Snow squeaked under Elowen’s boots with every step, loud as a drumbeat to her frayed nerves.

  Camp had shaken itself awake into the pale late-morning light. Smoke curled from cookfires, mixing with the faint, dying colors of the aurora still smeared across the sky. Men were mending harnesses, sharpening axes, rolling bandages. Every sound came sharp—steel on whetstone, the crack of split wood, bursts of laughter that felt too warm for a place built on ice.

  And eyes. Always eyes.

  Thyra appeared at her side, hands shoved into the fur lining of her belt. “Look at you,” she said. “Less corpse-like today. Keep that up and you might actually witness the second trial instead of being carried past it.”

  Elowen huffed a breath that might have been a laugh. “What a comfort. Truly.”

  “Relish my kindness while it lasts,” Thyra said, bumping her shoulder.

  They passed a ring of younger Northerners oiling their boots. Conversation dipped as Elowen walked by. A boy—no more than fifteen—gave her a stiff, uncertain nod. An older woman with wind-burned cheeks watched her longer, thoughtful, then bent back over her stitching.

  Elowen forced her gaze forward. Her body wouldn’t let her forget the trial; every step tugged at the raw skin of her feet, every breath scraped as if the cold had carved her from the inside out. The world still swayed faintly, as though she were back on the ice pads and one misstep away from plunging through.

  “I shouldn’t be out,” she muttered.

  Thyra glanced at her. “Careful staying on the ground too long, princess. People start thinking you’ve quit. Sometimes you start thinking it too.”

  Elowen huffed. “I’m not quitting.”

  “Didn’t say you were.” Thyra’s eyes stayed ahead. “Just saying—when things get ugly, everyone forgets why they dragged themselves this far in the first place. That’s when the cold wins.”

  Elowen frowned. “And what? I’m supposed to just… keep going?”

  “You find one thing that matters,” Thyra said. “Doesn’t have to be noble. Just has to hold.”

  She shrugged. “You don’t need a prophecy for that. You just need something to hold on to.”

  They moved between the tents. Voices shifted as she passed—not words, not fully. Just a tightening of attention around her. A grunt. A short laugh. Someone clicking their tongue in that distinctly Northern way that meant unexpected.

  Elowen kept her eyes on the ridge ahead. She didn’t want to know what exactly they saw in her.

  Not mockery anymore. Something worse.

  Expectation.

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  They reached the open stretch near the practice field. The frost ladder still scarred the far rise—new rungs hacked into the ice where old ones had splintered under too many hands. The sight sent a phantom ache up Elowen’s arms.

  Thyra followed her gaze. “Second trial’s there,” she said. “Different beast, same teeth.”

  “I thought the second trial was more…” Elowen searched for the word. “Spiritual.”

  Thyra barked a laugh. “Spiritual? Only if you pray while you run. Barefoot on ice, hunters behind you, wind in front. Reach the torch before they touch you. That’s the trial.”

  “Wonderful,” Elowen said. “New and creative ways to nearly die.”

  Thyra grinned. “Now you sound like one of us.”

  A shift of movement at the field’s edge caught Elowen’s eye.

  Roderic.

  He stood with two clan leaders, hands clasped behind his back, cloak perfect despite the wind. He listened to one of them speak—focused, composed—until his gaze flicked up and found Elowen.

  Something subtle changed in his posture. Not softening. Awareness.

  He spoke a few low words to the men beside him, then crossed the distance in deliberate strides.

  “Elowen.” He inclined his head by the barest degree. “You should be resting.”

  Thyra smothered a smile.

  Roderic’s eyes swept over Elowen—taking in the stiffness in her shoulders, the pallor at her mouth. His voice didn’t shift, not with concern and not with reproach.

  “To the healers,” he told Thyra. “She’s burning through what little strength she has left.”

  He didn’t wait for argument. He simply turned back to the clan leaders.

  Elowen watched his retreating back, jaw tightening. “Does he always talk like that?”

  “Like everything’s a chessboard and he’s already three moves ahead?” Thyra snorted. “Yes. And the irritating part is—he usually is.”

  She jerked her head toward the healer’s tents. “Come on. Before you prove him right again.”

  “I just need air,” Elowen said. “A moment. Alone.”

  Thyra studied her for a beat, weighing it, then nodded. “Don’t go far. If you vanish, I’m blaming you when he starts rearranging everyone’s lives.”

  Elowen managed a weak huff. “I’ll stay where the Northerners can stare properly.”

  Thyra left her with a clap to the shoulder that nearly knocked her off balance.

  When her footsteps faded, the camp noise seemed to pull back all at once, leaving a hollow quiet around Elowen.

  She cut between two supply tents toward the ridge where the ground dropped into a white, endless valley. The wind hit here with no mercy—but it also felt cleaner, sharper, easier to bear than the heat of so many watching eyes.

  She stopped when her legs refused another step.

  The valley sprawled wide beneath her—frozen rivers like veins of silver, dark pines marking the horizon. Somewhere beyond lay the shattered Wall, the broken realms, the prophecy that had ripped her out of her own life and dragged her toward something she still didn’t understand.

  Storm-bearer. Marked. Symbol.

  Her fingers curled at her sides.

  She’d sworn in the lake that she wouldn’t run. That fear wouldn’t choose for her again.

  You did, she reminded herself. You went under. You climbed. You lived.

  But the memory of water closing over her… the silence… the near slip of her fingers—

  it pressed at her chest like a bruise.

  Not enough to break her.

  Just enough to remind her she wasn’t out of danger. Not from the trials. Not from the prophecy. Not from the way everyone watched her as though she were becoming something she had never asked to be.

  The wind picked up, tugging at her cloak. Cold burned the inside of her nose, her ribs.

  Elowen breathed with it.

  Once.

  Twice.

  Again.

  The ache didn’t fade. But it settled into something she could carry.

  “Two more days,” she whispered to the valley.

  It didn’t answer. The wind only moved past her, indifferent.

  She turned back toward the tents.

  By the time she stepped into camp again, the Northerners saw only stubbornness in her expression. But Roderic—if he looked up—would know better:

  It wasn’t stubbornness at all.

  Just a girl who had nearly broken, walking forward anyway.