The tavern door crashed open with a screaming gust of wind.

“We’re closed for—” the barkeep faltered. His tray clattered to the floor, empty clay mugs shattering on the planks.

Heavy bootsteps rang in the empty tavern as a specter in all black strode across the room. The figure wore a black mask fashioned into the face of a bird of prey, smooth angles forming into a beak curved to a sharp point.

Anji jumped to her feet, then stumbled into the table’s edge. Her head felt soaked in tar. A wave of confusion and fear washed over her. Wasn’t it enough that she’d gone this far? She’d just wanted to celebrate, to rest. She cast a longing look at the money piled on the table, her money.

“Nine Gods,” said Jom at Anji’s back. “It’s the Hawk…”

The Hawk stopped an arm span from Anji, the open door framing her slight form. Anji dug her nails into her palm, cold panic roiling in her gut.

Nine, not now. Not when I was so close.

“Excuse me,” said the bartender, his voice shaking, “are you here for someone?” He gulped. “Because I can assure you I do not harbor—”

The Hawk pointed a gloved finger at Anji. “I’m here for the girl.”

Anji ignored the confused glance Jom and Tela shared. She palmed her dagger’s handle, kicking the chair aside. “C’mon then,” she said, her words jumbled. She spared a glance at the others, now shrinking in unison toward the back wall. Cowards.

The Hawk stepped closer—too close. Anji nearly had the blade singing out of its sheath—

Then the blinding pain came, darkness hurrying after.

Chapter 2

2

Her feet were freezing.

Anji shifted, eyes shut tight, trying to twitch the covers over her toes. The Matron had left the window open again—resigning her to curl under her sheet like a mouse in its den. She groaned and flipped to her other side. Still cold. Another piercing gust of wind tore through the window and she put out a hand. Her other hand followed with a metallic clink.

She opened her eyes.

No bare stone above her head or candle left burning to push back the darkness. No murmur of the other girls waking for their shift. No sheet, no cot, no open window.

Only tundra, and wide, empty sky.

The expanse of Yem’s northern territory stretched out in wafting tufts of heather and sedge and tall, stringy grass. Pitted, moss-covered rocks littered the ground, which lay under a deep purple sky, pink on the jagged horizon.