He reached to his pockets and found the she-wolf’s teats, now thawed enough to squeeze. He massaged a bit of milk over his fingers, smearing them. Satisfied, he pulled his hands free and approached the cubbies’ hiding place. He held his hands out and made a small growled whine.
The whelpings backed from him, deeper into the bushes. They were dark-furred except for white-tipped ears, the better to hide in a den or shadowed nest. They would gain a winter’s snow white pelt only when full grown.
Brant held still. He had only the time to try this once. If they bolted, he would have to chase them down with bow and arrow. While he would honor the Way, mercy went only so far.
He waited for a full icy breath. Then noted one of the cubbies’ nose shift, tasting the air.
“That’s right-” Brant whispered gently. “You know your mama.”
A whine escaped the second, scared, testing.
The first cubbie, the one who tested the air, reached toward his fingers, sniffing and growling. The second huddled against it. Brant’s fingertips were at the first one’s black nose.
A fast nudge, and the braver cubbie licked its nose.
“You know your mamma’s milk,” Brant whispered with a growling whine of his own. “There’s no one you trust more.”
The pair trembled, caught between panic and hope.
Brant reached farther, sliding his palms between their flattened ears, filling their noses with their mother’s scent. The first cubbie continued to growl. Brant dared wait no longer.
He grabbed each cubbie by the nape of the neck and hauled them to him. They growled. The first swung around and bit him in the forearm, catching mostly coat but also a pinch of flesh. He pulled them to his chest. The cubbies struggled, but just as weakly as the first one’s bite. The pair was thin, half a stone each at best, exhausted to the edge of collapse.
He tucked one pup into his half-open coat, then shoved in the second. Using one arm to sling under them, he rehooked his coat.
The cubbies took solace in the darkness and were reassured by each other’s presence. They gave up their fight and settled together within the warmth of his coat.
Brant straightened. The forest had emptied out. The world was snow and tasted of ice. The distraction of the cubbies had helped calm his heart, allowed his wits to settle. He was done running blindly like an animal. Whatever came from the north flowed south, driving the beasts ahead of it. There was another path. Rather than flee from whatever death was within the storm, he could step aside.
So Brant set off to the west instead, toward Oldenbrook, moving fast, abandoning quiver and bow to the snow. With his breath frosting the air, he fought the snow, underfoot and from the skies. He moved with an unerring sense of direction, swiftly, crossing frozen creeks and hurtling deadfalls. He flew as straight as an arrow.
As time froze around him, he fought only to keep moving, to put one boot in front of the other. His face went numb and senseless, vanishing away, stolen by the storm. He was only a walking, gasping lung. The cold now sliced with each ragged breath. He tasted blood on his tongue.
Snow continued to fall. He lifted his head, cursing the skies.
Flakes settled atop his upturned face-and melted.
The icy water ran like tears down his cheeks. It took him another two breaths before he realized the significance. The snow fell just as thickly, but this was no cursed blizzard. It was simply ordinary snowfall.
Relief surged through him.
He had cleared the river of death flowing through the wood, reached its western bank. He stumbled on with a coarse laugh, sounding half-maddened to his own ears. In steps, the forest vanished around him, and the lake opened ahead of him.
Free of the forest’s shelter at last, the winds blew stronger. Ducking against the onslaught, Brant headed out onto the ice fields. Ahead, Oldenbrook had been swallowed by the storm, but Brant trusted the tidal pull of his senses. He trudged onward.
Still, his brush with whatever Dark Grace tainted the storm had weakened him more than he had suspected. He coughed into his glove and saw the blood. His eyes watered, freezing lashes together.
He fought onward. Winds swirled and battered him, trying to drive him back into the forest. His legs trembled, and he could not stop his teeth from rattling in his skull.
Must not surrender…
Time slipped. He found himself suddenly standing in place. How long had he been frozen there? He stared ahead. The storm seemed lighter there. Was that the lamps of the city? Or was it merely the setting sun?
He moved again.
One boot…then another.
Then he was on his knees. He never remembered slipping down.
He craned up. Snow fell everywhere. The world was gone. Maybe it never existed. He coughed, wracking and loud, falling to one arm. Blood splattered the ice.
Trembling all over, he pushed up. A glow in the storm wobbled ahead.
He thought maybe he heard a noise that wasn’t the wind. He reached up and pulled down his hood.
“…this way!”
Brant blinked his frozen lashes.
“Braaaant! Ock, Master Brant! Where are you?”
Hope surged. He tried to answer, but another bout of coughing shook through him, taking him to his knees again.
But someone heard him.
“Over here, Dral!” a voice to the left called.
Brant sank to the ice. Two dark figures appeared out of the storm. They held lamps aloft, swinging from raised pikes.
The twin giants.
Malthumalbaen and Dralmarfillneer.
Brant closed his eyes with grateful relief. He sank around himself. Against his belly, two hearts beat. The Way had never been an easy path.
But it was the right one.
“Preposterous,” Liannora said under her breath. “Daemons in the snow…”
The next morning, Brant sat in the High Wing’s common room, sipping a healer’s draught of bitter herbs and warming alchemies. Thick drabs of honey failed to mask the acrid tang, and the swirl of complex Graces made his vision swim. He was under orders to drink it with every ring of the day’s bell. It was his second draught since being released from the healer’s ward.
His breathing remained pained, his voice hoarse, but the sputum no longer bled. Still, deep in his chest, he felt some sharpness if he inhaled too quickly, as if a few shards of ice still remained in his lungs. But the draughts slowly helped-as had a night buried under furs with bladders of heated water tucked against him. He felt almost himself again.
He warmed his palms on the hot stone mug.
By now, other Hands had gathered. By order of Lord Jessup. The god of Oldenbrook would be arriving shortly. All had heard Brant’s tale of some dread force cloaked in the heart of the past day’s storm. Doubt could be seen in their eyes and heard behind their whispers. Especially since the storm had blown itself out by morning, moving south and away, leaving in its wake a frigid cold and a world blanketed in windswept drifts of snow. The sky remained low and misted. Sunrise was more a pale effort at the start of a day, seemingly defeated before it had begun.
But nothing worse was revealed.
Just another winter’s day.
Talk of Dark Graces that stole through the forest, cloaked in a freezing snow, killing with ice, was little believed in the light of day, as meager as that light might be.
“How many winters have you spent up here?” Liannora persisted. She wore a resplendent morning dress of silver adorned with iridescent blue shells.
“This is my first full winter here,” Brant said hoarsely. “But I spent another three in Chrismferry, even farther
