Though we're traveling almost due south now, the huntsman's path eases its way ever upward into the mountains. Winter's early edge grows sharper the further we go, the cold penetrating what remains of my clothes and settling deep in my bones. My teeth clatter so hard I'm afraid they'll crack—until a heavy cloak comes down around my shoulders. I glance back to see the cat-eyed beast-eater stepping hastily away, adjusting the straps across his chest. He'd had to put me down a long time ago, the scent of my blood finally getting to him.

"You must free yourselves before they sell Thrall back to those depths-born bastards," insists Howla for the third time. Rhetrien murmurs agreement across the Link.

"We'd have to kill them all," I snap back.

"Do what you must." The casual indifference in Howla's tone chills me anew.

"We have to think of the full scope of things, the good of the nations," says Saffryn. "Sometimes that means making...unsavory choices."

"They're taking me to their southern outpost with Nikessa," cuts in Thrall. "Something different is going on here. If they planned to sell me back to Grailhold, they'd have split us up by now. Let us handle this our own way. We're traveling in the direction we need to. We will get to the chasms."

"But if they realize who you are..." Rhetrien's voice this time, dripping with doubt.

"Then we'll do what we must.'"

A light snow begins. Our path grows steep and the sky glows scarlet at the edges, going dark overhead. The trees here are strange, with black bark and needles the color of old blood. Pale mushrooms grow in clustered profusion, oozing drops of pink liquid.

"Do you know this place they're taking us to?" I'm careful to direct my words to Thrall and him alone. I can sense I'm not the only one annoyed by the others' unsolicited opinions.

"The southern territorial border outpost for clan Heartstone."

"You've been there before?"

"No. But I know whose lands these are and I know our people. The outposts have become havens for the nation's beast-eaters, and the Huntsmen reign among them."

Though we stop to rest occasionally, we show no signs of slowing as full night falls. There is no moon to be seen, and the stars are dim beyond a haze of cloud. The Huntsmen produce no lanterns. They don't need them. I stumble on as best I can, barely able to see the path ahead, the entire lower half of my body painted in pain.

Creatures roam the darkness, many of them Mirebeasts. And though some are huge and others move in packs, all steer clear of our procession. No doubt they scent what the huntsman are and know well enough to steer clear. I hear their calls from the inky depths of the forest, and occasionally the near-silent whisper of wind on wings as an owl or something like it swoops overhead. But nothing lingers, nothing follows us.

Another animal attack would definitely be too conspicuous to get away with, then. I was right.

When I catch a glimpse of an orange light high overhead, past the stone outcroppings and night-black pines edging our path, I almost cry.

Thank you Firstborn, thank you. Oh thank fuck.

The wind carries faint threads of song down the mountain, raising the hairs on the back of my neck. It's always been comforting to me, Falruni music. The gift of my father's blood, a rhythm my heart's always known. But my family has no ties with this clan, and their music is different. There's something chaotic about the drumbeat, the singers' voices an eery keening undercut by throat chanting so deep it's as if the stone themselves are speaking.

As we draw nearer, a wall looms into view. Our path ends at its gate—a narrow, heavy thing of wood and iron painted in flickering light by the torches set into the stone at either side. There's a howling from the sky as the wind shifts, bringing with it fresh veils of snow.

The gatehouse door swings wide and a bristling black figure emerges, calling out to us as the door slams shut again behind him.

"Skorsgar, that your pack?"

"Aye," shouts the k'Vhar. "And quarry."

The darkened silhouette stands suddenly straighter, head twisting around as he barks something unintelligible at the door behind him. Heartbeats later it's opening again, and more figures spill out. The first one strides ahead of them to greet the tusked pack leader.

"Type?" The gatekeeper's voice deepens, taking on a gravely edge as the wind blows our scent his way.

"One Stage Five, one Fallen."

There's a moment of tense silence, and then a hushed conversation between them. The gatekeeper turns to speak with his attendants. Two of them break away, gliding from the outer ring of crimson light and straight for me, their skirts stirring the newly-settled snow.

"Come with us," says the first of the two to reach me, a very subtly changed beast-eater woman with a soft voice and dark, wide-set eyes. "My name is Noa, and this is Ketra. You're safe, now." Reaching out, she takes my left arm—while the other hovers at my right side uneasily. The little light that reaches us slides across her fish-scaled cheeks as she glances at my face and away again.

"I won't leave Thrall," I argue, trying to stand my ground though it's everything I can do just to stay upright.

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"You must," says the other woman, her voice breathy but harsh.

"Go with them for now, Dhajia. It'll be alright."

"No."

"Please."

My teeth start to clatter, as much with terror as cold, and I pull my cloak tighter around my shoulders and arms. Then, remembering why I have a cloak at all, I turn to its owner to offer it back. But he only shakes his head, putting his hands up in silent refusal. With a final glance at Thrall, I allow the women to lead me away.

Don't be pathetic. He'll be in the same building. You can still talk to him at any time. It's like Rhetrien said, no one can really separate any of us.

But my feet drag on my way to the gatehouse door, and I twist my head around again and again to look back at him. He's my last anchor to when things made sense. To a safer world where people know and care about me and everything isn't falling apart. And in this moment, stupid as it is...it feels as though the world's going to crumble completely the instant he's out of sight.

If anything happens to him while we're apart, I don't know what I'll do.

The gatehouse is dark, cramped, and heavy with a haze of woodsmoke that clings to me even as we exit into the courtyard beyond. Wrought-iron lanterns like little bird cages line the walls, but all are empty. There's not a trace of emberstone in sight.

The outpost looms overhead—black as char in the night save the scattered red-orange glow of narrow windows, its several log-and-stone levels crawling up the mountainside. It's bigger than I'd expected...much bigger. This was a clan stronghold at some point, it has to have been.

"This way," says Noa, pulling me gently off to the right and up a series of narrow stairs. They creak as I hobble my way up, every step a burst of stabbing pain. Stopping at the third level, we pass several doors along an open walkway before coming to a halt in front of one of them. Grasping the latch, the other beast-eater woman pulls it open as the first hurries me through.

"It's dangerous for you out there," says Ketra as she follows us in and shuts the door, enveloping us in velvety darkness. The only light is that of the night sky outside, but little makes its way in through the chamber's one narrow window. It takes a few moments for my eyes to adjust.

"It's best you stay in this room while you're here," says Noa.

"I don't exactly have a choice, do I?"

She smiles slightly. "You must bathe, and get into clean clothes. The washroom is this way, come. We have water pumped up from the hot springs below."

"Er, I can do this part myself," I hedge.

There's a brief silence, and from the spiky flare of their Embers I could almost swear I've offended them somehow. But then Noa gives a small nod. "Very well," she ascedes. "But you must be sure to oil your skin with the essence of Juniper, once you are clean."

"And shroud yourself in smoke from the incense of cedar," adds Ketra. "They'll make your scent less...well, they'll help protect you."

"We'll come back with clothes and fresh moon moss for the bleeding. There's a robe in the waterroom that you may wear until then," adds Noa as the other woman crouches before the hearth, kindling a fire with black branches. The wood as it burns smells spicy and strange, like cloves and cinnamon and copper. The already warm room grows warmer. New light dances through the chamber, illuminating its furnishings—a four-posted bed with a trunk at the end, several animals pelts, and a simple altar to the wolf god.

The two leave me then, and there's an extra click after the door shuts behind them. I don't have to check it to know that it's locked, and I decide not to. It'll only make the panic set in. Stripping off my dirty, tattered clothes, I pad over to the washroom door.

The water's deliciously warm but also stinks faintly of sulfur. The heat eases the pain in my abdomen somewhat, and I soak in it until my skin wrinkles up and I've become so used to the smell that I'm hardly aware of it. If only it worked that way with beast-eaters and mirefallen. When I finally drag myself out of the washroom, thoroughly oiled and incensed, my new clothes and moon moss are waiting—laid out for me over the blackwood trunk.

"They know who we are," Thrall's voice murmurs into the link between us. My heart rate triples on the spot.

"Wh-what? Already? How?"

"Their falra—that's their leader here, under the chieftain—"

"I know what a falra is, Thrall! My blood-father—"

"Their falra knows me."

"But you're not from anywhere near this territory!"

"He's from a lodge in Pike lands, but he was cast out. The chieftain of Heartstone must have considered him valuable enough to accept him here."

My hands clench into my damp hair, and it's everything I can do not to tear it out in clumps.

"What do we do, Thrall? I can't kill all of them. I can't do it. I—"

"Dhajia. Please—"

The Link lapses into silence.

"Thrall? Thrall? What's going on?"

He doesn't answer.

Still wearing nothing but the roughspun robe, I dash over to the door and yank at the handle...but I was right. It's locked. Panic rising like a tide in my blood, I pull it over and over and over again. It doesn't budge. It barely even creaks.

"Noa!" I shout. "Ketra! Someone, please, let me out! I need to get out!"

But no matter how much I shout, no one answers. The room, which seemed of a perfectly reasonable size just a few moments ago, suddenly feels cramped as a coffin. My hands fly to my hair again and again, and though I resist the urge to tear it out, strands get caught in my ravaged cuticles and tangled around my fingers, a few curling threads of it drifting to the ground every time I let my hands drop. One of them shimmers in the glow of the flames, iridescent.

Rushing back into the washroom, I stare at the reflection I'd spared barely a passing glance to before.

The miremarked locks have already grown back.

I groan and let my head drop forward to press against the tarnished glass.

Of course they have.

"Thrall? Are you there? What's going on?" I call to him again, and the only response is silence. Taking a deep, shaking breath, I go back out into the main chamber and install myself on the bed as I close my eyes.

The Web is strange here, almost dark save the lights of the beast-eaters in the lodge. Few creatures dare roam close to its walls, but Embers stalk the forest some seven or so stone throws from the compound, just within the range of my abilities.

I reach into one with silent wings and eyes well-suited to the darkness. The wind on my feathers feels like caressing silk, and the view of the sprawling lodge and the strange forest drifted over in snow is intoxicating in its beauty. For a half a wild heartbeat, I wheel in the wrong direction, back out and towards the trees. For half a heartbeat, I forget who I am and what I'm doing.

And then, as I'm scanning my surroundings with every sense I have at my disposal, I notice Thrall's Ember among the others of his kind. More familiar to me now than anyone else's, save my own and Puka's. I snap back to myself, terror chilling my blood—my own, back in my true body—at the realization of what I'd almost done.

The owl is fast, but not as fast as I'd like as I drive it towards Thrall's Ember at the top of the lodge's north-facing tower. A big wood-paned window dominates the northeast corner, affording me an easy view of Thrall, sprawled unconscious across the floor. He's not alone. The K'Vhar of the pack who'd found us looms over my Khaj's prone form, accompanied by a few others I don't recognize. One stands out from the others, though—the man closest to the window. The one watching me with his hands behind his back and a grin on his milk-white face, displaying rows of needly yellow teeth.

His scar-torn lips work, and I can only just make out his words.

"So it's true," he says. "There she is."