in my bones getting stronger, more insistent. It’s still not painful if I don’t think about it, but it’s a reminder that we need to get in and out quickly.
The sleigh finally stops when the sun has just climbed over the horizon, at a complex of low stone buildings surrounded by a high wall of ice. There are a few cabin-like structures clustered in one area, with five long, low buildings spaced out in a circle around it. The snow here isn’t pristine like in the doorway courtyard. It’s trampled and gray, and there’s a sharp, musky smell in the air of roasted meat and sweat.
As Graylin helps everyone out of the sleigh and into the cabins, I tug at Brekken’s sleeve. “What is this place?”
Brekken grins. “My grandparents raise ice wolves for the army. They’re touring the southlands right now for the warm season, and Mother is looking after the pups. It all worked out perfectly. Here, look.”
He grabs my hand—casual, unassuming—and leads me across the snow toward one of the outer buildings. I glance back over my shoulder, looking at the wolves that pulled the sleigh as Ilya unharnesses them. They’re beautiful, but I’m not sure I want to meet more. But Brekken is already unlatching the heavy wood door and swinging it open.
I gasp, and this time it’s out of delight, not fear. Because—puppies. Half a dozen wolves tumble out of the barn door all at once and overtake Brekken in a storm of happy barking and whining. They jump on him, and he falls back on his ass into the snow, laughing as the wolves swarm him. They’re massive, already the size of German shepherds, but visibly puppies. They’re pudgy, and their paws are too big for their bodies. Their movements are clumsy and overenthusiastic.
I let out a laugh and fall on my knees next to Brekken, and the baby ice wolves notice me and fall on me with just as much joy. One gray wolf jumps at me and licks my face before I can lift my hands to block it. Six tails wag furiously, and the gray one grabs my mitten in its relatively small teeth and tugs it off. I laugh and grab out for it, but the pup bounces away and crouches, its butt wiggling high in the air, daring me to give chase.
“Thunder!” Brekken scolds. His hand darts out, quicker than mine, and snags my mitten from Thunder’s teeth. “Be polite.”
He hands it back to me with an apologetic look on his face. I take my other mitten off and tuck them inside my coat, holding my hand out to a smaller, black pup who is cautiously sniffing my leg. She bumps my hand with a warm, wet nose, and then lets me scratch her between the ears, leaning into the touch. Happiness fills me. I know we still have a great challenge ahead of us, but right now I don’t want to be anywhere else in all the worlds than here in this land of ice, kneeling in dirty snow, with wolves all around us and Brekken at my side. For a moment I can almost forget that anything is wrong. Forget the task looming ahead of us and the lives that hang in the balance.
Inside the cabin feels similar to a cozy mountain home you might find back on Earth, but everything looks just slightly different, more organic somehow. The angles are softer, the edges of things rounded as if we were inside a giant hollow tree, like in a fairy tale. Every surface is covered either in books or intricate, naturalistic carvings of flowers and trees and animals. Dust motes float serenely in the wintery sun flooding through the windows.
Graylin is sitting at a carved table in the corner, along with a Fiorden woman I don’t recognize. She’s older, with very pale skin and black hair and eyes, and is dressed in a kind of robe or kaftan that’s forest green and belted at the waist. She looks up when we come in, her eyes fixing immediately on the bit of the gauntlet that shows between my mitten and sleeve. I go still, Brekken bumping into my back. This must be the old scholar friend that Graylin mentioned back in Havenfall.
They both stand to greet us, dropping their conversation in Myr’s language and switching to English.
“Kae, this is Maddie,” Graylin says, looking from the woman to me. “Maddie is Marcus’s niece, the one I told you about. Maddie,