Reia's eyes darted over the towering mountains that soared all around them. Was it just her restless disquiet or...were they being watched? They were almost to the mine and the feeling intensified with each league covered.

The cold was a dulling pain, biting at her cheeks and lips. The others must've felt it too because nobody spoke much at all.

One of the mules brayed as it stumbled, its wooly pelt shaking precariously under its collar. She flinched, worried its belch of fright might lure a pack of wargs down from their hovels.

What of other monsters?

She raised a wary glance to the gray brume hovering above. She'd heard of aurog's snatching up beasts as large as horses. She misgave herself she could hear the flap of great leathery wings sailing somewhere behind the clouds. With an angry shiver, she forced her eyes ahead instead. They were all armored with nixrath, nothing dared touch them. Nothing hunted them beyond the whiteout. Only the shadows of the mountains could be seen as the blizzard shifted and swirled around the mule train.

She'd wanted to bring her charger. She'd wanted the extra safety of a mounted cohort, but there was nothing out here to sustain the burly warhorses. They had just enough feed to keep the mules strong enough to cart back the silver ore they planned to mine. Still and all, she felt vulnerable out here without her steed, prey to the sharp gazes she sensed ghosting up her spine. She hoped to Maeda it was just her overactive mind. But her inner ungulate was fearful and alert, eyes catching every movement in the snow.

Every shadow and shape, every unnatural silence that chased the birds away, was that giant warg. The burn of its yellow eyes still tingled along her flesh.

Her eyes never left the shifting snow as she knelt to scoop ice into her waterskin. Working fast, she pressed as much through the neck as would fit without pushing out any melted water. Then she stowed the waterskin between her fur coat and thick, woolen tunic. By the time they stopped to rest at midday, it would be melted enough to drink.

She stood up and dusted the snow off her gloves. Movement up ahead caught her notice. Roanstrike veered off to the left with the first blade, Vestor, close behind. She called the cohort to a halt and commanded Flak, the second blade, to keep alert. Then she jogged after the vanishing men, her cheeks tingling as though she'd been slapped. Worse, ignored. Disregarded. Something was afoot, yet the men excluded their Prefect.

When she reached them, she saw that the two dog trackers, as well as her third and fourth blades, were all huddled close, heads together. They were conferring with Roanstrike who crouched close to the ground, gimlet-eyed.

A stab of anger tightened her mouth as she reached them. She wanted to remind her blades, loudly, that Roanstrike wasn't their leader. She was. That he had their respect and she didn't was painfully obvious. Instead, she hardened her voice. "Why have we stopped?"

"Wolf tracks," Roanstrike muttered, shielding his eyes as he glanced up at her.

Cold snapped through her marrow as she hunkered beside him. She could barely see the prints, the snow was falling thick and fast. If they didn't reach the mine soon they'd have to make camp out here another night. But if she gave the order too soon, Roanstrike would shoot her speaking looks that left her in no doubt of how weak and soft he thought her. How inadequate. However, if she waited too long to call it a day they'd condemn her for unnecessary cruelty. The rigors of leadership were already chafing her nerves to shreds...and it was only the first week!

Roanstrike watched her carefully.

She was almost more aware of his glare than the vanishing tracks. "Are you sure these are wolf tracks?" she asked the tracker. The one who was master of the two male dogs. She loathed the other tracker, the one with the pregnant dog.

"Positive," he replied, his gaze prowling the fringe of white. "It's wolf. And very fresh, too." He and the other men all reached for their weapons.

Her gaze followed his. Awareness zipped up her back. An insidious feeling, like teeth raked her nape.

"Let's keep moving," she said, straightening to her full length as the print vanished. Roanstrike unbent himself at the same moment. It was the only advantage she currently held over him. It used to be that she'd hunch her shoulders to appear shorter, but more and more she took pleasure in looking down her nose at him. "Close ranks, no more spreading out" —she met each of their gazes, one by one— "wolves like to separate the weakest from the herd." And then she wanted to kick herself because they bandied knowing looks, and she realized with a sick feeling that the weak link in the chain of command was her. With a dry swallow, she pinned the tracker with a look of resolve she didn't feel. "Could it be...a warg?" The tracks were covered now, but they'd been large. Very large.

"Maybe a golrag," he said, calling his dogs back with a shrill whistle. "But those bastards prefer warmer climes." He brushed the snow from his eyelashes with a mutter of irritation. "Anyway, the claw marks don't look right. Too canine."

"Exactly," said the other tracker brusquely. "They're wolf prints and no mistake."

Again, her throat bobbed. "How can you be so sure?" She'd told Roanstrike about the warg in the woods by the lake, but he'd raked her with a skeptical look and she hadn't mentioned it again.

After three days without a sighting, she almost doubted herself now, too. The creature had evanesced between the trees like smoke. She'd snatched the second dagger out and wrenched her sword free with the other hand, ready for an attack that never came. She could still feel the adrenaline coursing in her blood like fire. She'd stood there frozen for what'd seemed like hours, her hairs on end. A bird had squawked nearby and she'd sprung like a hare before racing back to camp.

In hindsight, she wished she'd gone after the beast. If for no other reason than to retrieve her poison-tipped dagger. Now she'd always wonder if she'd killed it. The venom she'd used was lethal, but she had no way of knowing if it was potent enough to fell a warg.

But one dead warg was hardly a victory. Where there was one warg there were many. Many more.

The tracker's voice yawned like a white noise, his lips moving beneath a greasy beard as she blinked. She nodded, her brows drawing together as she pushed the warg out of her head.

"...so you'll know warg tracks when you see 'em." With his pregnant dog watching him obediently, he held up his calloused hand, fingers splayed wide. It was a lean hand but large. "If my hand don't fill the heel pad," he said, gesturing to where the prints had been, "then you can worry about wargs."

Yes, she knew how big they were. With a clipped nod, she turned away so the men couldn't read the fear beneath the glare she wore like armor. Her legs were steady as she marched back toward the miners and the rest of her cohort. But inside, her heart was thrashing at its roots.

If a grown man's broad hand didn't even fill a warg's heel pad, then her first sighting hadn't prepared her for the true size and scope of one. The shadowy form of a warg in a fog-lit forest, and the distance separating them, was misleading. She had a feeling that the warg she'd encountered had been a little further, and thus far larger, than she'd first presumed. A terrifying thought.

The prickle at her nape jarred her stride and she froze, turning on her heel to meet what she thought was Roanstrike's glare. But it wasn't him. His head was bent, nodding at whatever Vestor was saying. Neither of them looked in the least bit interested in her.

She glanced around, her teeth sawing her underlip. In the rapidly falling snow, faces were blurred and figures hunched against the wind. Each man and woman appeared lost to their own bleak and fearful misery. A man coughed nearby, a wet and horrible sound.

She gripped the back of her neck, the leather gloves cold against her nape where she felt a premonitory itch. Daylight was already waning. The sun strained as high as it would go—which was not very high at all—and the thing beyond the drifting walls of white remained a pervasive shadow. A shadow that seemed to lengthen as the night crept closer. She decided then and there that she wouldn't rest, nor spend another night in the open, until she and her cohort were safe within the nixrath fold. Even if that grueling march incurred the hate of every man and women under her command.

* * *

It was almost midnight. Reia stomped into her nondescript tent, her feet aching. She'd purposefully chosen to forego the more comfortable Prefect's quarters with the intent of not fostering resentment in her men. To prove herself equally hardy—one of them. A wasted effort, in hindsight.

She was different.

Her uncle had insisted she have an armor bearer, as any officer would. And, unlike her, the other soldiers shared their tents. Nor did they have the luxury of an indoor brazier. Yet Roanstrike availed himself of all the same luxuries and still the men preferred him.

Fuming, she shook out her bedroll, punching the furs as she dropped in. Her tent was cold and stark without the brazier lit. Her armor-bearer, Stellin, was off somewhere else...avoiding her. Likely off massaging Roanstrike's inflated ego or something equally worm-hearted, his duty to her neglected. She was being revenged on by a sodding lackey. Well, he was a feckless little gob-spittle with less sense than a bag of maggots. She could mend her own trews and light her own brazier if it meant not seeing his reeky, little face again. He was probably just another of her father's spies anyway. Rafen had appointed Stellin, not her.

She pressed her face into the cold furs, her eyes hot with unshed tears. They were all wroth at her, every last one. The miners, Roanstrike, the whole rank and file. Even the bloody mules glared at her! Her nerves were frayed by all the cutting looks she'd endured these past few days. Days wasted going around the frozen lake that she knew she should've crossed.

She was too tired even to kick off her boots. Another dereliction of duty by her useless armor-bearer. If Stellin dared show his face here tonight, she'd shove her boot up his backside. Or use his lousy hide for kindling and light her own bloody fire.

They'd made it to Ysborg just in time. A moment longer and the men might've mounted a mutiny. But at least they'd all made it here in one piece. Her eyes drifted shut, her body growing slack. A small peace settled in now that she was enfolded by the towering scars cut into the Ysborg mountain. Scars of red rock, like a bleeding wound, from which veins of nixrath gleamed like diamonds.

She lay wondering what the wargs called this place. Probably some godsawful, guttural word that flogged the back of the throat. In fact, it probably sounded like a painful snore. And that was the last thing she remembered thinking, her thoughts fading to blessed silence.

The sound of the dogs barking jolted her awake. There was still no sign of Stellin. Gone when she needed him most. She was in the grip of a powerful headache, a gnawing force like fangs clamped in her skull.

The dogs were riled about something. She sat up to listen. The drone of voices passing her tent belied any need for alarm. The camp was quiet save for the whining and barking. One of the dogs was in obvious pain and it was making her skin crawl. If it didn't let up soon, she would march out there and drive her sword through whoever was tormenting it. But she resisted the impulse to act because she was already persona non grata. Give it a moment, she told herself. The trackers wouldn't harm their own dogs. The animals were too necessary.

She needed to turn her mind over to what needed to be done tomorrow. Brek only knew what months of dead silence and empty neglect had wrought in the absence of men, with only the dead left to oversee. She dreaded morning. The march had been enough of a rigor without the added misery of acknowledging what lay in store for her on the morrow. In the mine tunnels—nothing more than abandoned mass graves.

Reia sighed, deep and heavy. She would endure it all until the mine was in perfect working order, foremen appointed, and the warg threat dealt with. There'd be no second attack, not on her watch.

But something didn't add up. The barracks and buildings were solid and untouched. The nixrath fence that enclosed the perimeter stretched stalwart and unbroken. Nothing seemed out of place except for the eerie silence that'd greeted them, the wind soughing a terrible dirge. No sign of attack at all.

How had the wargs gotten past the nixrath? How had they managed to collapse the mine shafts? There should've been some sign of a struggle—weapons scattered amidst clean picked bones. Something!

Her eyes flicked to the tent flap, noticing the cold dinner tray. It must've arrived while she'd dozed. Not that she wanted it—no doubt every soldier in her cohort had taken turns spitting in her broth. She shivered, hugging her arms as she moved to inspect the stark fare. It consisted of a hunk of stale bread, a measly portion of congealed stew that she was sure was flavored with phlegm, and a very cold mug of mule milk.

Shaking her head, she moved the tent flap aside and tossed the stew out. Then she scooped snow into the bowl and packed it high. With stiff fingers, she worked the wooden toggles through the loops and secured the flap tight against the cold and any nosy gob-spittles. Not that the little coward, Stellin, had even bothered to show his face or wake her up so that she could enjoy a warm meal. It didn't matter, though, she was too tired to box his ears. More importantly, she wanted privacy and she could no longer ignore the alchemical itch tingling at her fingertips.

Doing her utmost to ignore the high-pitched barks, and shoving the dread of tomorrow aside, she set to work arranging the green wood Stellin had dumped carelessly into the cold, iron brazier earlier, after he'd helped her erect her large tent. The miners took up most of the barracks and the soldiers had spilled out into tents, of which hers was the largest.

She stacked the logs, layering them in a crosswise tower for maximum ventilation. With determined strikes of her fire-steel and flint, the sparks leaped against the kindling. Gently, she nursed the flames with cones and pine needles until the brazier illuminated the tent. It took almost an hour of hopeful blowing, and no small amount of frustration, to get the fire going. It was no furnace, but it would do. The greenest wood had likely been sent to her tent on purpose, she thought with a snarl. She stared at her struggling fire, letting its warmth kiss her frozen nose. The outland was as cold as Hekki's tits, but at least there was no shortage of firewood. Even if it was too green.

Crossing her legs and getting comfortable, she shot the fire one last glare, daring it to sputter out again. Then she opened her satchel and pulled out her journal. It was thick and worn, the leathern boards hugging her secrets like a beloved friend. This was her greatest treasure in the world. Reia sucked her bottom lip between her teeth as she flipped through the pages. Sketches of herbs, scribbled notes, and alchemical recipes lined every page. But she was looking for a blank page.

Tonight it wasn't a herb she sketched, but a warg. The monster she'd seen in the gloaming. The pen raced across paper as she lost herself in remembrance, shading its tall ears and thick mane. Getting the curve of the tail just right. When she was done, she sat back and stared at the page.

Had she killed it, she wondered? Evan a scratch of Spindrath venom was fatal. To a human, anyway. Reia closed her journal and placed it back in her satchel, forcing herself to think no more of that awful warg. But her hand froze inside the bag as she paused to listen, her eyes fixed on the entrance. The tent flap shuddered against the wind, but she sensed no one stirring beyond it.

Working fast, she pulled out a wooden box from her satchel. A nondescript, rectangular box the length of her forearm and roughly the width of her hand. Her toolbox. It was locked and the small iron key hung around her neck.

Once it was unlocked, she pulled out her equipment, all except the small silver mortar and pestle which she had no need of. The miniature, copper alembic was comprised of numerous parts which she laid out neatly before her before grabbing two empty vials. The insidious tickle in the back of her throat warned of sickness brewing. She needed to brew a tonic with the precious spindle fern she'd brought back from the capital.

The appurtenances were so compact they were easily carried and easy to hide. Agatha had had it commissioned in Wrais for her as a parting gift—all disguised in a neat little toolbox designed to safeguard daggers and knives. Or at least to look the part.

Alchemy was an arcane practice indulged by those that tinkered in the liminal space between the seen and unseen. Soothsayers and wart-faced, old hex-weavers. Those that walked the fringe of life and death, fingertips stained with potions and tinctures. The cassock wearers and incense burners. Like Agatha, her mentor. The Temple Priestess had taught her far more than the books in the great library had done.

The copper felt more right in her hand than a sword ever had. Though she prided herself on being a skilled swordswoman, her love of alchemy was unrivaled. But it was not a pastime befitting a prefect of the King's Guard. And certainly not a Rathbone of North Gate. Even her father, with his spies everywhere, knew nothing about this. The crime of unlawful magic practices was a hanging offense.

All those times she'd stayed late at the Temple Library studying warfare, she'd actually been scouring the dustier sections, the darker nooks, for alchemical books—ones that concentrated mainly on the healing arts. And all the while Agatha had fueled the fire of a newfound love. It was ironic that her true love was the diametrical opposite of the calling her father had chosen for her. Healing versus killing. Her herbs hidden in one hand, her sword in the other.

Precious moments like these, sitting before a fire with her tools and herbs and books, distilled the chaos of her mind into elements of calmness and control. But she knew that if anyone found her out, she'd be denigrated. Well, there was no one watching her now. The unseen glare that'd chased her for days had finally ceased. She was alone at last with the things she most cherished. Left alone to do the very thing which gave her life purpose.

To her, there was no better color in the world than copper. It was a manifestation of the three elements she loved about alchemy—method, magic, and imagination. Copper was more faithful than silver and more precious than gold. Because copper fed her spirit. Her journal brimmed with method and magic, and all the herbs under the sun only served to proliferate her imagination.

The moment she touched the copper, it acted like a drawing agent, siphoning off every poisonous fear eating away at her soul. She settled her hand over the alembic, her mind turning sharp as the noise of her headache dimmed. But the magic hissed away like a steam cloud as another bark of pain pierced the night.

What the fuck was going on? She shot to her feet and stormed out of the tent, fury and dread swirling like acid in her belly. She was about to make a few more enemies tonight. She didn't need to be a soothsayer to know that.