The wind stayed at a mere bluster. It was almost friendly. The sky was the lightest gray we’d been gifted since we started this journey. The snow that fell was soft and gentle.
The first part of the journey passed almost pleasantly.
“Traders would love you,” I suddenly said to Baxley, and I knew he was as surprised as I was that I’d spoken.
“And why’s that?”
“Big, broad, handy with weapons, and you don’t talk. You’d get an extra copper or three for that.”
It had been calm enough that his face wraps were pulled down under his chin, accentuating his sharp jawline.
I saw the smile and the white teeth behind it.
“You’re young.” I was not a talker. Why was I talking? “All three of you are,” I tacked on hurriedly in case he thought I was flirting or anything crazy.
“Not that young,” Baxley corrected me. “Almost thirty summers.”
“Old for a mercenary.”
Oh my gods, where were my manners?
Baxley did laugh at my observation and turned to look over his shoulder. Larana had fallen back to guard the rear, and Nicco was a few paces behind, walking in silence with Captain Marson, no doubt listening to everything I was saying.
“I’m good at my job,” Baxley told me. “We all are.”
I doubted that Nicco and Larana had seen thirty summers, but I didn’t ask anything more.
Not long after, I was watching the sky when I heard Larana come alongside us. I knew it was her. She had the lightest footfalls of us all. Even me.
But then she was tall and graceful. She probably killed a man gracefully.
“It holds a certain beauty.”
I turned to look at her. “What does?”
She gestured to the land in front of us. “Your land of winter.” Her voice was husky, but not rough. “It stretches as far as the eye can see, and like this, it’s just a sea of pristine white.”
“It doesn’t stay like this for long,” I reminded her darkly.
She too had pulled her face covering down, and I saw her small smile. Her gaze was on the far west. “Is it true that the mountains at the very edge are pure ice?”
I shook my head. “The ice mountains that sit on the Frozen Waste sea are. It’s said that no blade is sharp enough to slice them. Which when you think about it, is amazing since they are literally on water.”
She glanced at me. “You think they should melt?”
“Everything eventually does, right?”
She made a face that could have said she agreed with me, or not, but she didn’t argue.
“So mountains on land?” she asked me.
“The Frozen Mountains to the west are covered in ice so thick that they look like they are made of glass,” I told her. “But there is rock underneath, just really deep down. I think that’s what you are thinking of.”
“Your capital, Glassfyr, sits within a mountain,” she reminded me.
“Yes, but the ice spires they are so proud of, are morecraftedice than nature wielded.”
“Ah.” I felt her gaze on me again. “The Verei Kahn?”
