Jinx felt a flutter of shaky happiness. She had hurried back to her stale-looking room and was pulling open the small wardrobe where her few clothes hung.
Edith came in, carrying a tray of water and clean bandages. She saw Jinx frantically searching. "My mistress, what's the hurry? You should be resting."
"I just met with my husband," Jinx said, a small smile touching her lips. She pulled out a simple, high-necked dress. "He has a task for me. A way to make things right. And... and he promised a reward. He said he would bring the best doctors to cure my barrenness."
When jinx told her about what she wants to go and do, Edith's face fell. She set the tray down carefully. "Mistress, no. Going back to your clan? It's a bad idea. After everything that's happened..."
"It's the only chance I have." Jinx insisted, her voice rising with a desperate hope. "If I can do this for him, if I can give him what he wants... I can finally be a proper wife. I won't be barren anymore. I can stay here comfortably. I can have a place."
Daliah entered then, her arms full of fresh linens. She took in the scene—Jinx's frantic energy, Edith's worried frown. Edith tells her what's happening.
"Tell her," Edith said to Daliah, her voice tight. "Tell her what she's not seeing."
Daliah put the linens down and faced Jinx directly. "Mistress Jinx. Sir Fenris cannot be trusted. You know this. He flaunts that woman in front of you. He had you whipped without a second thought. He has no shame. What in the stars makes you think he will suddenly accept you, even if you were cured? A man who does not love you will find another reason to cast you out."
Jinx flinched, clutching the dress to her chest. Their words were like cold water, trying to douse the fragile hope inside her. But that hope was all she had left. It was the only thing standing between her and the crushing truth of her life.
"He kissed my cheek," Jinx whispered, more to herself than to them. "He said he loves me, and that he forgives me.'"
Edith and Daliah shared a look of deep sorrow. They heard the quiet, broken plea in her words. She was begging them to let her believe the lie, because the truth was too heavy to carry.
Edith stepped closer, her voice dropping to an urgent whisper. "Mistress, listen to me. You can take the money your self and run away from this place. Start a new life somewhere else, far from here. Daliah and I... we will follow you. We will help you. We promised your mother we would care for you."
Daliah nodded fiercely. "We will. Whatever you need."
But Jinx shook her head, her jaw set. "No. He said I have to go alone. This is my task. My chance to prove myself."
"It's too suspicious," Daliah insisted. "Traveling now, on those roads... it's the worst time. The Cliff-Hedge Roads are treacherous even in good weather. It's the snowy season. The passes will be icy, and the rogue beasts are desperate and hungry. It's not safe."
Jinx didn't seem to hear the danger. She had already begun to change, turning her back to them and letting the simple dress fall over her head. The movement pulled at her healing wounds, but she ignored the sting.
One thought had been wired into her since she was a girl: as long as she was barren, she was useless. A defect. If she could just have a child, everything would be fixed. She could have a real place. She could be loved. She was even pathetically grateful that Fenris hadn't just thrown her out into the street like other abandoned wives, left to freeze or be torn apart by scavengers.
Her maids, seeing her determination, moved to help her despite their fears. They fastened the back of her dress, their fingers trembling. They pleaded with their eyes, but their words had run out.
"I have to do this alone," Jinx repeated, her voice final. "Do not follow me."
When she was dressed, they followed her out of the mansion, trailing after her like shadows. A plain, dark vehicle was already idling in the courtyard, its engine giving off a low hum. Fenris was there, standing on the steps with Silvia tucked under his arm. He watched Jinx approach, his eyes critically sweeping over her simple, worn dress.
"Don't you have anything better to wear?" he asked, his nose wrinkling slightly. Then he waved a hand. "Never mind. It doesn't matter."
He walked down the steps and put a hand on Jinx's shoulder. His grip was firm, not comforting. "Do not disappoint me," he said, his voice low and clear. "And do not come back if you haven't done what I asked. Do you understand?"
Jinx nodded, her throat too tight to speak. He guided her firmly to the passenger door of the vehicle and closed it behind her. As she settled into the seat, she looked out the window. Her maids stood together, their faces pale with worry. Fenris was already walking back to Silvia, but the lynx-beastman was looking directly at Jinx through the glass. She was just watching, her luminous eyes cold and flat. That look, empty of all triumph, sent a sharp spike of primal fear straight through Jinx's heart.
"Get lost," Fenris snapped at Edith and Daliah.
The vehicle's engine rose in pitch, and they began to move. Jinx stared as the grand, cruel mansion shrunk in the rearview mirror, becoming smaller and smaller until it was just a dark shape against the snowy hills, and then it was gone.
---
Some moments later.
It was pitch dark. The only lights were the twin beams from the vehicle's headlights, cutting through the blackness, and the faint, distant glow of the city far below. They have reached the Cliff-Hedge Roads, so she could still see the city's lights twinkling like fallen stars in the valley.
The car suddenly braked hard, jolting her forward against the seatbelt. "We stopping?" Jinx asked, her voice small.
The driver, a silent wolf-beastman, didn't look at her. "Need to take a piss," he grunted.
He got out, letting in a blast of freezing air, and slammed the door. Jinx watched him walk to the back of the car. The darkness seemed to swallow him whole.
She sat alone in the quiet, the engine ticking as it cooled. She wrapped her arms around herself, trying to find that fragile hope again. "This is for survival," she whispered to the empty car. "This is for protection. To have a place. To be worth something."
She was so focused on the mantra, on the distant city lights, that she didn't notice the driver hadn't returned. She didn't see him walk past the rear bumper and into the deeper shadows of the roadside. She didn't see the single headlight of a speeder bike approach, or the driver swing onto the back of it.
"Did you lock the car?" the bike driver asked, his voice muffled by the wind and distance.
"Yeah," her driver replied. "Let's go. It's coming."
The bike sped off, its engine sound fading quickly into the night.
Jinx felt the tremor first. A deep, unsettling vibration through the floor of the car. It grew stronger, rattling the doors. Fear, cold and sharp, crept into her heart.
Then came the sound. A sickening, hollow whumpf from deep within the mountain that she felt in her bones. It was followed by a deafening, mechanical roar—the sound of the world tearing itself apart.
Avalanche!
She fumbled for the door handle, yanking it. It was locked, just as the driver had said. She beat her hands against the window. "Driver! Help!"
The world outside the windshield turned into a churning, roaring wall of white. The force hit the car like a giant's fist. There was a shriek of tearing metal. Jinx was thrown upward, her head cracking against the roof. Then the world spun violently. The car was flipping, tumbling, dragged by the immense, sliding river of snow and rock.
She could only cry out, a wordless scream of terror, as her body was thrown against the door, the dashboard, the roof, over and over again. The city lights in the window spun in a wild, dizzying circle before they vanished, swallowed by the crushing white darkness as the car plummeted over the cliff edge.