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‘Our condolences,’ Thea offered.
The man gave a stiff nod. ‘I don’t know about all that stuff she said,’ he told them. ‘But it was either freeze my arse off in my empty village or go to Vios for her. To see something she cared about, something that symbolises triumph over darkness.’
Cal cleared his throat, looking misty-eyed.
‘Does it sound stupid to you, boy?’ the man asked.
Thea expected Cal to flinch or shift back from the traveller. Instead, her friend reached down and grasped the stranger’s shoulder. ‘Not at all, sir. It sounds right.’
The man stared for a moment, taken aback, before he gave a gruff nod. ‘You’ll want to get ahead of this lot if you want a room in the village tonight.’ He nodded to the crowd winding around the bend in the road. ‘You’re a long way from home, Guardians of Thezmarr.’
Kipp tugged his cloak tighter around his neck, his lips a deep shade of blue. ‘You’re right about that, sir.’
The trio bid the man farewell and rode ahead of the travellers. The path before them had been trodden by countless hooves and footsteps and was now a thick layer of brown slush.
‘The chances of a warm bed are looking slimmer by the minute,’ Kipp groused.
‘We’ll find you something,’ Thea told him, suddenly feeling sorry for her friend. ‘Come on – if we pick up the pace, you’ll have a pint in your hand by sundown.’
‘What sun?’ Cal grunted.
But Kipp’s expression brightened instantly, and he urged his horse forward. Thea followed suit, eager to put distance between their company and the travellers before someone realised who she was, and who she was hunting.
The icy wind whipped at her face as they cantered, a fresh flurry of snow dancing in the frigid air, veiling much of the road before them in a hazy mist. Thea glanced to her right, where the vast and ancient Great Lake of Aveum stretched, frozen as far as the eye could see. It was like frosted glass, cloaked in an eerie stillness and a haunting silence broken only by the creaks and groans of the ice.
It made her all the more eager to reach the village. She urged her mare into a gallop up the crest in the terrain. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had full feeling in her fingers, or had arisen well-rested. Perhaps she’d made a mistake. Perhaps she should have allowed them to stop for respite in the previous village. Rest or no, Hawthorne had eluded her again regardless.
Thea drew her mare closer to Cal and Kipp, a twinge of guilt sharp in her gut as they slowed, turning to her with open expressions.
‘I’m sorry,’ she told them breathlessly. ‘I’m sorry I’ve been so —’
Thea stopped short. For over the ridge, along the curve of the shore, was a scene carved from nightmares.
A pile of bodies was burning on the banks of the fishing village, and trails of black and red blood led to the frozen lake’s edge.
CHAPTER FIVE
THEA
Thea charged down the rise towards the banks, where villagers stood in small huddles on the icy shores, shaking and in shock. Plumes of smoke drifted from the pyre into the wintry afternoon sky. Black stained the snow.
‘What happened?’ Thea called, drawing her horse up short and leaping from the saddle, her hands already on her weapons.
She heard Cal and Kipp catch up, the snow crunching beneath their boots as they too dismounted and scanned the area.
‘What happened here?’ Thea demanded again, reaching a group of elders who met her gaze.
A silver-haired woman stepped forward, her lined face wary, grief-stricken. ‘The howlers came.’
Thea whirled around, surveying the shores for signs of more danger. ‘Where from? How many?’
‘From everywhere,’ the woman said. ‘Pockets of darkness opened up all over like portals, and they came through.’
Frowning, Thea adjusted her grips on her sword and dagger. ‘What… Where are they now?’
The woman raised a finger, pointing to the flaming pyre. ‘Dead,’ she replied, before turning her finger towards the lake’s edge, where black smears mixed with red. ‘Or dragged back to the darkness.’
Thea glanced at Cal and Kipp, who were both looking baffled.
