The midnight bell of Fort Karst didn’t chime. The bronze clapper was frozen solid inside the tower bell.
Outside, the blizzard had turned the world into a howling vortex of white rime and black shadow. Drifts of windblown snow had piled five feet high against the inner curtain wall, burying the cold ashes of the siege camp.
A solitary figure stood atop the northern watchtower, motionless as an iron statue.
Lord Ren leaned his weight against the dark rock low roof wall, his broadsword resting point-down in the stone between his iron-shod boots. Snow had gathered thick across the shoulders of his frost-wolf pelt, dusting his shorn dark hair and turning his scarred left jaw chalk-white. He didn’t shiver. In his slate-grey eyes burned the cold, sleepless vigilance of a commander who had spent a quarter-century expecting shadow killers in the dark.
From the dark curve of the stone stairs came the soft, rhythmic crunch of footsteps on snow.
Mira reached the open roof of the tower. Her charcoal wool shawl was pulled tight over her head and shoulders, pinned at her collarbone with her carved boxwood brooch. In her warm left hand, she carried a battered tin mug of steaming chicory and dried mint, the fragrant vapor instantly snatched away by the biting wind.
