Breath of Winter, A

Dedication

This book would not have been possible without Annie, Sasha, Ella, Melanie, Dawn, Sherry and Jamie. Thank y’all for reading the various drafts until you could recite them. Who would have thought Henri had that much fight in him?

Chapter One

Ice glazed the road, crackling as I slid over its glassy surface. After several days, the
crush, crunch, crush, crunch
of snow underfoot made my back teeth ache. But I’d rather set my jaw and persevere than break a leg in this miserable weather. Snug inside my thick, lepus-fur-lined boots, I wiggled my toes. At least I thought I did. Glancing down, I watched while the supple leather flexed.

Well, I could say this much for my feet. They were still attached.

Gods above and below.
What had I gotten us into this time?

A shove from behind rocked me onto my tiptoes.

“Frown much longer and your face will freeze that way.” Ghedi’s chapped lips curved.

I punched him in the chest hard enough air whistled through his teeth. “Then my face would match the rest of me.” I squinted against the sun. “I’ve never seen anything like this. Have you?”

“No.” Rubbing his chest, Ghedi winced. “Only fools cross the veil into the northlands.”

I cocked an eyebrow at him. “And yet, there you stand.”

He gestured toward me. “And yet, here we both are.”

We shared a brief smile.

A final visual sweep of the area to either side of the road added no contrast to the landscape.

“White and more white,” he muttered. “Where is all the green?”

“Forget green. Gold is what we’re hunting.” I glanced past his shoulder. “Our contract ends the moment we relinquish our ward. What then? All we have to our names is a modest purse full of coin to split six ways since
someone
failed to collect our fee upfront last time. When word leaks how our previous employer died at our feet, we’ll have a bloody difficult time finding work. People are strange in their expectations of mercenaries. They expect them to be, I don’t know,
capable
. We can’t afford to waste an opportunity. I say while we’re here, we hire on with the Araneidae clan. Let that lot feed us while we decide where we go from here. Gods know they can afford to toss a few coins our way.”

He scowled. “You’re still pissed about Hishima? He was the Segestriidae paladin for gods’ sake. His city is made of priceless crystal, and a single ring from one of his hands could have paid our fee. If I’d known he was going to die, I would have doubled our price and demanded he pay on the spot.”

I snorted. “I hate to point this out, but if Hishima had known hiring us was one of the last things he would ever do, I doubt you could have used that information as leverage to demand higher pay.”

Ghedi wrung his hands in my face. “You have a gift for twisting sense from every word I say.”

“Of course I do. I’m your sister.” I patted his arm. “Besides, you make it easy.”

“You don’t have to be here, you know.” He brushed off my hand. “You could go home.”

Home.
The word pierced my heart. We could not return to Halcidia yet. Perhaps not ever.

I noted the grim set of his jaw and tensed. “What’s wrong?”

Usually it took more than a good-natured ribbing before he threatened to send me packing.

“It’s nothing.” He glanced over his shoulder, the way I had been staring. “Nothing at all.”

Four males identical to Ghedi huddled into their heavy coats as they went about their work. Two males tended the six ursus I had purchased for us to ride during this trip. Two more stared with rapt attention at the knotty pinewood box set at their feet. It resembled nothing so much as a fresh coffin.

Truth be told, it might as well have been one.

I jerked my chin toward the box. “How is she?”

“Malik and Tau are dosing her now.” He tugged his hat down. “The herbs are working, too well if you ask me. Our brothers are all but chewing her food for her. When that fails, they brew a tea to pour down her throat. The weather makes her sluggish, and the herbs do too. If we don’t reach Erania soon…” He shrugged. “I hope you negotiated rates based on whether she arrives dead or alive.”

“If you ask me,” I muttered, “a corpse is as good as a live specimen.”

“Don’t let her hear you say that.”

My exhale left a plume of white fog between us. “We ought to get moving.”

His eyes narrowed. “We only just stopped.”

“Now we’re just starting.” My nape prickled. “We’re too exposed on the open road.” Now that I had ranged ahead, I knew, “There’s a stand of trees farther down. That will put limbs between us and the sky. It’s not much protection, but it’s the best we can manage until we reach the city.” Ghedi’s mutinous glare made me chuckle. “Shoo. Make our brothers see reason and be certain Fynn tethers the box securely between your mounts. The litter wobbled far too much for my comfort last time.”

He ruffled snow from his beard. “I’ll never hear the end of this.”

My throat tightened. “I would gladly share the burden of their complaints.”

“I wish I could teach you
mkono
, I do,” Ghedi said, “but I would like to honor one vow I made to our father.” He withdrew with a sigh almost too soft to hear. “One, when I have broken so many.”

“I understand.” I did, but I didn’t have to like it.

Learning
mkono
was a rite of passage for Deinopidae males. As a lowly female, that knowledge was denied me. Even now when their sign language made all the difference, I was still kept ignorant.

“You will hear our brothers speak again,” he assured me, “and you will rue the day you do.”

Despite the sore spot in my chest, I forced a smile. “I’m sure you’re right.”

While he went to prod the others into action, I studied the way we had come.

For a second, I thought I glimpsed a shadow darken the road behind us.

I spun toward Ghedi, but he had wandered too far. At such a great distance, I would have to yell to be heard over the winds. Not wise if a beast was stalking us. If it was no beast… I swallowed hard.

Another time I might have relished a good hunt. Wild ursus roamed the north, a quarry that had eluded me, but only a fool spilled blood where a more lethal predator might become aroused by it.

No trophy kill was worth riling our ward. Nothing was if you asked me.

Holding as still as the icy gusts allowed, I narrowed my eyes against the blinding sunlight.

Ghedi’s breath warmed my ear. “What do you see?”

I almost jumped out of my skin. “Whatever it was, it’s gone now.”

“Are you sure?” His nostrils flared, scenting the air. “We can’t be too careful.”

“It was a shadow.” A shiver rippled up my spine. “Too small for an ursus. A canis?”

“Hmm.” He stood at my shoulder. “They’re rare in the northlands these days, or so I hear.”

“The plague,” I said softly, my gaze drawn to where our brothers hefted the litter into place.

He nodded. “The larger predators followed healthy game south.”

“All the same…” I elbowed him in the gut. “Keep your eyes open.”

“Why didn’t I think of that?” He rubbed his middle. “It will make walking so much easier.”

After he ambled past me, I scooped up a handful of snow and packed it into a tight ball. I let him get several steps ahead of me before I reeled back and hurled it at the base of his skull. He stumbled on impact, swearing while he cupped his neck. The withering glare he shot me promised retribution.

Say what you will about siblings, they do have their uses. Target practice was one of them.

Feeling smug, I performed a mock curtsey that made Ghedi roll his eyes. Glancing at the others, I noticed they wore matching scowls. I returned their ill humor and bared my fangs in a pointed grin.

Pity about never learning
mkono
.

The language barrier made it much harder for them to order me around without breaking their vows of silence.

I jumped when hot breath blasted the back of my neck. As I twisted, a frigid nose left an icy trail across my cheek, and I found myself staring into beady, black eyes that reminded me a smidge of our current employer, Paladin Vaughn of the Mimetidae clan. I say he was our employer. His mother had held a dagger to my jugular and folded a few coins into my hand. I suppose that meant she’d hired us.

Either way, gold was gold and I couldn’t complain. Much.

Farrow huffed more of her rank breath in my face while I rubbed her tufted ears. She was tall for an ursus. Her shoulders stood equal to mine. Reddish fur masked her eyes and her snout. Brown hair covered the rest of her. Her black lips quivered in ursine pleasure when I scratched under her bridle.

“All right, you.” I smoothed a cowlick on her broad forehead. I could have put three more hands to either side of mine and still not spanned the width of her skull. I crushed a kernel of fear before it took root. Beasts of her size were rare in the south, but I handled carnivores often enough to keep her from biting a chunk out of me. With a final pat, I grasped the saddle horn and swung astride her.

As I settled, an earsplitting horn blared in the distance.

Farrow’s eager shudder made me clutch her ruff. Her head shot up, and white clouds huffed from her flared nostrils. A throaty growl was all the warning she gave before breaking into a hard gallop.

Twisting her reins free of their loose knot, I grasped them tight in my hands. “Whoa, girl.”

The crazy sow ignored me, barreling past Ghedi, who dove in the snow to avoid being trampled.

Behind me, the other ursus roared. Soon after, the slap of their paws matched Farrow’s. Kaleb’s mount jostled mine when she loped past. Tau’s mount ran on our heels. Malik and his ursus shot past Kaleb and stole the lead. Each sawed at the metal bits clenched in their mounts’ teeth, but their silent commands went ignored by the stampeding ursus. Where they ran, we had no choice but to follow.

“The box,” Ghedi bellowed from the ditch. “Gods’ web, Zuri, secure the box.”

On the edge of my vision, I glimpsed Fynn’s struggle to gain control of his frantic ursus. On the litter strung between his mount and Ghedi’s riderless one, the box swayed. Bolted onto thick poles, it was fastened through sleeves sewn above the stirrups on either saddle. But if Fynn’s ursus outran his partner, the latches could slip and send the rails splashing into the slush under their thundering paws.

If that box shattered, our ward would escape, and there would be no apprehending her.

It had taken all six of us to capture her in the first place. Even then, we had been very fortunate. She’d been too busy feeding to notice us. No point risking fortune’s favor twice if we could avoid it.

Fynn’s boar flung its great head side to side until he caved to the beast’s will, slacking its reins. Abandoning hope of slowing their mad sprint, he groped desperately for the poles held by the saddle.

“No,” I yelled, tugging on Farrow’s reins. “Don’t.”

Fynn caught the poles as they slid through their straps, yanking him from his saddle, tossing him onto the road and knocking the breath out of him. Behind him, the box went tumbling. Its hinged lid flapped open, and its wooden sides splintered as the box collapsed and its occupant tumbled bonelessly into a snow-filled ditch yards from where Ghedi had scrabbled up its icy sides back onto the road.

Our ward laid still, held captive by the fabric cocoon she had woven from her blankets.

My heart stuttered when she turned onto her side.

“No you don’t,” I growled. “Not yet.”

I freed my net and fumbled the latch securing my glaive, gripping the staff in hand. I wound the ends of Farrow’s reins around the saddle horn so she wouldn’t trip over them, then sent up a prayer.

Grant mercy unto me, gods of old, gods of river and wood, gods of sand and stone.

Farrow didn’t slow when I swung a leg over her side or hesitate when I leapt from her back. I hit the slick ground hard, rolling my ankle. A crisp
snap
made my gut lurch. I had broken enough bones to understand the sound. Agony was all I knew for the first step, but the glaive made a decent crutch.

Gritting my teeth, I limped toward Fynn. Ghedi reached him before I could and turned him onto his side. Blood covered the road where ice shards or a stone had sliced open his scalp. Fynn blinked, a bit dazed, but he sat upright with help. Once I was certain he was in no immediate danger, I rallied.