Page 76 of Winter's Echo
He returned some time later, saw that I had made myself comfortable, and simply stripped off a few layers before lying down to sleep. There was no more conversation, and I welcomed the silence.
I lay on the ground, wrapped in my cloak, using my pack as a pillow, just as I would on the trail. Only this time, there was asource of warmth, and the tent kept the snow and wind from my face. Still, I was not comfortable, and sleep eluded me.
It was much later, after the settlement had quieted and the fire had dwindled to embers, that I heard it. A sound from the shelter next to ours. Not exactly a voice. More like the careful quiet of someone deliberately staying very still.
I waited.
It came again. The distinct silence of someone trying not to exist.
I knew that silence. I had practiced it myself for years.
I quietly rose and moved to the shelter's entrance. The cold struck immediately, sharp and clear after the smokiness inside. I paused, letting my eyes adjust.
The nearby shelter was smaller, set slightly apart from the others. I hadn't noticed it when we arrived because it blended so seamlessly into the landscape, with a lower roof, no smoke coming from inside, dark.
I moved toward it.
“Trailfinder.”
I stopped. Vorn was behind me, and I hadn't heard him move, which meant he'd been awake and waiting for exactly this.
“Who's in there?” I asked without turning.
“Not your concern.”
I turned then. His face was unreadable in the dark, but his posture wasn't. He was blocking the path without appearing to. Deliberate and practiced.
“Vorn.”
“Leave it.”
I looked at the shelter. Then back at him. I hated knowing what was in that shelter. “Is she alright?”
The pause before he answered was a fraction too long and made my stomach roil. “She's fed, and she's warm.”
I clenched my fists. “That's not what I asked.”
He looked at me steadily. “She’s ours. She came from a merchant caravan. Payment for passage through our territory.” His voice was flat and completely without apology. “She stays until the debt is paid.”
Bastards.
I stood very still. “And when is the debt paid?”
“When I say it is.”
I hated that answer as I knew I would.
The fire from the main shelter cast just enough light to see his face clearly. He wasn't cruel. I could see that. He wasn't enjoying this, like some men would. He was a man who managed a settlement of thirty or more people in one of the deadliest landscapes on the continent, and he understood what was needed to keep them alive. Even if providing that balance was at the cost of another.
I understood the mathematics of this equation. I had run those numbers myself in different forms for years. What did you need to sacrifice of yourself to come to a livable conclusion?
That was the problem. That Iunderstoodit.
But that didn’t make it right. It would never be right.
However, I had ten people in two shelters here who were being shown the camp's hospitality. That hospitality would turn bloody very quickly if I said anything.Thatwas my sacrifice at this moment. To keep them safe, that was my cost.
“Alright,” I said.
