Chapter 10
The gates of Skallfen stood closed, frost clinging to the iron like something more than winter had frozen them shut.
The last stretch of the journey had been hard. We'd lost the soldier not long after we'd set out. He'd simply drifted away in his sleep. I refused to look Nicco's way when Gralen announced that he was dead. But I'd heard Nicco's dismissive grunt.
The captain had insisted we keep his body with us, and he’d been moved from the litter to be draped over the horse like a kill.
I didn’t look back. But somehow I could still see him, draped over the horse. Lifeless.
Thank the gods no one had suggested leaving him to the scavengers, but it was perhaps the fierce scowl of the captain that dissuaded them.
Or the fact that I was very much on board to stab anyone who suggested it.
Especially if it was Nicco.
We’d got here, three dead, and three wounded. Skallfen was the last town before north was truly north.
It was well-guarded, their watch was sharp, and their prices were a bit higher because they faced no competition. It was a controlled town in a necessary way, but it still had that edge of freedom.
Closed gates were not something I’d witnessed before.
“Is there a back way in?” Gralen asked. “Never been this far north before.”
“This is the only entry to Skallfen,” I told him, scanning the frozen white land. The town's quietness also made me wary. “Stay here.”
I stepped forward, and a firm grip stopped my progress. I looked up at Nicco.
He wasn’t looking at me. His attention was on the stone walls of the town.
“Not so fast, bunny,” he murmured. “Bax? Rana? Split and scout.”
They were already moving.
I looked down at his hand on my arm. “Move it or lose it.” I looked up at him and met his dark stare. “And don’t call me bunny.”
He grinned. “Why? I bet you bounce nicely on a—”
I punched him.
His head snapped to the side, clearly not expecting it. I mean… neither had I.
No one moved or said a word. I think a few of those nearby were scared to breathe.
I think I was scared to breathe.
I held Nicco’s gaze and almost fainted when he smiled. It wasn’t anger, not even a warning. It was… enjoyment. And that might have been worse.
Nicco lifted a hand slowly, touching his jaw where I’d hit him. He rolled it once, testing it, then looked back at me. Still smiling.
“Good,” he said softly.
I frowned. “Good?”
“Means you’ve got some bite in you, bunny.” His gaze dragged over my face, assessing, not admiring. “I was starting to think you were all talk.”
“Well, that would’ve made you an idiot,” I snapped. “I get people where they need to go.”
“And if they don’t listen?” he asked.
I held his stare. “Then they don’t make it.”
Something flickered in his eyes then, interest, sharp and quick. Before he could say anything else, the captain stepped forward, clearly deciding he’d had enough.
“That’s enough, both of you,” the captain said, his voice tight. “We don’t need quarrels between ourselves.”
“No, we don’t.” Nicco didn’t look away from me. “From where I’m standing, we’re stuck outside a closed gate, in the middle of a land that’s doing its best to kill us, waiting to find out what’s happening inside that town.”
The silence shifted, no longer frozen, but uneasy.
Captain Marson’s jaw tightened. “That’s what your men are for.”
“Aye,” Nicco said simply.
Sergeant Gralen moved then, his hand resting lightly on the hilt of his blade as he scanned the stone walls of the town.
“Are they always closed, Trailfinder?” he asked me, though it sounded like he was trying to convince himself.
I turned slightly, my gaze dragging over the gates again. There were also no guards visible, no movement along the wall.
Skallfen should have been awake.
Even in this cold, even at this hour, there should have been something.
“There should be smoke,” I said quietly.
The captain looked at me. “What?”
“Fires,” I clarified, gesturing toward the walls. “You’d see it from the chimneys. There is always a fire burning in Crystallese. Warmth is always needed.”
We all looked toward the enclosed town. Nothing rose in the dull gray light. Not even a wisp of smoke. Just the pale gray of stone and the slow drift of snow against it.
Baxley and Larana were out of sight now. A prickle slid down my spine. Nicco stepped closer, not touching this time, but close enough that I could feel the heat of him through the cold.
“How heavily armed is the town?” he murmured.
I didn’t look at him. “The watchguard is four at the gates. They patrol in pairs, usually six or eight patrols at any one time. It’s a small company, maybe thirty at most.”
His breath brushed my ear, a quiet huff of something that might have been a laugh.
“How many coin purses have you helped yourself to, bunny, that you can count the guard in that amount of detail?”
“I pay attention,” I snapped.
“That’s what worries me.” He walked away before I could respond.
I didn’t deny I did help myself to a coin purse now and again, because a girl needed to eat.
“I don’t think he likes you,” Gralen told me bluntly.
I turned to look at him, knowing he didn’t like me either. “I don’t need any of you to like me. I just need you to listen.” I adjusted my pack and looked at the closed gate one more time. “To the shades with this,” I grumbled and started walking.
I heard Marson question where I was going. I didn’t respond, and I didn’t expect them to follow me, and as predicted, they didn’t.
It didn’t take me long to reach the gate. I hesitated, then with a deep inhale, I pushed on the gate.
It swung open.
“I really wish you hadn’t done that,” I told it, as I slipped inside.
A tug on my hood pulled me back, and I turned, ready to defend myself, and saw it was Larana.
“Can you use that short sword?” she asked me, her eyes scanning the quiet town.
“Enough not to die,” I told her honestly.
“Let’s hope that’s enough.” She gave me a cool smile and walked forward. “Stay behind me, Amarya. Don’t cry out, don’t scream, and if I say run, we run. Okay?”
“Sounds familiar,” I answered, my voice low, and I heard her quiet huff of laughter.
The sound of boots approached, and she shook her head slightly. “It’s Bax.”
The tall mercenary walked out from behind two buildings. He didn’t seem surprised to see Larana. His gaze stayed on mine longer than I expected.
Maybe my presence here surprised him.
“So how did you get in?” I asked as he moved closer.
“Wall’s not as high as it looks.”
He climbed the wall? I looked up at it, and it definitely looked pretty high to me.
“We stay together,” he told us. “Nicco let you come in here?” Baxley looked back at me.
“Not exactly…”
Larana scoffed. “This is where she tells you she walked up here on her own and pushed the gate open.”
Baxley looked at her incredulously, then saw my look and hesitated. “Really?” When I nodded, he made a face. “Good for you,” he murmured. “Stay close to me, Amarya. No heroics.”
They hadn’t gone more than a few steps before I noticed it. There were no fresh tracks.
Not even old ones. The snow lay smooth and untouched, like nothing had moved through here in days.
“This is wrong,” I mumbled.
Baxley didn’t slow. “What is?”
“This place should be busy,” I told him. “Caravans come through here. This is their last stop for trade. Traders, hunters, escorts. There should be tracks. Layers of them.”
“Saw that too.” Larana’s gaze dropped to the ground. “Possible that the snow has covered them?” she asked me.
“Not like this.” I shook my head. “Snow falls fast up here, but we walk through it anyway.”
She nodded. “Yeah, thought that too. There’s no disruption underneath. No frozen ridges. Nothing.”
They kept moving, and I followed them.
The buildings closed in around us, low, squat structures built from thick stone, their doors shut tight. No light bled from the cracks. No sound carried.
There was no life.
A door hung slightly open to our left. Larana saw it when I did. She lifted a hand, stopping us.
Baxley shifted his grip on his blade. “Stay behind me,” he murmured again.
I wasn’t going to argue with him. Larana nudged the door wider with the tip of her boot. It creaked too loudly, and we all stilled, waiting for something or someone to answer.
But nothing was here. No movement. No voices. No sudden rush of bodies.
Just silence.
Baxley moved first, slipping inside. Larana followed him. I hesitated and then stepped in after them. The smell hit me first. It wasn’t rot. Not exactly. But it smelled like something colder. Metallic maybe.
Whatever it was, it was wrong.
My gaze adjusted to the dim interior. Tables and chairs and a hearth gone cold.
I stopped.
“Don’t,” Baxley said sharply.
Too late because my eyes had already found it. The floor near the hearth was scorched, not burned like firewood or blackened like a cooking accident. Scorched in a wide, uneven circle like something had exploded outward.
Exploded with enough force that the stone had cracked beneath it.
And whatever had caused it… had been hot enough to split rock.
Larana crouched beside it, running her fingers just above the surface without touching. “No soot,” she murmured.
“No fire,” Baxley added.
I swallowed. That meant magic. I didn’t know enough about it, but I didn’t think this was the kind taught in institutions.
“Do we—”
“Shh,” Larana whispered. She and Baxley were both gazing up at the ceiling.
And suddenly, Skallfen being silent didn’t feel like a mystery. It felt like a warning. One we should’ve listened to.
“Amarya.” Larana’s voice was so low I could barely hear her. “I need you to run when I say so. Run straight for the gate and don’t look back.”
“I can help—”
“Help by running,” Baxley told me. “Don’t look back, and don’t stop until you’re clear of here.”
I swallowed hard. I looked up just as the wood above creaked, and a slow trickle of dust fell lazily in the silence of the room.
“What is it?” I asked them, but they were both fixed on the floor above. I saw their grips tighten on their swords.
Larana glanced at me. “Amarya, now… go.”
I didn’t hesitate. I did as I was told, but I looked up reflexively when the ceiling split. It didn’t crack; it split. Wood tore downward as something forced its way through from above, slow and heavy, in no rush to get below, but wrong. So wrong.
A limb — too long, pale, wrong at the joints — pushed through the broken boards.
And the air… warped.
I heard Baxley say something, but I couldn’t make it out because my feet were carrying me fast out of there.
I ran back down the street we had walked up. We weren’t far from the gate, although it felt like it was still a good distance as I sprinted flat out toward the snow beyond.
And as I ran out, he ran in.
Nicco didn’t say anything. His hood was blown back, and his face covering wrapped around the lower half of his face. He didn’t even look at me as he flew past, his feet sure and steady on the snow below.
I didn’t pause either. I aimed for the patrol of soldiers, and I didn’t slow until I was caught by one of them as I skidded to a stop.
“What is it?” the captain demanded.
I fought to catch my breath. “I don’t know,” I said. “They told me to run.”
“Survivors?” Gralen asked me.
I shook my head. “I don’t know. I didn’t see anyone.” I looked up at the captain. “Dead or alive.”
“Do we go in, Captain Marson?” one of the soldiers asked.
The captain shook his head. “No. They went in, we’ll wait to see if they come out.”
An uneasy silence fell on us, and then I asked, because I had to ask. “What if it’s not them that come out?”
“Then you find us the trail out of here,” he snapped, his gaze unwavering on the gate.
From behind us, the long howl of a wolf broke the silence.
“Shit.” I turned to face the trees. “They followed us.”
“The wolves?” someone asked stupidly.
I looked between the trees, the vast expanse of white to the north of us, and the half-open town gate.
“Captain Marson?” I was already moving. “We need to get into that town and close the gate behind us.”
“We don’t know what’s in there,” Sergeant Gralen hissed, not waiting for his captain to speak.
I nodded, my stare on the captain. “But I do know what’s coming for us, and…” I looked at the wounded soldiers. “I think we need to be in there, rather than out here.”
His face screwed up as he looked between the danger coming out of the woods and the unknown danger of the silence behind the walls.
“Fuck.” Marson looked at me. “She’s right. Let’s move, and be ready to fight whatever comes at us.”
I had a small idea of what was in there, but I didn’t know how to tell them. Yet I knew I had to tell them.
But how did I tell them it was something I’d been told didn’t exist?
Something I’d laughed about, once, sitting too close to a fire with people who had never come this far north.
My stomach turned. “Captain Marson,” I said again, sharper this time. “If I’m right—”
“What?” Marson snapped.
I hesitated. Because saying it out loud made it real. “Have you ever heard of the Frosttaken?” I asked.
Blank stares. Of course, that was how they’d look. It mirrored my reaction when I’d been around that campfire many moons ago.
Gralen scoffed. “A children’s tale.”
“Another one?” one of the soldiers asked, causing his sergeant to glare at him and not me.
“I thought so too,” I said quietly. “They say it doesn’t hunt like other things. It doesn’t tear, doesn’t chase.”
Another howl split the air behind us, closer now. I didn’t turn, but the reminder of what did chase was a timely one.
“They say it takes the heat out of a place,” I continued, my voice tight. “Drains it. Leaves nothing behind but cold stone and empty space.”
Captain Marson’s expression shifted, just slightly. “And the people?” he asked.
I swallowed hard, wishing I didn’t have to answer.
“They don’t scream,” I said. “Because there’s nothing left in them to scream with.”
Silence.
Even the men behind us had gone still.
“Shades,” someone muttered.
Gralen shook his head. “And you think that’s what’s in there?”
I looked at the open gate. Remembering the stillness beyond it, and the town that should have been alive.
“I think,” I said carefully, “whatever it is in there… hasn’t left.”
“And you want us to go in?” someone asked.
I nodded. “I don’t think we have a choice.”
The howl came again, closer now. I looked at the gate, then the trees behind us.
It was a choice.
I didn’t pretend it was a good one.