She watched me eat, her green eyes glowing like the wolves’, until I wiped my chin with my sleeve self-consciously and tucked my knees up to my chest. She ate her own stew more slowly, giving me time to observe her, although I did not dare look at her face. Gold threads shot through the thick, black wool of her sleeves and the heavy northern collar laced around her throat. I followed the leather thong up her throat, but that was too close to her face for comfort. I resumed my contemplation of her sleeves.

It was good wool. Coarse and heavy, but spun with a softer fleece to offer warmth and comfort. Beneath it, I told myself, would be a lighter tunic, also wool, spun from mountain sheep and dyed with walnuts. Hunting clothes: warm, practical, human.

She stood, affording me a glimpse of her belt. Several pouches, a flask, a long knife and a short knife, and a curved horn with a silver rim hung over her right hip. Hunting accoutrements. Leather breeches over wool leggings to fend off the cold. Scratches in the leather, dark stains around the knees from use. She wiped her knife on her left thigh after sharpening, the way Avery did. I could tell from the sheen the oilstone left on the leather.

“Here.”

She walked like a wolf, light on her feet and alert but confident in her supremacy as she seized a flagon from a shelf and poured a stream of dark red wine into two drinking horns. I picked up the closest one and brought it to my lips.

She did not acknowledge my gasp of surprise, and so I drank deeply, aware that this was the sort of wine my father had reserved for the wealthiest of his clients, back when he still had clients to appease. It was strong, barely watered, and it flushed the cold from underneath my skin. I drank, and as I drank I gathered my courage the way young girls gather fleece from hedgerows and stone walls for their spindles. It felt just as wispy.

“Who are you?” I asked.

She smiled at me. It was a wolf’s smile, full of teeth. “They call me the Huntress.”

The name stirred a memory of some old folk tale told over a winter’s evening. I must have heard it in the mountains, for it was not a tale I remembered hearing in my coastal town where the winters were mild. I frowned, unable to bring the memory closer.

You laughed at their superstitions, I thought. Now look at you.

“Is that your real name?” I asked. The effort of speaking left me winded, and I tried to breathe slowly.

“It is as real a name as any.”