As Taelon had predicted, the cold weather brought an end to my callers’ daily visits. And though I had an initial twinge of disappointment, for my pride’s sake at least, I got over it quickly and was glad to focus my energy on preparing for the upcoming winter, which was fast approaching. Everyone suddenly seemed very busy, hurrying to get everything done before the snow fell; butchering their pigs, salting the meat, and packing it away; digging up the last of their vegetables; stripping the remaining grapes off their vines; stuffing their barns with hay and storing away as much food and wood as they could.

Of course, it wasn’t only food and firewood. Not a week before the first snowflake was spotted, it had been announced to everyone’s apparent delight, and no one’s surprise, that Anhur and a certain Sortcha Odthra were betrothed, and planned to marry in midwinter. And according to some more or less reliable sources, Bri’arc had been nearly beaten to death by the father of some poor girl he had seen fit to debauch.

In hindsight, I decided I had been lucky, and put any thought of suitors far from my mind. Taelon too seemed even more cheered by this news and did everything he could to bring my spirits back up whenever he suspected I was feeling down.

The first snow brought with it an unexpected whirlwind of emotion.

It started only as a small fragment of sadness, as I sat on the window seat to watch the darkening sky and the small, dusty flakes that danced through the air. Then it was a torrent of anguish that squeezed my heart, and with little warning, tears spilled out of my eyes and dripped down my lips; salty, hot, and bitter.

How had so much time passed without my realizing it?

I heard a chair scraping against the floor, footsteps, and then felt a pair of warm arms envelope me in an embrace.

I tried at first to push him away, not because I didn’t want the comfort, but because I needed to push against something; to stick out my hands and have them meet more than empty air.

Taelon didn’t speak to me. He asked me no questions. He only held me as I wept and tried to decide what had triggered the onslaught of emotion.

The sadness inside me was chaotic and wild. It raged through my body like a beast, leaving me exhausted and weak in its wake. Taelon stayed with me until after my breathing was calm again, and the tears on my cheeks were dry, and then left me to wipe my nose and eyes in dignity. I could feel his curiosity, and his desire to ask me questions, but he did not and I was grateful to him. I didn’t know I could sort out what was inside me for myself, let alone try and translate it for him.

By the time I was decent and properly dried out, night had fallen. Outside the fine snow was white against the pitch black. I said goodnight and went to bed, feeling wretched.

The next morning, everything was covered in snow. The stone gate. The rooftops. The fenceposts and paths. Even the deep lacerations in the ground where late crops had been hastily dug up were scarring over with all-encompassing white.

My eyes were sore and swollen, my hair was tangled, and I knew I looked like a mess. But I pretended that the incident of the previous evening had not taken place, and Taelon took the hint and did the same.

By the afternoon, all the snow had melted, and for a short period, the weather was damp and warm.

Then it was freezing.

I noticed it at first when I awoke in the morning a week later and became aware of my nose and the tips of my fingers gone numb with cold, and the frost on the inside of the window-pane.

Taelon and I were busy for the next few hours gathering wood and coaxing the fire into a blaze. We waited and waited for it to end, but it didn’t. It only grew steadily colder. The snowless ground was frozen hard as stone, the frost so thick that it clung to the branches of the trees like crystal moss.

“I was told that Seaggis was the warmest of all the northern islands,” I commented one morning, as I stirred a pot of warm chicken broth over the fire.

“It is,” Taelon confirmed as he carefully stacked pieces of wood beside the chimney. He used two of his fingers to sweep off a bit of packed snow from one of them and leaned against the pile, holding out his hands to the flames.

“In general, the winters here have more rain than snow, but we do get a freeze now and then.”

“You look cold,” I noted as he struggled to unclasp his cloak with stiff, brittle fingers. I thought about helping but decided at the last minute not to. I might not have been courting Harid, but that didn’t mean I was courting Taelon.

We both sat in front of the fire, as close to the coals as we dared. I gave him a cup of the broth, then took some for myself, and we waited there, sipping on it, and trying to get the cold out of our bones.

“My first winter on Seaggis was a frozen winter,” Taelon said.

I waited for him to continue, and when he didn’t, I nudged him in the ribs and said, “Yes?”

“What do you mean?”

“The way you said it—” I took a sip from my cup “—made it appear as though you were going to tell a story.”

“Would it make you happy if I told it as such?” he asked.

“It would.” I brought my knees up to my chest and rested my chin on top of them. “It’s been a while since I’ve heard a story.”

“There isn’t much to tell.” He folded himself up in a similar manner. “We arrived in very early spring and stayed with Grieda for several months before we moved into this place. The first half of winter was mild, and we weren’t all that concerned. And then everything was frozen. Food, water, animals, people. At least forty died in the three months that it lasted, from hunger, cold, and illness. I was almost one of them.”

“You were?”

“I’ve not been—I don’t like the cold. I can’t handle it the way others can.” He rolled his hands together and hunched his shoulders against an imaginary blast of chill wind. “I caught a fever. The trees closest to us were frozen through and too young to make good firewood, so there was nothing to keep me warm.”

“How did you get better?” I asked.

“My brother went to Grieda for help. I don’t know what they did, but I survived, and then spring came.”

“How terrible.” I shivered. “I hope it won’t last for so long this winter.”

“I doubt it will.” He smiled at me with assurance. “And even if it does, we’re more prepared for it now, you and I, than my brother and I were.”

“If you say so.” I glanced outside where I could see the frozen land that was the island. Everything was still, not a breath of wind, not a brush of a snowflake. I’d never spent a winter where I was responsible for keeping myself warm and fed before.

“Everyone else on Sunah will have it worse than us,” Taelon said as an afterthought, following the direction of my gaze.

My thoughts went immediately to my parents. Would they be warm inside our house? Would they have enough to eat? Were they even still alive?

“I don’t know who it is you’re thinking about,” Taelon said, “but I wouldn’t worry too much. Anyone in a city or town will have a fair chance of survival.”

“I don’t know.” I sighed. “The Radkkans are everywhere in Saje, and food was being rationed even before there were wars.”

“Do you miss your home?” he asked. He set his cup of broth down on the hearth.

“Every second of every day,” was my answer.

“When the invasion ends—” He tucked his hands close to his chest and rested his cheek on his knees. “When it’s all over, will you . . . be going back there?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I always planned on leaving Saje, but I would like to go home, at least to see my family again, and let them know that I am safe, and to know that they are as well.”

“Couldn’t you ask them here?”

I was taken aback and couldn’t immediately decide what to say.

“Was that presumptuous of me? It’s only, I wish you wouldn’t leave, Ingrith. Or, if you really did want to, I—I would hope you wouldn’t object to me coming with you.” His voice lowered, and he rubbed a smudge of soot off one of the hearthstones with his finger. “I would come with you, either way. But I’d rather you wanted me too.”

“Why, yes of course you could, if it’s what you truly wanted,” I told him evenly. “It’s only that I don’t see why you would want to. You have a home and life here. And a brother who will one day return.”

“But you are part of it,” he insisted. “It wouldn’t feel right without you. And my brother won’t return.” His eyes reflected the firelight that had burned down. His tone was final, doubtless.

I didn’t know what to say, so I made to stand up and add more wood, but Taelon placed a hand on my arm to stop me and did it himself. Afterward, we talked about other things. The odd placement of the village well on the edge of the forest. Curiosity about whether more ships would arrive before spring. Dissatisfaction at the fewer hours of daylight.

I kept the conversation well out of the direction of our previous one, and he let me, but I knew that there would come a time when he wouldn’t. A time where it would come round again, with no veils to hide its true subject. A time where I would have to face him, and myself, and whatever else there might or might not be to come to terms with.

Each day was colder than the last. Even when it was so cold that I thought it couldn’t get any colder, somehow it did, to the point where even with the fire blazing in the house, and wound up in my warmest dress, a cloak, and a scarf, I was still shivering.

Taelon didn’t go out into the village anymore. I helped him find and bring in wood, as much as we could, until it was almost all we did from one day to the next.

I would make my way slowly to the forest and would use a stick to scrape the moss off the ground and the trees, then bring it back to soften and stuff in the cracks in the wood that were open gates for the drafts to creep in. It was so cold that we would take turns at night, staying up by the fire to keep it from going out, because if it did, we wouldn’t be able to start it again, and we would freeze.

It took me ages to get to sleep every night. The warmth of my blanket was not enough to keep out the winter air, and I would huddle, fully dressed underneath the covers, curled up like a kitten until at last, sleep put me out of my misery.

One night, I was awoken by a pair of hands shaking my shoulder, and I heard Taelon’s voice telling me to wake up.

I didn’t want to. I was no longer cold and thought that if I got out of bed, surely, I would be again, so I just muttered “No,” and shut my eyes tighter.

“Ingrith, you must wake up.”

Something about the way he said it made me open my eyes. Almost immediately, I realized that things weren’t right.

“Why, goodness. I can’t—” I opened and closed my fingers. “Taelon, I can’t feel—I can’t feel them.”

He wrapped his hands tightly around mine and brought them to his lips. The warmth of his breath was searing against my skin.

He let them go and tugged me up.

“It’s cold enough now—” he said, “—that we could die if we fall asleep. Take the quilt.”

I did so and followed him out of my room and to the hearth, trembling.

“We’ll stay here.” He said, and I could see that he’d brought out bedding of his own.

My teeth chattered, and I stood on my heels to keep my toes from the icy floor.

“It’s a good thing, that you’re trembling,” Taelon comforted me, and urged me to sit down on the padded ground. Close as it was to the fire, I couldn’t feel the heat.

It was only after he sat down beside me that I comprehended that we would be in bed together, and despite the urgency of the situation, my heart beat a little faster.

I had heard many stories where a beautiful young woman and a dashing young man lay together. It was always very romantic and exciting.

There was nothing the least bit exciting or romantic about that night.

The cold soon drove away any hesitation or sense of decency, and we huddled together as close as was possible. My back was to the fire, his was to the door, and this sacrifice warmed me more than the coals. He had his arms wrapped tightly around my shoulders, and mine were folded against me, pressed up against his chest. Any sense of intimacy I might have felt at being so close to a man, at sharing my warmth with his, and feeling our hearts beat together was lost in the bone aching cold.

Every two hours, the one of us who was awake would feed the fire, then awaken the other and fall back asleep. We kept going on like this, in a terrible, nightmarish cycle that seemed to never end. The night was stubbornly dark, and I could hear the howl of the wind and the snap of the trees, brittle in the cold, as the harsh gale set upon them in a relentless attack.

Then it was morning.

I sat up, horrified, as I saw the embers of the fire blinking sleepily out of the ashes at me. I jumped out of the blankets and knelt before them, blowing softly, begging, and coaxing them to burn.

Taelon stirred at my side and I felt him sit up.

“What is it?” he asked.

“The fire has nearly gone out!” I cried. “I must have fallen asleep! Oh, curses!”

He got up quickly and fetched some small pieces of kindling from the box near the firewood, and together we built back the fire.

At first, it appeared it wouldn’t catch. The little tongues of flame were reluctant to reach out from the warm safety of the ashes. But as soon as one attached itself to the wood the others, encouraged, began to do the same, and after a while, they were crackling away and popping busily as they devoured the kindling with an appetite.

We piled on more wood, and only after we were sure that it wouldn’t go out, did we allow ourselves to sit back.

“I’m so, very sorry,” I apologized to Taelon, wiping the soot from my face with my sleeve.

“There was no harm done.” He wrapped one of the quilts around my shoulders. “We were both exhausted, and we caught it in time. Don’t let yourself feel guilty.”

“I will feel guilty,” I told him stoutly. “No matter what you say. We might have frozen to death because I was so foolish.”

“Ingrith,” Taelon stood up and breathed into his hands to warm them, “there was no harm done. We should find something to eat. Are you hungry?”

I was hungry, so I followed him to the panty. We hadn’t prepared anything beforehand, so breakfast would have to be made from scratch.

“Damn,” I heard him mutter and wished that I had a candle, or at least that the morning light would be just a bit brighter so that I could see what was happening.

“What is it?” I asked, dread stewing in my stomach. “Is there nothing left?”

“No.” He sighed and brought something out so that I could view it for myself. “We have enough food to last us many more weeks,” he told me dryly. “If only everything wasn’t frozen solid.”

He unwrapped the package he had brought out and held up a fish by its tail like a sword. It stood straight in the air.

“Frozen solid,” he repeated.

I took it from him and whacked it experimentally against the wall.

“So it is,” I laughed, astonished at the creature which dared to remain hard and unspoiled in my hands.

“Goodness. What shall we do?” I whacked the fish against the wall one more time for good measure, only just a bit harder.

Taelon ran a hand over his chin and looked resignedly at the pantry.

“We’ll just have to thaw things when we want to eat them, I suppose,” he said. “What a bother.”

“At least nothing shall become spoiled.” I tried to shine a ray of sunlight into the matter. “It shall last longer this way.”

“It will,” he agreed and cheered up a bit.

We brought a few potatoes and the fish into the kitchen. The potatoes we rolled into the ashes of the fire to bake, and the fish we hung above the flames, to be turned now and then to make sure that it thawed evenly on all sides.

The water pail was empty. There was no snow to melt, and I didn’t much want to make the trip to the village, to the edge of the forest and then the well, which would no doubt be frozen itself, so we decided we would make do without water for the time being.

When the potatoes were as ready as I could wait for them to be, I rolled them out of the ashes with the fire poker and rubbed them off in a handful of my skirt. The steamy, pale insides smelled heavenly when I sliced them open and lifted one to my nose to inhale the scent.

“Oh, it is such a shame that we haven’t any butter,” I sighed. “Butter and a bit of salt would just about make these the most delicious things on the continent.” I handed one to Taelon with a warning to be careful.

“Perhaps this spring we should find someone to give us some milk and cream,” I suggested, sitting down at the round table with my potato.

“We could,” Taelon agreed. “But I haven’t the faintest idea of how to make butter.”

“I do,” I said, feeling proud that at last there was something I knew how to do that he did not. “Every spring my mother and I would make it together, and I don’t believe that I’ve forgotten how. It doesn’t matter that we don’t have a churn. Grieda likely has one we could borrow. And you can make a little bit without one anyway.”

Before he had a chance to answer, there was a knock at the door. We both stared at it, wondering who might want to make the freezing journey up the hill. Then Taelon stood up to open it.

Grieda stood in the doorway, pointy cheeks reddened from the cold and her breath frozen in a white crust along the edge of her scarf.

“Grieda!” Taelon exclaimed and stepped aside so she could come in. “What are you doing out?” he asked. I gave up my seat by the table so she could sit, and one of the baked potatoes was placed in front of her.

She didn’t say thank you but nodded to me in a way that I supposed must imply that she was thankful.

“I’ve been making rounds,” she explained, splitting the potato in half with her bare hands and gnawing at it. “Checking to see who’s dead, and who just has frostbite.”

“Oh, dear!” I cried. “Has anyone died?”

“Only three so far.” She licked a bit of potato off her lip. “The Odthras’ eldest, but that’s no surprise. The Binder succumbed last night. And Rollo, though I suppose that’s not much of a surprise either.”

“That’s a shame.” Taelon’s dark brows hugged his eyes.

“Yes, but he was quite old, so you can’t say it’s unexpected,” Grieda reasoned.

“It is a shame,” I agreed genuinely. “He made such fine work.”

“Oh, Ingrith—” Taelon turned to me with an air of suddenly remembering something very important. “You’ll have to pay off your side of the bargain now.”

“So I shall,” I acknowledged aloud. “I shall go down once it’s warm enough.”

“I shall come with you,” he said. “When you do.”

“What bargain?” Grieda looked between us with narrowed eyes.

“It’s nothing terrible,” I told her. “Rollo asked me to come down to his shop and look after whatever needed looking after once he died, in return for my dresses.”

“I would be careful making that sort of deal,” Grieda warned me. “It may not become what you expect.”

“Taelon has already told me this.” I threw him a look. “And I’m not worried. There was nothing sinister when we spoke. I am sure I’ll only be tidying a bit.”

Grieda only left a noncommittal grunt in response, and the conversation turned from there into the subject of food, and it was only after Taelon mentioned the frozen fish that I remembered we had the very one still roasting in the fire, and Grieda chortled as I leaped up in a panicked hurry to save it from the hungry flames.

“Well, it’s not cold, so I suppose that’s something.” I sighed, scraping off a bit of charred skin. Though the previously silver gleaming fish scales resembled something close to coal, the inside was steamy and bronze, and slightly crispy.|

Grieda decided that she had been invited to stay, so we split the fish between the three of us, and though I had my doubts at first, I found I was having a near good time by the end of it, and we were all in a cheerful mood when we bade goodbye.

The warmth from the visit faded as the day went on. I grew steadily more and more morose, and couldn’t think why until dinner time, while I hacked bad-tempered at a turnip that refused to thaw all the way through.

What reminded me exactly I couldn’t recall, but it came to me abruptly that it had already been winter for a month and a half. Autumn was over.

I was seventeen.

I didn’t cry upon knowing this. I didn’t feel faint. There was only grim awareness of the fact, and this was sorrowful in itself.

The weather grew warmer, till the point that I hoped the rest of the winter might pass mildly, but then it snowed, and I resigned myself to the fact that the cold had yet to conclude.

On the next warmest day, Taelon and I plodded down to the village, trekking through ankle-high snow that soaked the skirts of my dress and weighed it down around my feet.

When we entered Rollo’s shop, I was surprised to find that everything was clean, and without a speck of dust. Ribbons were sorted neatly and placed in separate piles depending on the color. The fabrics were uncreased and lay in smooth bolts on their respective shelves. The floors were swept, the counter and windowsills were dusted. There wasn’t a thing out of place.

“It doesn’t look like he’s left anything to be looked after,” Taelon said relievedly, running his hand down a coil of braided cloth.

I was of this mind as well until a slightly more detailed search of one of the lower cupboards led me to a surprise.

Hidden in a nest of scraps of cloth and straw sat a tiny, black, bird.

“Oh, my!” I exclaimed. “Oh dear, surely he hadn’t hoped for me to take care of this little crow! I’m sure I wouldn’t know how!”

Taelon knelt in front of it and brushed his fingertips over its tiny head.

Either it was too frightened to move, or it was already used to human company, for it did not attempt to shy away.

“You made a promise,” he reminded me. “It would be bad luck to break it now he’s dead. And taking care of birds is not too difficult. My brother had a—” He dampened his lips with his tongue. “We will just keep it warm and feed it, then once spring comes around, we’ll set it free.”

“You shall help me?” I asked hopefully.

“Of course.” He gently slid the crow into the palm of his hand and tucked it into his pocket. “Poor creature,” he said sympathetically. “I wonder how it has survived so long?”

The crow was taken home, and we made it a nest similar to the one it had in its cupboard. near the fire and set out a little dish of water and scattered some breadcrumbs around to tempt it out of its fright.

“I wonder that it doesn’t fly away,” I remarked, sitting next to it. “Its wings look perfectly healthy and strong.”

“He’s weak, no doubt, and frozen. And a bit young. If we found him any later, he would have been dead.”

“Miserable little thing.” I shook my head in pity. “I am glad that we found him in time . . . ”

I trailed off when I found Taelon looking at me with a sense of expectancy in his eyes.

“What is it?” I asked warily.

“I would have thought the first thing you would do after bringing him back would be to give him a name. ‘His Lordship’ or something similarly ridiculous.”

The humor in his eyes was less teasing and more affectionate, so I couldn’t bring myself to be bothered by it. Though I managed to pretend to be.

“Now that I think of it.” I tilted up my chin to stare him down, with as close as I could to a haughty toss of my head. “His Lordship’ would make an excellent name for such a regal creature.”

After a bit of friendly bickering, it was decided, and His Lordship looked on from his nest of rags and straw.

The weather enjoyed games that winter. The snow would melt, and then just as we thought it was gone for good, it would snow again, then rain, freeze, snow, and melt.

It was a game that was not the slightest bit amusing for any of us who had to navigate the icy patches hidden beneath snow and heat our homes with firewood that was too damp to burn. I had to stop counting the many times I slipped and fell, the colorful bruises littering my skin, and counted instead how lucky I was that at least that I was not one of those many pitiable souls who broke a leg or an arm. Or even unfortunate Iocht, one of the new women, who cracked open her head and died before anyone could find or help her.

But on a more pleasant note, with the warmth and nurturing we provided, the crow grew fast, and though he seldom liked to leave his nest, he did occasionally step out of it to peck at the crumbs we left out for his enjoyment; and this at least proved to be suitable entertainment when there was nothing else to stay the hand of tedium.

The days grew shorter and darker as we approached the Fifteen Nights. Even though I’d lived through sixteen of them already, the adjustment was still difficult, when I awoke knowing it was morning, but to a dark sky. Moonless, starless, tinged red like blood and coal dust mixed.

We lived our normal lives through candlelight. Every other late morning, when the red was more prominent than the black in the sky, I would wrap myself up in my cloak and shawl, and work for the next several hours with the other women in the inn, making candles from the wax supplied to us by the apiarist.

Even with the fire at full blaze, knitted stockings, shawls, my cloak, and a scarf, by the time I came home I would be frozen so stiff I couldn’t even feel the cold. My back would ache from bending over the wax pot. My fingers would be cracked and bleeding from the rough string, and my eyes grew bloodshot and tired from concentrating in weak firelight.

But I brought back candles. And for the whole of the next day, I could rest from the arduous task. And I needed only to last through fifteen days. It was not forever.

Taelon would lead me in front of the fire and soothe my cracked and burnt hands with a cool salve, and then he would help peel away the frozen scarf from around my mouth and give me a steaming cup of tea, or a baked potato. Anything to wrap my frozen fingers around and make them usable again.

Then we would sleep there, by the fire, until a new dark morning dawned, and the day began anew. If I was not making candles, I was combing the edges of the forest for sticks and dead branches to burn, while Taelon ventured further with the other men, searching for trees, felling them when necessary, to drag back and cut into pieces for the village folk to burn.

Such as it was, fourteen days passed, and we hardly said a word from one day to the next, until that evening, or what felt like evening, when the routine was broken.

Taelon was mending a tear in his coat. I was trying to knit a cowl, but my fingers were sluggish and brittle from prolonged exposure to cold, and the yarn on the needles was beginning to resemble more of a bird’s nest than anything else.

“What should we bring tomorrow?” he asked.

I lifted my head, my neck stinging as I removed my chin from its cramped position, tilted forward against my chest.

“Bring what where?”

“Ssaol.” He bit off his string and folded the coat over his knees. When he saw I still seemed confused, he looked taken aback.

“You didn’t celebrate it in Saje?”

“We did. But we never went anywhere for it.”

“You must do it differently.” He stroked the sheepskin lining of the coat with his thumb.

“How do you do it here?”

“It’s a feast. Everyone gathers in the field, where they light the bonfire. There’s a big cauldron, and everyone brings something to put in it. And if you can, you gift things to those who have less and are struggling the most that winter. Then, in the morning, if you’re lucky, Seaggis will leave you something you need.”

“The island will?”

His eyes sparkled in the candlelight as he stared at them, the dozen wax stubs I’d put in a ring around us. The dozen we could spare.

“Most of the people on Seaggis are Daitthé. They believe the gods fell and there are spirits in their place. Spirits of the continent, and the islands. Ours here is Seaggis. The Half Eye. When Ragnagh split in two, she lost her sister spirit and roams Seaggis alone. She can see glimpses of the future, and can nudge it along, pause it, but cannot prevent or make it come true. If we show kindness and generosity, she’ll gift us something we need.”

“You believe this?”

“I might.” He cupped his palm around one of the candlewicks, where the flame was struggling, and it stopped quivering. It stood straight and stretched as high as it could to see over his fingers, the darkness outside, and then shrunk back down; disheartened, but protected from drafts coiling around our circle of light like poisonous snakes.

“The spirits don’t demand sacrifices or punishments. They don’t ask that you live in pain and fear of your mistakes and sins. If I had to believe in something, spirits wouldn’t be such a bad thing.”

“Have you seen her?” I asked. “The spirit?”

“No.” He made to shake his head, and then hesitated, eyes drawing into a frown as he reconsidered. “You know, that might not be true. I think I did see her once. I might have done, at least. But I’m not certain, so you mustn’t take my word for it.”

“Never mind that. Go on.” I straightened up, a long-missed breath of life bringing me back into the world.

“It was the midwinter last.” He stared narrowly at the top of the windowsill, where frost was creeping over like moss, feathered and spiked. “I don’t think I would have thought twice over it if she hadn’t seemed so strange to me. This is a small island. Even if we aren’t friendly with everyone, we know each other well by sight. So, when I saw her, I immediately knew she didn’t live here. But then, there have been many new people arriving, for at least four years, so she might have just been one of them. And it was so dark. I might have been mistook.”

“What did she look like?”

“I couldn’t say. I was in the forest with the others searching for wood. I heard a stick snap and lifted my lantern to see if there was something there. She was just standing there, watching us. I couldn’t see her face, but she wore red. A dress made from red silk, and she was barefoot. That was the other thing that made it odd. The ground was covered in ice. Fifteen people had died of frostbite and the cold in the previous twelve days. And there she was. There wasn’t a breath of wind, but the silk flowed around her like it was caught in a breeze, and when she saw I was looking at her, she turned disappeared.”

“You didn’t follow her?”

“I never thought to.” His eyelashes fluttered as his gaze fell abashedly to the floor. “I wasn’t really in my right mind,” he mumbled. “One of the men had brought a bottle of something with him, and as it got colder, he started passing it around. I wouldn’t have taken it, except I couldn’t feel my fingers at all, and the others did better after having a bit. So, I was lightheaded when I saw her. And the strangeness of it convinced me she must have just been a vision of a sort. And I was the only one who saw her. I didn’t think of it once from then until now.”

The smile that flitted across his face was shy and embarrassed. “It likely wasn’t her. Forget I said anything, Ingrith.”

“Isn’t it a bit foolish to fill a bunch of men up with mead or ale and then have them cut down trees?” I kept my own smile light and humorous to assure him I wasn’t honestly making fun of him.

“We’d all have ended up frozen if we had not.”

“No one took a wrong swing and implanted an ax in the leg of a man instead of the trunk of a tree?”

“Not I.”

“That’s good then.”

“And you, Ingrith? How was Ssaol celebrated in Saje? Was it very different?”

“Fundamentally it was the same. Or should have been.” I wet my cracked lips and set down my knitting. My hands, the skin red and dry, took a moment to straighten out of their bent shape, and stung when I bunched them up in my dress skirt, the rough fabric catching and tearing the irritated flesh.

They looked as if they’d never be smooth again.

“We were told we must be good. If we were, then on the fifteenth, our Lord and his family would knock on our doors and deliver our presents and wishes. At first, just the sight of him would thrill me. He had a huge, beautiful sleigh, with bells and fur, pulled by two, spotted white horses. The most wonderful horses, with long manes and tails as white and perfect as fresh snow. And his family would dress in their finest clothes. One year his middle daughter, Eully, who was a few years younger than I, wore a green velvet cloak, trimmed with silver fur—” As I spoke, my fingers trailed dreamily over the cloth covering my lap, as though if I painted the picture in my mind vividly enough, I could summon it into the physical.

“—and an embroidered silk sash, and handbag from Radkka. Oh, I’d never wanted anything as badly. Every year after that I was sickeningly good every fifteen, and I wished with all my heart and soul for a cloak, sash, and handbag just like hers. I couldn’t dare ask my parents for such a thing. And I would never be able to afford anything like it myself, so my only hope was that the Lord would hear my wish and grant it. We were told he had a magic well, and that every day he went out into the courtyard and would listen to the wishes of good peasant children that could be heard from it.

“But my wish was never realized. He would drive up in his beautiful sleigh, with his beautiful family in their beautiful clothes, and every year I was given some small, mundane thing. A pair of knitted mittens. Some colored yarn for my mother to sew onto the head of a doll if I ever had one. A braided bracelet. Always something I already had, or something Mother could easily make. The only special thing was an orange. But all the children received them, so to me, it didn’t count. I thought it was my fault. I thought it must be because I wasn’t good enough. Until I was twelve. Then . . .”

“Then?”

I laughed at myself. “I can’t tell you. You’d think me awful rude and spoiled.”

“I never would. And you’ve piqued my interest now.” He touched my hand in a way I thought was supposed to be teasing encouragement, but turned into more of a caress.

Taelon’s hands were as rough and worn as mine, yet warmed me with a kind of heat I couldn’t get from flames or candlelight.

All of a sudden, I was shy as well, and couldn’t bring myself to meet his eyes.

“It embarrasses me now,” I said, and squeezed my hands together, ignoring the pain of doing so. “By the time I’d turned twelve, I had grown frustrated and sour. It didn’t make sense to me, that we serf children needed to be good just to get a pair of new mittens, while all the children with rich families would get finer and finer gifts every year whether they had been kind and generous or not. So, when Eully stepped out of her father’s fine sleigh, in her fine dress, and handed me a pair of woolen stockings, a scarf, and a little wooden cup, I—”

I sighed.

“I gave them straight back and told her I did not need those things which I had already. Don’t laugh.” I crossed my arms and frowned at him. “It isn’t something to laugh at. My mother was horrified by me. I had to bow and apologize for being selfish and ungrateful. It was the most humiliating thing I’ve ever had to do. Bow before a girl younger than myself in front of my own home. But then again . . . “ I breathed deeply. “I am glad I did it now.”

“Are you?” he asked interestedly. “Why?”

“Because when it comes to the important things, I have everything she does not. When the Radkkans invaded, they made a spectacle of her father, and killed him, even though he did not stand against them. His wife and daughters surely faced even worse a fate. I am alive. I am well. I am free.” I opened my palms and held them out, gently extended on either side. Unbound. Marred from work and not from cruelty. Powerful in their simplicity.

“I dressed in rough cloth. I ate peasant food. I lived in a peasant’s house, but I am become a woman. For all Eully’s fine things, at her end, they were naught but the dressings for a pig sent to be slaughtered. I suppose it does not matter how many Sefts are in your pocket when you face your death.”

“No, I suppose it does not,” Taelon agreed solemnly. “I did not know . . .” After a few seconds of hovering over what he wished to say, he changed it. “Would you wish for the same things now?”

“I hardly know.” I shrugged. “It’s always nice to have fine things. But I’m old enough now to see the difference between want and need. What of you? What would you ask for?”

“I’m afraid that unlike you, Ingrith,” his mouth remained serious, but his eyes smiled, “I am not yet able to differentiate between what I want and what I need.”

It was said candidly so that I might interpret it as I liked. I could take it he meant me, and say something or nothing accordingly, or I could take it to mean he meant some obscure thing that held no meaning for me, and thus act convincingly ignorant. But I could not decide which option to follow through with. The time when there wouldn’t have needed to be a choice was long past. I now no longer knew what I wanted from him, or myself, so I settled with knocking over a candle and making a scene putting out the flames that caught in my knitting.

The next day, instead of making candles, I lit them, and spent the morning and much of the afternoon making and finding things to bring to the bonfire that night. We had some flour leftover from before the Fifteen, but not enough for bread. There was no milk, potatoes, carrots, or fish. Only some frozen turnips, and some mushrooms I’d picked and dried in the late summer. It wasn’t anything to salivate over, but I refused to go to the feast empty-handed. So, the turnips and mushrooms were gathered up and set aside, and I turned to my last task with a flutter of nerves to accompany the shiver in my body.

I’d had few moments to work on the gloves during the past while. Only up to an hour a day, in-between candle making, wood gathering, food preparation, and Taelon’s company. He had a pair already of course, and at first, I’d only intended to mend them. But after a careful inspection I found that even if I patched the holes and tears and added a finger where one was missing, they would still be barely worth keeping at all.

So I’d traded one of Rollo’s dresses for a bit of sheep’s skin, some good leather, and my own needle at the All Trade, and set myself the task of making him a new pair.

But the more I got done, the more I put off finishing them.

Taking them out now into my lap, I appraised them. They were good gloves. I’d made every stitch tight and neat. The leather was dark and thick but flexible, and the sheepskin lining the cuffs would be warm. I’d made them longer than usual too, so his sleeves could be pulled down over them to keep out the snow, and I’d begun embroidering a thin circlet just below where the leather ended, and the furry wool began. And there I was stumped. Seemingly perpetually.

Every late summer, a hunting group from Morleun came down from Upperhalf and stayed in our town while they hunted the wild bison that roamed the planes and mountain cliffs in Lyoa. Our families would lend them our rooves, beds, and food for the duration of the hunt in return for a fifth of the bounty. Pelts. Bones. Meat. And stories. The Morleun men had such beautiful stories about their strong warrior women, their yurts built on stilts above the lake they lived over. There were stories of how they traveled between them on ice with their big, wolf-like hunting dogs, and fished through the weak spots near the edges. They had low, calming voices that could soothe a storm. Eyes darker than the night that smiled for their grim mouths. When continental peace was threatened, these hunting parties came no more. But we remembered them. Tall and limber, with the biggest hands that could wrestle a beast to the ground just as easily as they could stroke a child into slumber.

There was one man that would stay with my family every summer: Deddamou of Bear. And when I was small, he would give me his gloves to play with. Beautiful, embroidered gloves, from his woman, Mikkena of Hawk. I’d been fascinated to hear that Morleun women chose their husbands, rather than the men choosing their wives. They sewed a pair of gloves for the man they admired most, and when the time came, presented them as an offer of marriage.

Deddamou’s gloves were more beautiful than any I’d seen. The neatest, most intricate stitches. The Grey Tongue runes lining the cuffs. If I’d received such a gift, there would be no doubt in my mind that the maker loved me above all others.

So I hesitated on Taelon’s gloves, uncertainty stalling my needle.

I wasn’t expecting him to know of the story, and then perceive something more from the gift than was intended.

What halted me had nothing to do with his opinion at all, and more with my own. Because I did know the story. I needed to know if I was making Taelon a pair of gloves because I wanted to give him something useful after everything he’d given me, or if I stitched Runes of protection and luck onto the leather because there was a part of me that had chosen him, perhaps some time ago already, to be mine.

The truth remained obscure. The mist clouding my heart refused to clear and show me the answer. And I was out of time.

Just to be safe, I left it at Sil, Se, Yal, Piii. Protection. Safety. Health. Luck. Until I knew for certain, there would be no need to add Iril.

Where my devotion lay was uncertain.

I wore my best dress; the last of the two Rollo had made for me. And I brushed and plaited my hair even though I knew no one would be seeing enough of me to appreciate any of it. It was mild enough that I could stand to leave my mouth uncovered but still too cold to do the same with my head. Still. I knew I’d made an effort, and that counted for something. At least I felt like a person again, and not just the empty shell of one.

I opened my door, feeling at least a bit pretty, and startling Taelon who had his fist poised to knock.

I noticed him notice me, so I wasn’t all that put out when he didn’t tell me how I looked. It had taken time, but I was now familiarised with the way Taelon and compliments went together. He would offer them earnestly on any normal day when I was windswept or smudged with dirt but would be silent and solemn as a stone if I ever looked truly fine.

In his blushing silence, I’d grown to hear the compliments implied.

“You look very nice,” I offered a verbal one of my own because it would not be right for me to criticize him for giving me none when I did the same with him.

He let his hand drop and stepped back modestly.

He wore a grey tunic. The Thoran kind, that did up around the throat with a patterned collar, and lose sleeves that tightened at the elbow to the wrist.

“My brother’s.” He ran his fingers distractedly over a little wooden seal in his other hand.

“What’s that for?” I tilted my head to see it better.

“I was thinking of giving it up.” He handed it to me, and I let it rest its plump belly on my palm. “Seowan made at least a dozen others. I have no need of them now. I found them a few hours ago and thought maybe the village children would like them.”

“Seowan?”

“My brother.”

The seal’s eyes were two dark blue beads, and even though they were glass, they were kind. I could see the notches where the whittling knife had slipped, and the shallow dips where it stripped away wood that wasn’t needed.

Another gift of time. A gift of love. From brother to brother.

“I think they would like them,” I said. I gave the seal back and smiled at the sentimentality in Taelon’s eyes. I closed his hands around the toy and held them there, wondering for the first time what it would have been like to have an older brother or sister. A friendship that ran through my blood. An irreplaceable bond, unlike any other.

Only how much more painful would it be then if that bond was broken? He seldom spoke about his brother, and so I seldom thought of him. But we’d both lost someone special in the last few years. I was ashamed to know I often forgot that he too was in pain.

“Keep this one,” I murmured.

The field was not the one I remembered from Hamma. There weren’t the lanterns lighting every house in the village and lining the paths. There weren’t the tents, and bards, and people gathered, colorful, happy, and dancing in the field. The long grass was frozen stiff and bent in dry waves from the force of the wind. Ice and snow crusted the ground.

But there was one thing there that was the same.

The bonfire was already a beast when we arrived, leaping, and crackling over the wood, swaying fiercely with the breeze. It was strong enough that it dented the cold, and I had to resist transitioning into a run in my eagerness to reach it and feel its warmth.

There was a smaller cooking fire next to it, and around them both, low tables were laden down with the food the people had brought.

“Ingrith!”

I lifted my hand in a greeting as Verity called me and left Taelon behind to help she and the other women with the large cauldron situated over the smaller fire. Surrounded by warmth, we removed our mittens and our scarves and searched through the bounty for those things which could be thrown into a pot together and taste edible. We set aside the fruit preserves to be eaten with the bread, the fish, and the dried seaweed. I held my breath while my bundle was appraised and didn’t breathe again until it had been accepted.

It felt good to contribute, even if it was only in a small way.

I was handed a knife and told to cut up the carrots and other vegetables passed my way. Grieda worked a few women away from me, deftly slicing into a leg of meat, undeterred by the blood and slippery flesh.

Pariena, Pathedra, and Verity were rolling potatoes in and out of the bonfire with long sticks. Purity was laying out wooden bowls on the tables. The menfolk were busy with their axes, cutting the dead trees dragged from the forest into size. The children were gathered around the table with the gifts, staring wide-eyed and excited but not daring to touch.

It hurt me to see their hollow cheeks and pale faces. I envied Taelon almost, for having something to give to them, and I wished I had made something to offer on this one night of plenty for them.

Seeing the children brought Asetha to my mind, and my heart ached. I wondered if she had a mother somewhere who would come looking for her after everything was over. A mother who still thought she was alive. A mother who didn’t know her daughter’s body had been cast from the ship meant to carry her to safety and would never be recovered.

I wondered if my mother knew that I was alive and well. If she was in agony every day, thinking about what could have happened to me. Wondering where on the continent I had gone. So easily, I could have been one of those girls lost in the sickness, or the storm.

Soon most of the food was ready, and we were all busy putting it on the table and pouring out wine and ale into the drinking tankards supplied by the inn.

We were so busy I forgot my sadness and hunger. I didn’t have a moment to sit down and remember. I was called for every which way, by a child who wanted another potato, by a man who wanted his tankard filled, by one of the women asking me to help her chop or peel.

There must be enough to feed the whole village. Nothing could run low or out until everyone had drunk and eaten their fill.

So I was still running back and forth from the fire to the tables when Taelon found me, and he watched, perplexed.

“Aren’t you done?”

“No. And I won’t be,” I puffed, wiping my brow. I was hot for the first time since the winter began. “Not until everyone is finished.”

“There won’t be anything left by that time.” He crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes resentfully at the uncooked food keeping me prisoner.

“I can’t leave them to it.” I gestured reasonably to the other women still hard at work. “That wouldn’t be a fair thing to do. But you go on. You mustn’t wait for me.”

“But I—”

“Taelon.” Grieda marched over to us with a platter of sliced ham weighing down her arms. “If you aren’t here to help, go. A cooking area is for cooking. Not courting.”

I pretended I hadn’t heard the last word and turned hastily around to arrange some wilted carrot tops into a tidier pile.

“Won’t you let her go, Grieda?” I heard Taelon ask, and wondered if he didn’t correct her because he did intend to court me.

The thought made my stomach knot. I wasn’t sure if it was a good knot or a bad knot.

“I don’t see why not.” Grieda sighed. “Everyone has had a first round. Alright. Take her. I’m sure we can do without.”

Taelon extended his hand, as though to take mine, but at the last moment, his fingers caught my sleeve instead and then dropped back to his side where they hung, fidgeting, like he suddenly didn’t know what to do with them.

With a surge of slightly exasperated bravery, I held out my hand and grabbed his roughly. If he’d been James, he wouldn’t have hesitated. Keeping my eyes to the ground, I pulled him away from the fire and toward the tables, my cheeks red.

I knew Grieda was smirking at us.

As soon as we hit the cold air, my courage abandoned me, and I his hand. Horrified, confused, and embarrassed, I pretended all was well and shoved a bowl into his arms.

“Have you eaten at all?” I asked the frosted grass at his feet.

“No. I wanted to wait for you.”

“You shouldn’t have,” I said in a clipped tone. He didn’t say anything back, only followed me as we filled our bowls and then found two empty spots at one of the tables.

Feeling sorry for snapping, I tried to offer him something to drink, but he covered the tankard with his hand, shaking his head.

“I don’t think I should.”

“I shouldn’t either,” I agreed. “The last time I drank mead, I—”

The last time I’d drunk mead, I’d kissed him, full in the mouth, and then fallen asleep.

I grated my teeth along the inside of my cheek. “Here. Have a bit anyway.” I moved his hand aside and poured in a healthy amount.

By the time the feast was mostly over, and some of the villagers were beginning to slip away home to their beds, I was stuffed so full I didn’t know if I would be able to move. Eating till I was near bursting with good and rich food, my weary body was filled with deep and satisfying exhaustion. I longed to curl up near the fire on my cloak, lay my arm beneath my head, and fall asleep. But such a thing would be unseemly.

I would not be unseemly. Not when I was still a stranger to many here.

So I touched Taelon’s shoulder and told him I would wander down to the beach to walk it off.

As soon as I was out of the protective heat of the bonfire, I had to clutch at my shawl and bite down on my lip to stop my teeth from chattering. The cozy doze that sank over my head like a fuzzy woolen headscarf unraveled further and further with every step I took toward the sand. The wind grew bitter, the cold ripe. The waves tossed and flung their foamy heads and charged for the beach with zeal.

I stood where the village path ended and the sand began, my toes numbing, my fingers knotted in my shawl, and my hair; ripped from the constraints my attempt at neatness and beauty subjected it to, tangled, twisted, and lashed at my face.

But I did not turn back. For there, sitting on one of the jagged rocks protruding like monster teeth from the sand bed, was a woman.

She wore a red dress that, unlike my own, was not bothered by the fervor and wildness of the winter wind. It rippled and flowed about her pale legs like a stream of water, and her hair, the color of browning butter, fell around her in smooth rivulets.

She turned her head and saw me, and I knew I had seen her before. There was something in the bored, slightly cold blue eyes that encroached upon me an immediate sense of familiarity.

I heard her sigh, even above the waring voices of water and air. She slid off her perch and moved toward me with light, but slightly duck-footed steps. Her bare feet made no impression upon the wet, snow-dusted sand.

As soon as she stood in front of me, I saw that her left eye was covered in a milky, pale sheen, the pupil dulled and off-center, weeping sticky tears that entangled her long eyelashes and clung to her fair cheek.

“Have you been good?” Her voice was throaty and tired, but still lilting and musical to my ears. And though everything about her appearance was elegant and proud, her slender shoulders were slouched carelessly, so she had to lean back to see me properly. “A little bird told me you have. Well, what is it you wish for this year, Judeth?”

“Seaggis.” I wasn’t startled by how certain I was that this being was she.

Her lips turned up in a dry smile. “You remember me. How sweet of you.”

“Why have you come to me?” I asked her. My words sounded to me like an echo. It was my voice they were put to, but they felt estranged and detached, like they came from another place.

“To grant those kind and generous mortals who so wish it, a gift.” Her right eye gleamed. “What is it you would ask of me, Judeth? What is your wish?”

I had so many wishes. To see my parents. To be told if Sashada was safe and well. To ask whether I did indeed love Taelon and if it wasn’t wrong to pursue that love. But my mouth opened, and I replied, “What gift would be most useful to me?”

Seaggis licked her pink lips and let her head fall to one side, as her jaw worked consideringly. “A difficult question. But I am pleased. It seems you are now willing to receive answers, whether or not they are what you wished to hear. Let me do the same.”

She lifted her palm out level with her breast, and the wind stopped. Sound stopped. The waves rose and fell in slow motion, silenced by the awe the spirit’s presence commanded.

We both watched as the gentle snowflakes fell about us, now undeterred, and clustered in her cupped hand, preserved and perfect with no heat to strip them of their delicacy and render them nothing but droplets of water.

Seaggis gathered her breath and scattered them in one puff, like dandelion seeds in late summer. I blinked them away and peered into her hand, expecting something whimsical and mysterious to be seated in her palm.

But there was nothing.

“I see,” she said.

I did not.

Her hand fell back to her side, and she stared at me, hard.

“There is no shield,” she rubbed her fingers together, perhaps remembering some tingle of magic in them, “which I can provide that will protect you from the future. No veil I may weave to hide you from fate and legend and what must be. No sword I may have forged for you that will defend against the viciousness and brutality that will face you. And there are no answers I can give for that which is not certain. The future is fickle, Judeth. Many things have been planned for you. Some that have happened. Some that may happen, and some that will. I cannot tell you where to step; who to speak to; where to lay your hand. I can tell you very little. I can give you only one bit of advice, as is my curse. One thing to do. One thing to say. This, negligible as it may seem, is the best gift I have in my power to give you. Is it what you want?”

I nodded, heart thundering with the waves that swelled and roared with their previous passion once again. Small advice was better than none.

Seaggis extended her arm, and I didn’t flinch when she touched my shoulder. She pulled me against her, into a chill embrace.

“Say no when you wish to say yes—” Her voice lowered, softer and softer, yet it was loud inside my head. “And if you fail, then you must say yes when you wish to say no.”

My back burned where her fingers brushed against the mark on my shoulder blade. The ugly, accursed mark that had been with me since birth. It felt as though it were being branded upon my skin with a hot poker, and I fought to pull free.

Seaggis let me go, and the instant I was out of her arms, the pain vanished. There was nothing but an intense throbbing where her fingers had lain, and I inched my hand over it, feeling for something, anything different.

“You will not remember this conversation, nor me,” Seaggis said, unapologetic.

“Then how am I to know when your advice is to be taken?”

“When the mark throbs. When it pulses with pain, you will know. You will feel when. But mind—” Her mouth set itself grim over her face. “You must do as I have said. You have those two chances before you will be sunk deep into the clay of fate. Too deep to be saved. Do you understand?”

I said yes, even if I wasn’t certain I did. Somewhere inside me, perhaps the same place my words came from, did understand.

Seaggis smiled, and it was raggedly cynical and unimpressed, but the light glittering in her right eye was affectionate and sad.

“I wish you all the best this upcoming year, Judeth.”

One especially huge wave rose into the air, and surged across the sand, sending its echo to run over my shoes and drench the hem of my dress.

“Oh, sard,” I cursed, lifting my feet and setting them back down upon the shifting ground the retreating water left behind. My toes squelched in my woolen stockings and leather soles. My wet dress stuck cold to my legs. “How did that happen?”

“Are you alright, Ingrith?”

Taelon avoided a patch of ice and reached out his hand for me. I let him take my wrist and walk me back up the path to a safer distance. “What happened?”

“Truly, I don’t know.” I stamped my feet against the frozen dirt and stone. Already they were so cold they were going numb. “You didn’t have to come looking for me. I was in no danger.”

“You were gone nigh on an hour.”

“An hour?” I exclaimed and, stared at the black sea. “How strange. It feels like it has only been three minutes since I left. How time can slip through your fingers without you even noticing it.”

“What were you doing?” he asked me and curled my fingers inwards as he covered my hand with his. “Your skin is freezing.”

“Watching the waves, I suppose,” I guessed dully. And it seemed that must have been what I was doing. But there was a sense; a heavy, uncomfortable sense that there had been more.

But for all the pondering and searching of my head that I did on the way home, by the time we were both warm again and side by side in front of the fire, there was nothing to show for it. Just waves. And snowflakes, light as dust in my eyelashes.

I’d only just dozed off when I awoke again, cursing myself for having forgotten, and disentangled myself from the blankest, holding the neck of my chemise in my fist to keep the cold air from getting in. I added some wood to the fire and scampered into my room to find the gloves I’d made. Then, wincing from the cold, lay them carefully on Taelon’s bed, where he would be sure to see them tomorrow morning when he got dressed.

I climbed back under the covers, wary of keeping my cold feet away from the person beside me, and tucked the quilt underneath my chin.

For a while I stared at the fire, feeling as though there were deep thoughts that should have been plaguing me. Answers to answers that raised more questions than I had before. But there were none.

For the first time in many nights, my mind was still.

The next morning, I awoke to the alien sensation of light; bright and piercing, infiltrating the lids of my eyes. I covered them with my hands, confused and irritated until realization had me sitting up and laughing in joy.

It was the sun. Gold and so bright my eyes streamed even from just staring about the room, but I did not mind.

I jumped out of the blankets and tore open the door, not caring that the sharp air bit my cheeks, my fingers, and my nose, nor that I was still half-blind from fifteen days and nights in darkness.

“Oh, Taelon. Taelon, awaken this moment!” I called to him from the doorway. “Taelon, the sun has risen!”

It happened every time. And every time I was even more glad than the time before. Because every time there was a part of me, a small, unfaithful part of me that doubted I would see natural light again.

There was the rustling of blankets, soft, slightly unsteady footsteps across the floor, and then he took the place beside me, squinting in the ferocity of the light.

“Isn’t it the most beautiful thing?” I sighed happily.

“Very beautiful.” I turned my head and started a bit when I saw he was not looking at the sky, as I was, but at me. He dropped his eyes right away, looking charmingly shocked with himself, and pretended there was something in one of them.

“What is that?” I asked him, pointing to a flash of silver that caught my gaze. It came from the cliff tree. A glint in the light.

“Shall we go see what it is?” I asked, hoping it wasn’t merely a frost-covered leaf still clinging to the otherwise barren branches.

We went back in to pull something onto our feet and fetch our cloaks. I ran out with mine barely on, because I couldn’t imagine still being inside when he found my gift.

It was not a frosty leaf. It was a basket. A fine, sturdy basket hanging on the lowest branch, and inside it was a small clay pot of honey, a single orange, slightly frozen, a letter, and a sturdy but intricate silver comb.

“Look at this!” I said as soon as Taelon had arrived, the gloves in one hand and a furrow on his brow. I dug out the comb and thrust it out to him accusingly. “Where could you have found it? How much did you work for it?”

Taelon stared at the comb in my fingers and then shook his head. “It is not from me, Ingrith. As much as it would have pleased me to say it was. I have never seen it before.”

“I don’t believe you,” I said uncertainly. “And the honey?”

He shook his head again. “It would certainly ease me if I could claim so.”

“Ease you?”

He held out the gloves, the frown deepening. “You made them, didn’t you?”

I hugged the basket to my chest, hurt. “Do you not like them?”

“I like them. Very much. But—” He twisted them in his hands. “But I have given you nothing in return. I cannot accept them.”

I snorted, half annoyed, half relieved. “Don’t be silly. How can you say that? You’ve given me more than I can ever hope to repay. And they’re only a pair of gloves, not a crown jewel, or anything. Don’t let it distress you. If you cannot accept them as a gift, accept them as a piece of due come to you.”

I took out the orange. “It seems I must believe you. I don’t see how you could have gotten this. We shall share it. And the honey. But this remains a mystery.” I took out the last item in the basket, the letter, and fingered the seal keeping it shut. “Who is it for?”

He took it, broke the wax with no hesitancy, and when he opened it I saw his throat bob as he read the first line,

“Well?” I asked. Part of me sheltered the possibility that it was from my parents. But I knew that must not be, as they didn’t know where I lived and didn’t use wax seals.

The troubled wrinkle between Taelon’s eyes disappeared as his eyebrows rose and the corners of his mouth floated up

“Well?”

“It is from my sister.”

I could not be disappointed. Not when he looked so glad. And it wasn’t disappointment that I felt. More unease. Letters could be explained. The ships still came, even if they were months apart. But oranges were no longer in trade. The pattern circling the honey pot was not Seaggan. And who in Sunah’s name would think to give me a silver comb?

Something danced across the ocean surface. A ripple of red. A flash of blue. But as soon as I looked, it was gone.

As soon as the sun and the moon resumed their equal shares of the sky, Taelon began trading his labor for goods again, and in the evenings, he would tell me about the goings-on in the village, of which there were more now that the freeze was over.

It was generally mundane, simple things. Like the fuss someone made over the size of her order of something or another; whose roof had collapsed under the weight of melting snow, and which shops were opening again. But one afternoon, he came back bearing bad tidings.

There was a fever being spread.

“Two dozen have been affected by it already in three days,” Taelon told me, and he looked visibly concerned.

“Is it that serious?” I enquired from my position near the window. It was warm enough that day that to sit too near the fire would be uncomfortable.

“No one has died yet, but it is only a matter of time, and in a small village like this, it will spread quickly.”

I shuddered, remembering the nightmare of my journey over. The screaming, the moaning, the coughing. The thick scent of sweat and sick tinged with the salty tang of blood. The terrifying shadow of a promise that you would not escape. That you could only bide your time and wait for it to grasp you.

It would not be like this, I told myself. Things were different now. Circumstances were different.

“Is it hopeless then?” I asked him. “Is there no one who can help?”

“There are a few people who might help, but no physicians. No one at all close to one, except Grieda, but no one shall go to her.”

“Why?”

“It is the way it is.”

“Then you should stop going out into the village,” I said. “Wait for it to wash through and take who it shall take. We have enough to live on for now. Please.” I grasped his hand, and the heat of his skin was like fire.

“I think it would be best,” he agreed. “And in any case—” He smiled at me comfortingly. “I doubt either of us has cause for worry. Most illnesses like these only take the old, very young, and the weak. We are none of those.”

“This is true.” I felt better thinking about it that way. I had survived one deathly illness. I could do so again.

“Spring must be approaching,” Taelon said thoughtfully after a few moments where we had both fallen into silence. “Surely, by now it must be. It is so dreadfully hot, isn’t it? Ingrith, would you open the window?”

I did as he asked, and then returned to his side, something terrible beginning to boil in my stomach.

“Do you feel well?” I asked carefully.

“Do you know—” He flicked a bit of damp hair out of his eyes and stood up. “I’m feeling dreadfully tired. I think I shall go to bed early.” Then, when he saw my expression, he smiled again. “Do not look so concerned, Ingrith. I’ve worked hard today, that is all. I shall be perfectly alright again tomorrow.”

Was it some terrible jest? I wondered afterward. A cruel joke devoted to the amusement of some terrible and unseen force of power; that everyone who said such a thing would be proven so horribly, horribly wrong?

He was not perfectly alright the next morning, nor the morning after. Instead, he grew steadily worse, and I could do nothing but stay by his side as the fever progressed, a spark to a blaze that writhed beneath my fingertips when I touched them to his skin.

“Is there nothing I can do for you?” I whispered, and his only answer would be, “Rest your cool hand upon my head, Ingrith, so that it might not burn so terribly for a moment.”

The cough was shallow and dry at first, then wet and deep. Every breath he drew was like the purr of a giant cat, and the blood that wet his lips was as red as the finest rose.

When I ran down the path and into the village, I could feel nothing but the terror that came from knowing that there was nothing I could do, and this could not be, because there had to be something.

When Grieda opened her door, I burst into tears, and her face went grey. I did not need to tell her what had happened. She took the shortest time possible to bundle some things into a basket and then we ran together, through the melting snow.