I regretted carrying the pup. A few days of food in her belly had put weight on her bones, and my legs burned from the climb. It was no wonder the Huntress moved the way she did. If I climbed this many stairs on a regular basis, I too would lope with the easy grace of a mountain lion.

I smelled them before I saw them. A pale, half-remembered scent ensconced in ice.

They spilled through the next arrow slit, tight white buds and full blooms ghosting against the dark stone of the stairwell.

A rose for a rose, a thorn for a thorn.

I had kept my distance from the roses at the gates. These, though, would be impossible to avoid if I wanted to continue upward. The fragrance grew stronger as I drew parallel with them, wary of the long, raking thorns.

They were not like the roses in my mother’s garden. The petals were smaller, denser, wilder than the heavy blooms she grew in the loose, black soil of the coast. The thorns, too, were longer, the sharp curves promising pain to any who dared brush them aside.

My father had plucked one of these roses.

I tried to picture it, ignoring the voice that warned against such thoughts. Him, covered in ice and shivering as he trudged alongside the Locklands. The roses, waving in the wind, impossible, beautiful, a gift from a land without mercy.

A gift for his daughter.

He had handed me into the heart of winter, leaving me alone to deal with its thorns. Had he known what he was bringing?

Rage flared, immediate, demanding.

I would have died. I would have thrown myself into the drifts, or perhaps a chasm, before I brought one of these flowers home to my daughters. I would have plunged the rose into my breast or, better yet, laid it and my life before the Huntress’s feet. I would have died a thousand deaths before I gave such a rose to someone I loved. I sagged against the wall, staring at the briars ahead.

I had asked for the rose. He would have stumbled past them if I hadn’t, and home to us, and together we would have dealt with Avery. Together we would have survived, as we had before. The roses trembled in the gale outside. I let them catch at my clothes as I passed, because what was one more thorn?

I mounted the last flight with leaden steps.