seven," he replied. "Five kills. Two corrections."
A faint breath left her.
Something that almost resembled approval flickered in her eyes.
Landon exhaled, rolling one shoulder, twisting his wrist to check for strain.
"You took pressure off both sides," he said flatly. "Felt like fighting with a second shield… one that moves faster than my arms."
Kel's lips twitched.
"If I were as slow as your arms, we'd all be dead," he answered mildly.
Landon huffed.
The sound might have been a suppressed laugh.
Snow crunched as he stepped toward the nearest corpse, boot nudging it over to confirm it wouldn't rise again.
"Strange," he muttered. "Frostgnash Hounds this far from nesting pits…"
Kel's eyes narrowed slightly.
He scanned the pattern of their approach.
From multiple angles.
But all converging on them, not just crossing paths.
"They were hungry," Kel said. "And bold."
Reina wiped the last of the blood from her sword and sheathed it with a soft, final click.
"Or driven," she murmured.
They all fell silent.
For a moment, the only sound was wind brushing past their ears.
Kel's breath came light and thin now.
His chest felt tight.
The curse pulsed, displeased by exertion.
Not at breaking level.
But warning.
He pressed a hand briefly over his ribs.
Just once.
Reina saw.
Her eyes sharpened.
Landon did too.
His brow creased.
"We can take a short pause," Landon suggested. "The weather allows it."
Kel looked at the sky.
Thicker snow, but not blizzard-level.
Visibility still functional.
Temperature dropping, but gradually.
He calculated.
Heartbeats.
Distance.
Energy reserves.
If I push now, we might reach better shelter before night.
If I stagger, they'll carry more than they should.
He gave a small shake of his head.
"We continue," he said. "The road ahead will not be kinder. It's best to adapt early."
Reina's jaw tightened.
"If you collapse, that will slow us more than resting now."
Kel's gaze met hers.
His eyes were calm.
His voice softer.
"I won't collapse."
Silence.
She studied him.
Then spoke.
"Then walk in the middle," she said. "We cover the front."
Landon nodded.
"Agreed."
Kel didn't argue.
It wasn't concession.
It was… adjustment.
"Very well," he said.
They resumed.
This time, Reina moved half a step ahead on the left, Landon on the right, their silhouettes forming a subtle wedge against the wind.
Kel walked between them.
Not perfectly shielded.
But buffered.
He let his arms rest at his sides for a stretch, the bow hanging loosely from his left hand, fingers flexing periodically to maintain circulation.
The scent of blood trailed behind them, already fading into the cold.
The snow began to fall heavier.
The world ahead blurred further.
Reina's eyes stayed alert, scanning shapes at the edge of vision.
Landon counted his steps without realizing it, measuring stamina and tracking distance.
Kel's gaze, though narrowed with strain, remained sharp.
Each new print in the snow.
Each shift of wind.
Each faint disturbance in the white.
The battle had not shaken him.
It had confirmed something.
Archery isn't just survival at distance.
It is the ability to decide which death reaches your companions… and which never does.
He inhaled.
His chest burned.
His curse coiled and hissed, quiet but present.
He walked anyway.
One step.
Then another.
The mountains loomed larger.
The world grew colder.
And three figures, small against the vastness, continued forward—blades and bow cutting shallow, defiant lines into a field of snow that watched everything and remembered nothing.
Not yet.