Chapter 1 Black Powder Snow

Snow howled sideways across the valley, blackened with soot from the chimneys of the outpost that clung like a leech to the rockface. Caelen pulled his fur collar higher and urged his mount up the narrow trail, hoofbeats muffled by slush and ash. His horse hated this place. So did he.

The outpost wasn't marked on any royal map. No banners, no walls-just a tangle of crooked stone buildings bound together with rope bridges and bad luck, squatting at the mouth of an abandoned mine. Refuge for smugglers, exiles, and the dying.

A crossbow tracked him from a crevice overhead. The watcher didn't call out. No one did anymore. You lived longer by staying quiet.

Caelen reined in before a rust-stained gate hung half off its hinges. A pock-faced boy stepped out of the shadowed archway, knife in hand, boots two sizes too large.

"Name," the boy said, voice flat.

Caelen dismounted slowly, leather creaking, snow hissing on his pauldrons. "Caid," he lied.

The boy squinted. "Caid who?"

Caelen flicked a glance upward. The crossbow hadn't moved. "Tell Rythe the southerner's back."

The boy hesitated, then jerked his chin toward the gate. "Stables to the left. Don't linger near the forge. They're jumpy."

"I'm always jumpy," Caelen muttered, leading the horse past the boy and into the outpost.

Smoke bit at his throat-sharp and oily, like burning resin. The air smelled of old blood, boiled lichen, and iron. Men hunched over barrels, passing a skin of rotgut, eyes rimmed red from the cold or the things they'd done. Women with daggers in their boots traded maps beneath tattered canvas awnings. Somewhere, a baby was crying.

He passed the forge but didn't glance in. One of the smiths might know his face from the last time he was here, two years ago. That visit had ended in blood. Best not to remind anyone.

He stabled the horse himself. No boys to do it for you here. He fed it dried apples from his satchel, brushed frost from its mane, and whispered something low and foul in its ear, something it seemed to appreciate.

Then he turned to the long, low barracks near the cliffside. A red scrap of cloth fluttered from a nail above the lintel.

She's here.

He stepped inside.

The warmth hit first-overheated, suffocating, thick with breath and smoke. A dozen heads turned. The room went quiet.

He removed his gloves slowly, fingers stiff. "I need Rythe."

A woman with a crooked jaw looked him up and down. "What for?"

"She owes me a knife."

The woman nodded toward the back room. "She might let you keep it this time."

He pushed through the curtain and into the shadowed space beyond. A single oil lamp burned on a crate. Rythe sat cross-legged on a pile of furs, polishing the barrel of a musket with methodical calm.

She didn't look up. "You're late."

Caelen stopped three steps into the room. "Didn't know you kept a clock."

"Only for traitors."

He took in the narrow set of her jaw, the pale scar that curved like a sickle beneath her left eye. Her hair was shorter now, hacked roughly at the shoulder. Her hands were callused and steady. She looked good. He hated that.

"I brought coin," he said.

She set the musket aside and rose in one smooth motion. "You think you can pay your way back into this place?"

"No. I think I can pay for a conversation."

Rythe crossed the room slowly, each step deliberate. "Talk, then. Before I remember what you cost us last time."

He hesitated. "There's a rider among you. Blond, glassy-eyed. Always drinks from the same pewter flask."

"Jace," she said. "What of him?"

"He's not one of yours. He's king's bastards."

Her face didn't change, but the air did.

"You have proof?"

Caelen reached into his coat, pulled out a small wooden token etched with the sigil of the royal guard-a hawk swallowing a snake. He tossed it to her.

She caught it without looking. Studied it. Her lips pressed into a thin line. "Where did you get this?"

"He dropped it three days ago, gutting a merchant outside Thornhill. Didn't know I was watching."

Rythe turned, walked back to the crate, and sat. "And you came here why? To warn us?"

"No. To warn you."

She snorted. "How noble."

"I'm not noble. I just-" He stopped.

She looked up. "Just what?"

He didn't answer.

They stared at each other across the crate. The lamp flickered. Somewhere outside, boots thudded over frost-hardened wood. The forge rang once, sharp and hollow, like a warning.

Rythe leaned back. "If Jace is what you say, he's already reported us. That means they're coming."

"They always come."

"You should run," she said.

"So should you."

"I'm done running."

She picked up the musket again. "You got your conversation. Go."

Caelen didn't move.