Page 122 of The Sun He Buried

That day and the next stay clear.

The first small release receives a ridge-road seal. The second waits under a fresh seal for the north track. A third crew counts Baldr’s last wagon while he watches, and the figures agree. The full reserve count still holds every gate.

Asta and I learn the path to the market without losing the hall.

Mostly.

We find a narrow footbridge, a bakery that sells hot seed cakes, and a clearing where Snowpetal can attack drifts without frightening anyone off a stump.

The woman from Eirik’s study doesn’t return.

Eirik appears at the scale yard twice. He asks Ketill for the eastern receipt both times.

It remains late.

At the end of the third clear day, Asta and I carry seed cakes back toward the hall while Snowpetal leaps between our tracks.

The first warning comes from above the trees.

One horn call.

Then two more.

Every person on the path looks north.

The sky beyond the pines has gone dark.

Wind strikes the branches hard enough to dump snow across the road. Smoke from the hall chimney flattens and tears east.

Asta catches my arm. “Inside. Now.”

The first new flakes come sideways.

Snowpetal turns toward them.

Her ears lift.

Then she runs straight into the storm.

Chapter Thirteen

Snowpetal disappears before I finish saying her name.

One second she’s a white blur on the dark path. The next, everything beyond my boots is white and moving sideways.

“Snowpetal!”

I run after her.

Asta catches the back of my cloak and nearly pulls my feet out from under me. “No.”

“She went that way.”

“So did the storm.”

Wind drives snow beneath my hood. It gets into my eyes, my mouth, and the paper bag of seed cakes tucked under my arm. I turn my face toward Asta’s shoulder and blink until I can see again.

The path behind us is already gone.