She didn't wait for Nicco's order, didn't hesitate when her time was up. She just moved, stepping out into the worst of it with the practiced efficiency of someone who hadprobably done harder things than this and hadn’t received any acknowledgment for them either.
She took her position directly opposite Nicco.
Not beside him. Not where the wind was slightly less savage. Across from him, her hood pulled low and her chin tucked against the cold. She said nothing. He said nothing. They stood there like two people who had survived things together that didn't need naming, and the wind screamed around us and found no purchase.
I watched them for a moment longer than I meant to.
Larana was harder than the cold. I'd known that since the first morning. But there was something in the way she stood there — not enduring it, not fighting it — just existing in it, immovable and completely without complaint, that made me reconsider what I thought I knew about her.
These three mercenaries were more than they appeared to be, and if we survived this storm, I was going to find out what.
Chapter 15
The skarveld brokeas those storms always did, abruptly and without apology.
For a moment, the world was white, howling, and utterly merciless. Then the wind stopped. The silence that followed was so deep it felt unnatural, like something had been lost rather than gained. Snow continued to fall, but now it was gentle, no longer the ice that had tried to cut us down mere moments before. The gray sky above us looked almost peaceful compared to what it had been just moments earlier.
Nobody moved for a moment. We simply stood there, a huddle of cold, damp, and exhausted people blinking at a world that had chosen to let us live in it again.
“Captain?” Nicco prompted.
It was the trigger Captain Marson needed. He seemed to snap to attention. “Sound off,” he barked sharply.
The soldiers went down the line. All present. One private — the young one, the one who'd held his friend down for me — was pressing his right hand to his chest, and his jaw was clenched in that specific way of someone managing pain they hadn't yet decided to mention.
“Your hand,” I said, moving toward him. “Let me see it.”
He looked up. “It's fine.”
“It's not fine. Let me see it.”
He held it out with the resigned look of someone who knew the argument was already lost. The fingers on his right hand were waxy and white at the tips, the skin hard to the touch. It wasn’t frostbite yet, but close enough to be a problem if we didn't move.
“Keep them moving,” I told him. “All of them. Don't stop flexing until the feeling returns. When it does, it's going to hurt, but that's good. That means they're still yours.”
He nodded, already curling and uncurling his fingers with grim determination.
I looked around, knowing they could all hear me. “All of you, I know you're numb. Keep everything moving, wiggle it, shake it. You need to move the blood in your body. It needs to remember to flow. Encourage it.Wiggle.”
“We need to keep moving,” Nicco said, and nobody argued. He turned to look over his shoulder. “The horses are gone.”
A statement of fact and nothing else.
“We do need to move,” I agreed. “But we also need to drink first.” I looked around at us all. “Which one of you has a pot handy?” I asked, not caring to look to see who it was, just that we had it.
I quickly cleared a small area in the snow. With speed and familiarity, I built a small fire. In no time, I was melting snow and asking each person to hand me their cup.
“You need the warmth inside as well as out,” I told them as I poured lukewarm water into cups. Not much, just two gulps if that, but it would help. It would also keep the arms and legs moving. I hadn’t been lighthearted when I told them they needed to wiggle.
Once we’d all had a warm drink, I tidied up my makeshift fire, smothering it with snow and stealing a tiny bit of its warmthinto my body. The glyph I made with my fingers looked like I was merely covering the fire with snow.
Nothing more.
I didn’t feel guilty about using my magic on myself instead of others. The soldiers had each other. I watched them check on themselves, making sure their captain and sergeant were fit and able. A few were still flexing their fingers, and I was pleased they listened.
The mercenaries stood apart, each facing a different direction, eager to move forward. Yet they remained together, standing apart but in their group, leaning on each other without even realizing it.
I only had myself. The only person I could rely on for my survival was me. Yes, Baxley wrapped me in his cloak during the storm, but that was a one-time thing.
