Anji pushed through the torrent of white, manacles jingling, searing with cold where they touched her skin, her legs trembling in her scavenged boots. The mountain air cut like twin knives through her crusted nose, but by some miracle the wind seemed to have died as they’d gained elevation, more a patient sigh than the roar of the storm in the foothills. She’d slipped and tumbled into the snow three times, unable to balance on the unforgiving terrain with her hands bound. Now she concentrated on putting one foot down, then another, powder crunching and squeaking under her weight. A blister stung at her right ankle, rubbing against her sweat-soaked sock with each plodding step.

Silent and steady, the Hawk loomed behind like a shadow. Snow clung to her leathers, in the contours of her mask, along the folds of the silken blue bag jostling over one shoulder. Every resolute step the woman took rang like a bell in Anji’s head—a reminder of her unyielding determination to shepherd Anji to Linura and onto the torture rack.

Anji stopped for a breath at a particularly level section of trail, raising her hands to cradle the back of her head as she turned fully around to face the Hawk.

“How much farther?” she called, panting. The volume of her voice surprised her, reverberating off the rocky tors above and out across the chasm. She spat out a flake of snow from her top lip, glancing again at the woman tramping up the path like it owed her a stack of Rhoda.

“Don’t shout, idiot,” the Hawk breathed, coming even with Anji, her chest heaving. “Why do you think it’s called Tumbledown?” She shoved at Anji’s shoulder to turn her back around, then pointed a thin finger at the squat, snow-caked structure perched on a rise above the path, still some distance ahead. “Those ruins mark the halfway point. We’ll stop there and catch our breath for a moment, eat something…”

“Eat what?” said Anji, her stomach grumbling as though listening to their conversation. The earlier bombardment of hail and wind had destroyed the Hawk’s cooking supplies and scattered most of her ingredients across the plain. Anji had resigned herself to a full day of hunger pangs, at least until they got to the other side of the pass and into the next town.

The Hawk tapped gloved fingers on the blue bag’s strap. “I stored some extra food in here,” she said, then slapped at Anji’s shoulder. “Along with your antidote. Get a move on if you want your next dose. It’s mostly flat or downhill from here, so you can quit whining.”

“I wasn’t whining,” said Anji.

“You were about to.”