We left the town in cinders at first light.
Gray plumes trailed behind us, drifting into a winter sky already bruised with storm. No banners flew, no victory songs stirred the cold air—only the steady crunch of six pairs of boots and the distant crackle of what we'd done.
Brynn marched at the front, hammer slung across his broad back, silhouette dark against the snow‑bright horizon. Elka limped beside him; her stitches held, but every few steps she winced. The twins followed, trading the kind of jokes that only men who feared saying nothing could invent. Einar and I kept the rear, eyes sweeping the treeline.
No one spoke of the flames still climbing behind us.
⸻
Three hours in, we reached a fork where the river cut through low cliffs. Brynn raised a hand.
"Break," he ordered. "Ten minutes."
Jorgen dropped his packs with a groan, Tor with a grunt. Elka perched on a fallen log, sewing new reinforcement into her cloak as if she weren't bleeding beneath it. Brynn unfolded a crumpled dispatch—sealed in red wax with Father's crest. His brow furrowed.
Einar tipped his canteen toward me. "Drink."
I realized my lips were cracked, throat raw from smoke. Water tasted metallic, but it chased the ashes partway down.
Einar watched me over the rim of his flask. "Nightmares yet?"
"Didn't sleep long enough for them," I muttered.
"Lucky." He capped the flask. "When you do… remember who was standing next to you."
I frowned. "Why?"
"Because the mind will try to blame you alone." He tapped my temple with a gloved knuckle. "We carry this together, or it crushes us one at a time."
It sounded like something Brynn might have said if Brynn bothered with comfort. I nodded once.
⸻
Brynn stuffed the dispatch away and called us to his side.
"New orders," he said. "We're leaving Esmire."
Tor let out a low whistle. "Finally."
"Command wants us on the northern frontier before spring melt," Brynn continued. "Which means three weeks of hard march through neutral territory. No pillaging. No contact unless we're contacted first."
Elka raised a brow. "And if we are contacted?"
Brynn's shoulders rolled, metal joints grinding. "We respond in kind."
I caught the subtle curl of his lip—relief? Regret? Hard to tell with Brynn. He'd carried the weight of our fires alone, whether he meant to or not.
⸻
That night, we camped in the hollow of a ravine. The wind funneled low, stealing heat from the small fire Tor coaxed to life. We set no perimeter torches; Brynn said we were too close to neutral lands to advertise our presence.
Snow began to fall—slow, deliberate flakes that drifted like feathers. The hush that followed pressed on my eardrums until the crack of each twig felt like thunder.
Elka dozed upright, back against a stone. Jorgen snored, the broken rhythm of a bruised rib. Brynn cleaned his hammer in silence, scraping soot from runes he never spoke of. And Einar sat across from me, sharpening his longsword in slow, patient strokes.
After an hour of nothing but steel and wind, I cleared my throat.
"Why did you follow Brynn?" I asked.
Einar paused mid‑stroke. "Because he saved my life. Twice."
"He expects loyalty?"
"He earns it." He resumed sharpening. "You'll realize that when you need him."
I stared at the runes glowing faintly along my own blades—Fenrir's Fangs, Mother had called them. They looked hungrier in firelight, black edges drinking the glow.
"Did it get easier for you?" I asked. "Killing."
Einar's sharpening slowed. Snow settled on his cloak, melting in sparks against embers. "It got quieter," he said at last. "Like losing hearing in one ear. You don't stop noticing… you just stop fighting the noise."
I thought of the mage's eyes in the granary, wide with defiance until the exact moment they weren't.
"Quieter," I echoed.
Einar studied me. "You still feel it. That's enough."
He sheathed his sword and turned away to settle against a rock. Soon his breathing evened. Sleep took him like a thief.
I remained by the fire, feeding it broken twigs until dawn blurred the sky.
⸻
The march north lasted thirteen days.
We crossed frozen brooks, skirted unclaimed forests echoing with wolves, and passed silent way‑shrines where travelers once left offerings for minor gods long forgotten. We saw no soldiers, heard no horns—only the shifting of political plates beneath an uneasy peace. Adelyria's banners flapped on distant watchtowers; Blóðfjöll's ravens circled ruined keeps we'd burned months ago.
The silence between kingdoms felt thinner than parchment.
On the ninth night, we reached a crossroads inn abandoned for winter. Brynn deemed the ground safe; Jorgen pried open kegs of half‑frozen ale, and Tor found pickled root vegetables that hadn't spoiled. For the first time in weeks, laughter curled through smoke that wasn't rising from a burning town.
I sat on the porch rail, watching snow drift across the road. Stars glittered like shards of rune‑stone. Somewhere to the west, Father's armies tightened their gauntlets for the war everyone swore was inevitable.
When Rurik climbs this mountain in five years, will the world still be standing?
A door creaked. Brynn stepped onto the porch, mug in hand. He stared into the night with me, silent long enough that I wondered if he'd speak at all.
"Heard you asked Einar about killing," he rumbled.
Heat flushed my cheeks. "He volunteered advice."
Brynn took a pull of ale. "He was trying to help."
"I know."
Another pull. A low breath fogged.
"You keep asking how to live with it," Brynn said softly, "and you'll forget why you started." He took one last drink, set the mug on the railing. "Ask instead what you'll build with what you've done."
He left me with the stars.
⸻
Four days later, the Sisters of Fate tugged my thread.
I didn't know it then. All I knew was the sky turned black without warning and the ravine quaked underfoot—just an instant, like the earth hiccuping. We felt a sound more than heard it, a deep chord vibrating through bone.
Even Brynn froze, hammer half‑raised.
Then it was gone, leaving only silence—and a faint scent of ozone, as if lightning had struck somewhere far beyond the horizon.
We marched on, uneasy.
That night I dreamed of a mountain breaking beneath a hammer made of winter, and a thread burning so bright it set the sky on fire.
⸻
We reached Blóðfjöll's forward camp on the last day of the waning moon. Wooden towers bristled with spears. Raven banners snapped above rows of tents. When we crossed the outer cordon, sentries stared at my squad—then at me, eyes widening at the runes on my neck.
Word travels fast in a kingdom of warriors.
Inside the command pavilion, Father was not there—he'd already returned to the capital. Relief and disappointment tangled inside me like two snakes fighting in the dark.
A quartermaster logged our spoils, assigned us bunks, and promised payment weightier than any of us expected. War had a way of spending coin as fast as it spilled blood.
That evening, as I lay on a straw pallet blinking up at canvas seams, I realized the silence was finally… bearable. It still pressed on my chest. But beneath it, something pulsed: not pride, not regret—just a steady beat that reminded me I was still alive.
What will you build with what you've done? Brynn had asked.
I didn't know.
But I knew the mountain waited. I knew the war to come would make this campaign look like a skirmish. And somewhere beyond Blóðfjöll's borders, a girl with fire in her veins was sharpening swords of her own.
For the first time since blood stained my hands, I felt the faintest spark of anticipation.
Thunder, waiting to speak.