People stood with breath misting to watch us depart. I couldn’t tell if they expected a calamity to befall us before we left their sight, or if they wished to store away the memory to tell as a tale over and over again at the winter hearth: how they had seen the lord magister and the beast ride away into the night. It was as quiet as if death had blown a kiss over the world. The only sounds were the crunch of hooves on crusted snow and the moan of the wind. I could not stop shaking.

Our road was a broad cart track glistening with a lacework of frost under the moon’s light. We halted at daybreak in a hamlet of two farmsteads to feed and water the horses. Vai suggested I go indoors to warm myself at a hearth. The women hustled their children out when I came in, so I went back out again, not wanting the children to get cold. My hands hurt, and my lips were numb, and worst of all, a pair of crows now followed us. I was sure they were my sire’s spies.

It was a long, silent, cold day as we rode south. At midday, when we halted in an abandoned shelter for a short rest, Vai sat next to me on a crude wooden bench. I huddled in a shawl of misery, as mute as if the priest in the temple had cut out my tongue.

Vai addressed Devyn. “Is there no mage inn in your village? Surely magisters ride through your village every year or two to claim their tithe in servants and in furs. Now and again a child must bloom with cold magic. Why would Crescent House have built in such a forsaken northern place if there was not something they deemed valuable there?”

Devyn stared at his hands as he answered. “To our village, no magister is now coming. The death of Crescent House has to us brought the curse of the god. Each year after the night of bonfires when the sun turns south, we bring our trade goods and our children to the trade fair at Kimbri. There will you be finding House lodging, Magister.”

“It was the ice, wasn’t it?” said Vai suddenly. “The mages of Crescent House wanted to be close to the ice. Because our power is strongest here.”

Devyn gestured a sign to wipe away the secret knowledge he had unwillingly overheard. “If we wish to be reaching Kimbri before nightfall, then we must be riding, Magister.”