Twilight clung to the treetops like an old bruise—blue sinking into violet. The wind had quieted; the whole forest held that brittle hush right before something hits.

  Elowen shifted her weight on the packed snow. The thin camp boots were only delaying the inevitable—her toes already numb, the cold crawling up the arches of her feet. The sleeveless tunic “to equalize the candidates” was a cruel joke. It wasn’t equalizing anything. It just let the cold find bone.

  She folded her arms—not for warmth, but to keep her hands from shaking where everyone could see.

  Fear always showed itself in her hands first. Theron used to tease her about that, steadying her wrist with his warm grip.

  You survived the lake, she told herself. The memory broke through like a blade cutting dark water. You survived. Survive this too.

  Thyra adjusted the strap of her axe and gave Elowen a sideways look, scanning her face with the blunt precision of someone who’d watched too many break before the starting horn ever sounded.

  “Don’t tell me you’ve already forgotten what I told you yesterday,” she said. “The trial isn’t complicated.”

  Elowen blinked. Her thoughts felt thick, sluggish from fear. “…Remind me.”

  Thyra huffed a laugh. “Fine. One more time. You run.”

  “I run,” Elowen echoed. Her voice felt too small in the open air.

  “Run, hide, crawl—whatever gets you to the torch before someone with a chalked staff taps you on the back.” Thyra pointed toward the frost-dark treeline. “Hunters go in after you. Three of them. One mark and you’re out.”

  The conversation from the night before surfaced in fragments, scattered and blurry. The warnings. Roderic’s quiet, unreadable eyes. The thought tightened her chest. If she failed here, it wouldn’t just be the North shutting its doors—it would confirm that she wasn’t what the prophecy claimed.

  “And… barefoot,” Elowen said quietly. “Right?”

  “Yes.” Thyra grinned without sympathy. “Barefoot. Thin tunic. Forest floor so unforgiving it felt like Elyon meant you to feel every step. I told you—the cold isn’t a punishment. It’s the point.”

  Elowen swallowed hard. “The bridge?”

  “The Shiverbridge,” Thyra corrected. “Frozen log over a ravine. Wind hits sideways there, so keep your weight low and don’t look down. I swear you nodded when I said all this.”

  “I was barely awake,” Elowen muttered.

  “Explains the nodding,” Thyra said. She nudged Elowen’s elbow. “It’s simple. Reach the torch. Don’t get touched. And don’t fall to your death. Every Northern tale boils down to that.”

  Elowen frowned. “I thought the second trial was more…” She groped for the word. “Spiritual.”

  Thyra barked a laugh—genuinely amused. “Spiritual? Only if you pray while you run.”

  Elowen’s cheeks warmed. She hated sounding foolish. Her life had been hard enough—just not in the ways this place demanded.

  “And this proves… what again?” she asked.

  “That you don’t fold when the cold wants you gone.” Thyra shrugged. “That you can think while running. That you’ve got instincts that don’t betray you the moment fear shows up. I said all this yesterday too.”

  Elowen let out a long breath. “Right. Yes. I remember.”

  Thyra raised a brow. “You remember now.”

  Elowen nodded. She couldn’t think about failing — not here, not with eyes on her.

  “Good.” Thyra clapped her shoulder. “Then at least I won’t have to explain it again when they’re tying your ankles to keep you from bolting.”

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  That brought Elowen back to the present. She shot Thyra a sharp look.

  Thyra’s grin widened. “Joking. Mostly.”

  Elowen nodded again, though her pulse fluttered hard beneath her skin. That was the thing about this place—fear didn’t hide well here. Everyone could see it. She felt the heat of that shame more sharply than the cold.

  Across the clearing, the hunters waited—faces masked in frost-white paint, staffs dusted in pale chalk. Their silence was worse than taunting. Silence meant certainty. And to her, certainty felt like they already knew where she’d break. As if her limits were already written across her skin.

  A horn sounded.

  Every muscle in Elowen’s body jolted.

  Then they ran.

  The forest swallowed them immediately—shadows whipping past, branches clawing, bodies punching through snow. Elowen was slowest; the cold knifed her feet the moment she ditched her boots, pain so sharp it felt personal. She stumbled, caught herself, forced her numbing legs onward.

  Behind her came the whisper of chalk-dusted staffs cutting the air.

  Not close.

  But close enough.

  Close enough to imagine the disappointment on Roderic’s face.

  She dove behind a spruce, lungs scraping raw. The cold sliced her throat with each inhale. A hunter walked past her hiding place—chalk dust drifting off him like a warning.

  She waited.

  One heartbeat.

  Two.

  Then bolted the opposite direction.

  Snowbanks rose to her shins. She slid once, hard, shoulder slamming into a trunk. Pain burst down her arm, dizzying. No time to think. She gritted her teeth and kept going.

  A scream cut through the trees—a short, sharp cry.

  A tag.

  Someone was out.

  Elowen didn’t look back.

  A pond appeared out of nowhere—thin ice over black water. Her breath hitched. The lake’s memory surged again, cold hands dragging her down. She dropped to her knees and crawled, ice burning her palms through the bandages. Halfway across, the surface groaned.

  Her breath stopped.

  She forced herself forward, inch by inch, until solid ground kissed her fingers.

  Branches snapped overhead.

  Hunters closing.

  She ducked beneath a fallen tree and crawled through, snow filling her hair, her lashes, the hollow of her throat. Her pulse hammered unevenly—fear and cold warring for space inside her ribs.

  When she burst into open space, the world tilted.

  The Shiverbridge.

  A fallen log spanning a narrow ravine, slick with ice. Wind sliced sideways, vicious enough to sting her eyes. Candidates teetered across—arms out, breaths held, terror tightening their steps.

  Elowen’s stomach dropped.

  The lake.

  The cold.

  The helpless sliding.

  The dark swallowing her whole.

  Her legs nearly folded. A small, traitorous part of her wished she could stop here—let the trial swallow her before expectation did.

  Then the hunters’ steps pressed into the snow behind her. She forced the panic down. Later. She could fall apart later.

  She stepped onto the log.

  The wind hit her instantly. Her foot slipped. A gasp tore free before she strangled it back. She dropped into a crouch, fingers clawing frozen bark. Inch by inch she moved, breath tight, throat burning, the ravine below yawning black and wide.

  Another wind gust hit her, instinct urged her to brace—but another instinct, born of Eryndor’s training, told her to loosen instead. She forced a breath past the panic, letting it shake through her ribs.

  So she breathed through the rising panic, let the cold tremor in her chest release instead of tighten. Slowly the air shifted, moving with her steps. Simply being there, the way it had once before.

  Enough to trust. Enough to cross.

  Relief almost sent her knees buckling when she touched ground again, but the sound of pursuit yanked her upright.

  The final incline loomed ahead—steep, jagged, roots jutting like claws. The torch flickered at the top—a thin needle of light, the only proof she wasn’t running toward nothing.

  Someone hissed behind her, “Move!”

  She grabbed the nearest root and hauled herself upward. Bark tore her palms. Blood warmed her skin for a moment before the cold stole it. Her toe slipped. She slammed her shin. Caught herself. Climbed again.

  Chalk dust brushed her shoulder—a near-tag that sent panic screaming through her chest.

  She lunged.

  Her fingers hooked the ridge. She dragged herself over—snow scraping skin raw—and collapsed beside the torch, chest heaving, throat burning, vision flickering around the edges like failing fire.

  For a long moment, she couldn’t move.

  Couldn’t think.

  Her world had narrowed to breath—each inhale sharp as broken glass.

  Cold pressed against her skin, grounding her, reminding her she was still here.

  Still in her body.

  Still fighting for a place she wasn’t even certain she wanted—yet couldn’t bear to lose.

  A hunter’s footsteps settled beside her—quiet, sure. No threat. Just presence. When she lifted her head, he stood with his mask blank, his staff lowered, and the single dip of his chin was the simplest acknowledgement in the world.

  Respect.

  It hit harder than the cold.

  She wasn’t fastest.

  Wasn’t graceful.

  But she had endured. Outthought. Outlasted. Had not been touched.

  Elowen let her forehead rest against the snow for one breath, then two.

  Steadying herself on the cold’s bite, on the truth humming in her bones:

  she had moved through fear instead of freezing under it.

  She didn’t feel strong. Didn’t feel chosen. Chosen was for steadier hands and steadier hearts. She had neither—not the way it counted.

  But when she lifted her head, the torchlight caught her grey eyes, and something inside shifted—not loudly, but undeniably.

  A pulse of certainty:

  You can do more than survive.

  And she didn’t deny it.