I swore there was a glint of sadism in her eyes. “Like my arms are made of dough,” I said, letting the arms in question hang limply at my sides. The only benefit of my shaking muscles was that there was no room left for other earthly wants.

“You’ll be wishing they felt like dough tomorrow. Come, some wine will help.”

I walked beside her on the way back to the kitchen, carrying my bow and spear. There was something unsettlingly right about walking into her hall armed to the teeth, even if I didn’t have a clue what to do with one of the weapons in my hands, and was too weak from learning how to use the other to so much as pluck the string.

This was how I used to feel reading epic poems about long-dead warriors, or listening to Henric tell stories about his people’s warrior gods and goddesses. Limitless. I widened my stride, letting a little more of the yoke of the past few years slide off me.

Beside me, the Huntress smiled.

“You were wasted on your village boy,” she said, and I felt the weight of the arm she did not place around my shoulder like a ghostly caress.

“Thank you,” I said, feeling my chin tilt a little higher and not caring that I might look ridiculous, strutting into the warmth of the kitchen.

“Put up your bow and heat us some wine. I have something else for you,” she said, and this time I did feel the slight pressure of her hand on my back.

The pup tried to wrest the spear from me when I leaned it against the wall. “Stop that,” I scolded her, smiling despite myself. The smile stayed on my lips as I heated the wine, and it was still there when the Huntress returned. She paused in the doorway, her eyes widening a little as they met mine, and then I saw the object in her hands.

It was fur, but not just any fur.

“You’ll need this in the snow,” she said, settling the wolfskin cloak around my shoulders. I stroked the white ruff, feeling the power of the departed animal rippling through the flawlessly tanned hide like a subvocal growl.

“Was this . . . was this one of yours?” I asked her in a hushed voice. She smoothed the cloak, pulling it more securely around me, and I saw the answer in her face. “But you said they were your family.”

“They are.”

I had nothing to say to that. The blood rose to my face, and I stood there with her hands on my shoulders and the wolf’s pelt soft beneath my hands, unable to breathe at the magnitude of what had been left unsaid.

“I . . .” I managed at last, stumbling over my words. “No one has ever given me anything like this. Ever.”

“I thought you were a wealthy merchant’s daughter.”