Page 53 of Winter's Echo
“And if the townsfolk are still here, or beyond the wall, hiding? You want to leave them with nothing to come back to?”
“Do you think there are any in this place that still live?” he asked me quietly.
I shook my head. “I don’t know. I only remember stories about the Frosttaken from my childhood… I didn’t know…” I looked back over my shoulder. Nicco hadn’t moved, but I knew he was listening. I cleared my throat. “There could be survivors. We can’t let them survivethat, and then starve because we took their food.”
Baxley sniffed in the quiet. “Agreed. We have a long way to go, so cut the portions. We don’t need two sacks of grain. I sure as shades ain’t grinding it to flour later on.”
He met my look and gave a slight nod, which I returned quickly, grateful for an ally.
Larana watched our exchange, her blue eyes fixed on mine for longer than I liked.
“Trailfinder,” she said eventually. “This is your share.”
I walked over, hesitant. I never knew whether she wanted to talk to me or stab me.
I examined the pouches of food, dried meat, fish, fruit, and seeds. I noticed she had split the supplies into four. Wordlessly, I collected mine, not commenting on the fact that they had already taken only what they needed.
Why hadn’t they spoken up? Why wait for me to say something? To see if I would?
“Was that a test?” I asked her quietly as I straightened after filling my pack.
Larana smiled widely. “Life is a test, Trailfinder. I thought you knew that.” She clapped me on the back as she walked outside to join Nicco.
They were the strangest mercenaries I’d ever met.
After that, we were outside.
The cold hit differently after the storehouse, sharper, more deliberate, as though the air itself had rearranged while we were inside. I fell into step beside Nicco without being told. He didn't comment. Baxley took the rear, Larana the left flank, and the soldiers between us formed a cluster that was too tight for comfort and too spread for discipline.
Captain Marson joined us, and I felt a pang of guilt for not asking him…anythingreally. When had I started migrating to the mercenaries instead of him?
It had been what? Three days? Four? It felt like a lifetime.
“There’s another gate,” I said quietly. “It’s hard to get to and usually heavily guarded.” I looked around at the empty streets. “I don’t think that will be an issue today.”
“You're sure?” Nicco asked, ignoring the fact that the captain was beside us.
“No.” I pulled my cloak tighter. “But it avoids the other gate where the Drift Wolves could be, and it means we don’t pass that house again.”
He accepted that without argument. I wasn't sure if that was trust or pragmatism, and I didn't look at it too closely.
We found them just before we reached the gate.
They were gathered not far from the market, exactly where some part of me had already known they would be. Thirty, perhaps forty people — men, women, the very old and the very small — gathered in the snow against the wall as though they'd walked there together and simply... stopped.
Some were standing. Some were seated in the snow. One woman had her arms raised slightly, halfway through a gesture she would never finish. A man near the front still held a lantern. The flame had long since died, but his grip hadn't loosened.
They were breathing. I could see the faint mist of it in the cold air.
They were breathing and facing inward. All of them. Toward the town. Toward wherever the Frosttaken had made its center.
A boy near the edge was holding a carved wooden horse. His fingers were white around it.
I felt the grip on my heart as I saw how young he was.
I kept walking, trying not to look at them. I pulled open the gate, not surprised that it swung easily inward. I ducked through the low gate and headed out into the area beyond the wall.
I wanted to turn around and see if any of the townsfolk had turned at the sound, but I already knew they wouldn’t have.
