“It’s okay,” I told her, counting off the members of the pack. Almost all were here. My heart rose again, this time in hope, and I strained my eyes toward the trees for more signs of movement.

There.

Her white fur caught the light, and the huge white bear lumbered soundlessly into view on giant paws. She was riderless.

“Where is she?” I asked the pack. My voice cracked on the last word. “Where is she?”

The wind picked up, empty and cold and damp. Snow was coming. We were out of time.

“What’s going on, Rowan?”

I didn’t answer. The pack never roamed outside the boundary without the Huntress. I hadn’t thought they could. My skin prickled in fear. “Juniper, you’re not going to like this,” I told her, and then I dragged her with me to the bear.

Her muzzle swung toward me. I had forgotten in the days I had been gone just how much the bear stank. This close, it was nearly overpowering, and I blinked fresh tears from my eyes. The smell would lessen once we were on top. I let the bear sniff me, and then I placed a hand on her shoulder, hoping she would understand. I was too weak to clamber up without help.

The bear knelt.

Juniper whimpered as I heaved myself across the bear’s shoulders, and she went boneless with panic as I hauled her up after me. “Hold on,” I warned, and then the forest slid away as the familiar gait of the animal carried us off into the trees.

Only the alpha female stayed.

The Huntress stroked her fur, resting her cheek against the cold of the stone.

It was raining again, and though the rain froze when it hit the walls of the keep, it was still rain.

A thousand years ago, it seemed, she had raised her face to the first spring rains, listening to the groan of the lake ice breaking up, waiting for the first of the ferns to uncurl near the shadows where the snow still lingered.

Or perhaps she dreamt the rain.

It was strange, this weakness. This cold.

She had never been weak.

She had never had cause to doubt her body, not since she had been a child, struck with fever.

Her hand paused on the wolf’s hip.

Perhaps all this had been a fever dream. The Hunt. The bear. The ice, the snow, and Rowan.

No.

Rowan was real.

She saw her now as she had seen her last, on her knees in the snow, anguish on her face. The Huntress had been able to ease that pain.

“I am a fool,” she whispered to the wolf. “I should have kept her here. I should have told her the price she would pay for her father’s life.”

The smell of roses was suffocating.

“I am so sick of roses,” she said, the effort of speaking almost more than she could stand.