The air seemed to grow thick around Borenson. From deep in his throat, the battle chuckle issued as he lowered his lance, flipped down the visor of his helm with a rapid nod of his chin, then spurred his horse into a gallop.

His lips clenched tight against his teeth.

White had fallen from gray clouds earlier. Soft cold. Frozen beauty, covering everything, sparkling when a patch of sunlight struck it.

King Sylvarresta gaped in wonder, sometimes moaning in delight when he saw a new beauty—the mounds of snow crusting a pool in the road, or clumps of melting snow dropping from a tree. He had no word for “snow,” could not recall it.

Everything seemed new, brimming with wonder. He felt very tired, but could not sleep once he came to the castle.

There were too many oddities here, people behind him crying out in pain. He looked at the castle, saw fallen towers. He could only marvel at how they had fallen.

A woman led his horse up a hill, to a great tree where spears stood about in a circle.

Sylvarresta listened to the young man talk to the woman, then gazed up in the tree. An orange cat, the kind of halfwild mouser common to farms, sat on a branch, staring down at him. It stood, arched its back, then walked out on a huge limb above King Sylvarresta, its tail twisting in the air. It meowed hungrily and gazed at something on the ground.

King Sylvarresta followed its gaze, noticed a man lying on the ground, under a shimmering green cape. He recognized that royal cape, the one that had mesmerized him just this morning. He recognized the man beneath it.

King Orden. His friend.

At the same moment, he knew something was profoundly wrong. Orden did not move. His chest did not fall and rise. He only clasped his hands over a blue flower.

In an instant Sylvarresta’s world shattered. He remembered what this was, dredged it up from some deep place where all horrors lay hidden.

He shouted wordlessly, not knowing the name for this thing, and leapt from his horse. He hit the ground, scrambled over the snow, sliding in the muck, till he broke through the fence of spears that stuck in the ground, reached Orden’s hand.

Orden’s cold fingers held a single flower, blue as sky. Sylvarresta grasped the cold fingers, picked them up and tried to get them to move. Reached for Orden’s cheek, stroked it, to find it as cold as the rest of him.

Sylvarresta cried, and turned back, to discover whether the others knew this great dark secret, knew of this beast that stalked them all.

As he caught the eyes of the young man and the woman, he saw horror there.

“Yes,” the young man said softly. “Death. He is dead.”

Yes, they knew the secret.