"I'm going to the city. I'm taking Miko with me." Zinnia crossed the room in a flash, ignoring the gaze of the three remaining women, who couldn't believe that, still completely soaked, she would venture back out into the snowstorm, which was blowing violently.

"Please, don't go alone..." Nubia began to speak, putting aside her knitting needles and wringing her hands. "The paramilitary groups are always roaming around at night, and..."

Zinnia opened the door and left, leaving Nubia with half the words on her lips as millions of white snowflakes entered the hut, accompanied by a cold wind that made Simara shiver. The three women remained silent while Zinnia headed outside to the stables to take Miko, the black Frisian horse, and gallop away.

"Don't worry, mom. She'll return as quickly as she left, with her tail between her legs..." Simara rolled her eyes, frowning. Nubia sighed.

Nubia sighed. It had been so long since Simara and Zinnia had been fighting that almost no one could bear the tense atmosphere inside the hut, worsened by the years. With Zinnia's explosive nature and Simara's sharp tongue, the two sisters were explosive when near each other. Only Olimpia, with her gentleness and patience, managed to escape the constant recriminations and confrontations that her two sisters were involved in. As children, pushing and crying had reigned; as adults, the fights had become crueler and more euphoric, with hurtful arguments.

"Enough, Sima. One day you and your sister will have to stop fighting; you can't stay the same way your whole life. You'll have to get over it."

The woman kept staring at the wooden door, her face contorted with worry until Olimpia spoke up for the first time during the argument.

"Well, she'll be back. We'll wait for her, I'm sure nothing will happen to her."

Olimpia took a deep breath and focused again on her knitting. Simara imitated her. She took a deep breath to calm down, letting the strong smell of burnt wood mixed with the laurel of the dry branches hanging by the fireplace to season the food and the remains of the meal with a sauce that had been left in the pot over the fire fill her nostrils with its different nuances.

The three women continued with their tasks, immersed in an uncomfortable silence. Nubia focused on the cloak that was taking shape between her hands, Olimpia kept knitting a pair of brown gloves, and Simara put aside her work in a wicker basket and headed to the spinning wheel, brightly decorated and painted with red oil roses intertwined with green-leafed branches.

While they worked, time passed, and Simara began to feel tired, with sore eyes from focusing on the sheep's wool. She was also in a terrible mood because they would soon have to go to sleep, and Zinnia had not returned.

"If you're always so cold, you should also be brave enough to go to the city to do who-knows-what," she thought bitterly.

There was no use, Zinnia would arrive later.

"I can't take it anymore, I'm going to bed," Olimpia stretched and stood up from her seat. "My eyes hurt too much to stay."

Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

Nubia sighed. She ran a hand through her fragile, auburn hair tied with braids that were starting to unravel, losing part of their shape.

"I'll stay a bit longer, I'll wait for her."

Olimpia cleaned her hands on a rag and looked at Simara. Her eyes were cloudy and silently asked if she should open the door. In silence, Simara shook her head, telling her not to do it, but it was too late. A sudden deduction, a hasty thought crossed Nubia's blue eyes, and she rushed to the door.

"What if something happened to Zinnia?" she whispered.

Everything happened very quickly. Simara leaned forward in her chair, listening to the movement and the whistling of the wind as the snowflakes entered the warmth of the hut.

"For you," she heard the unknown voice of a woman.

Nubia took a folded square of parchment from the woman's hand, and suddenly Simara saw how the white hand of the mysterious newcomer suddenly grasped Nubia's wrist.

Then it happened.

Nubia's body turned into millions of drops of dark blood that bathed Simara from head to toe, staining everything around her - the floor, the table, the chairs, the walls, and part of the thatched roof.

Simara remained completely still in her place as she watched and felt the warm bath soak her clothes and skin with blood and pieces of flesh.

Horror.

Simara reacted when she heard that, outside the house, the woman retreated, letting even more snow enter, which melted when it came into contact with Nubia's hot blood.

Simara threw herself at her mother, with a howl.

"Mom!" Simara shouted as she fell onto the shreds of flesh, skin, and bones that remained of her mother, and the snow hit her, entering the hut more forcefully along with the cold air, completely extinguishing the fire in the hearth with the first gust of wind.

Simara's hands were stained red and sticky, and she could barely hold onto anything firmly because the blood and flesh were too slippery. She began to scream and scream, nonstop, but she didn't shed a single tear as she was completely consumed by the darkness of the hut and the cold that replaced the warmth that once welcomed the room.

"Mom! Mom!" She screamed until she couldn't anymore, her voice refusing to come out and her throat hurt and scraped from the inside. Her gaze turned outward, toward the snow that continued to enter violently, where the woman who had grabbed Nubia's wrist stumbled outside the hut, staining the snow around her with the blood that covered her black tunic, leaving a red trail on the white ground. Beside her, other men with identical tunics waited, riding black horses partially covered by the snowstorm. The woman took uncertain steps and delayed approaching her horse as if she didn't want to leave. Suddenly, she turned around and looked at Simara and what was left of Nubia, revealing only half of her face and her partially open mouth under the hood of her woolen cloak. The woman raised her hands, and as she did, black tattoos with intertwined symbols appeared on the pale skin of her hands, intricate tattoos that disappeared under the dark woolen clothing of her arms. The woman pushed her hood back and Simara could see her face. The eyelids of her clear eyes were painted with thick black stripes that accentuated her gray eyes. Her sharp features and slender face were framed by straight, black, and brittle hair.

"What about the girl?" one of the men accompanying her asked from atop his horse.

"We were told no, only the mother." The woman still looked at Simara, who only stared back with wide eyes, until she turned around and disappeared with her group into the closed snowstorm.

Kneeling and still with her hands in the warm blood, Simara only watched them leave with something inside her that was very similar to a disgusting impotence that turned into a giant flame.

Then she knew. She knew even before the men disappeared into the snow of the Snowy Valley before she screamed again, and even before Olimpia arrived running into the kitchen, screaming through the snow that continued to enter.

Simara would go after them.