Page 58 of To Carve A Wolf

I moved through Andros’s room like a thief, which was fitting. That’s what I was now. I pulled two silver candlesticks from the mantle and wrapped them in one of his shirts. Heavy, real silver. They’d sell well. In the bottom drawer of his desk, I found a pouch of old coins—dusty, some with foreign stamps, but they’d trade.

Everything I touched reeked of him, but I forced myself not to care. I stripped quickly and changed into warmer clothes—furs stolen from his closet, a thick wool tunic, a heavy cloak. His boots were too big, but better than bare feet.

I stared at the window. Frost clung to the glass like spiderwebs. I cracked it open and the cold slapped me, sharp and bracing. My breath clouded instantly.

Good.

I slung the pouch over my shoulder, braced my hands on the windowsill, and climbed out.

The wall was slick with ice, but my fingers found their grip. My legs moved like they remembered something I’d never learned. The wolf guided me, stronger, quicker. My breath came in white bursts as I pulled myself up onto the roof and crouched low.

The wind bit through the fabric, but I barely felt it. I moved. One rooftop to another. Slate to timber. My muscles burned, but it was nothing compared to the weight I carried inside.

The stables were just ahead. A leap, no more than six feet. I pushed off. The wolf surged with me, and for a second, I swore I felt hersmirk.

I missed.

The edge of the roof clipped my foot and I went down hard, tumbling through frozen air and landing in a heap in the snow behind the stable. Pain lanced through my side. My ankle screamed. I bit down on a cry and rolled onto my back, staring up at the paling sky.

“You bitch,” I whispered, gasping through the pain.

She growled in my head, unrepentant.

“I swear to the gods, the second I find that witch again, I’m getting ten runes. Ten. I’ll carve them down to my spine if I have to. You’ll never make a sound again.”

The wolf didn’t answer. She didn’t need to, I knew it as her doing.

The pain in my side made every movement sharp, but I gritted my teeth and forced myself to stand. The stables loomed ahead, quiet, the doors slightly ajar. I limped toward them, keeping low, listening for voices or footsteps. Nothing. Just the soft snorts and shifting hooves of sleeping horses.

Inside, it was warmer, the scent of hay and sweat and animals almost comforting. I moved fast, choosing a lean grey mare with long legs and a wary eye. She jerked when I touched her flank, but I whispered soft lies into her ear and stroked herneck until she calmed.

I saddled her clumsily—too loud, too slow—but luck stayed with me. No one came. Before I mounted, I hesitated.

Dain.

A breath caught in my throat.My throat burned, but I forced the thought away. I couldn’t take him with me. Not yet.

“I’ll come back,” I said aloud, voice cracking. “When I have the runes again. When I’m stronger. When he can’t touch me.”

The mare stamped her hooves. Time was running out. I led her toward the edge of the outer wall, where the gate guards rotated just before sunrise. I knew their rhythm by now. Knew when the inner bell rang for the changing watch. I waited in the shadows and, just as the gate creaked open to let in the new patrol, I threw a rock across the courtyard.

It shattered a window on the opposite side of the keep. Voices shouted. The guards turned. I dug my heels into the mare and kicked her forward.

We flew.

Hooves thundered over the bridge, shouts behind me, horns sounding. Arrows didn’t fly—I was lucky. Or Andros had ordered them not to hurt me. Either way, the gates vanished behind us in the snow.

The wind ripped at my cloak. My fingers went numb around the reins. The land beyond the citadel was white and endless, the mountains sharp in the distance like jagged teeth. I didn’t know where I was. I’d never been this far north. The air tasted like steel and pine.

If I could cross the mountains, I might find a village. And if I found a village, I could ask for the coast. And when I found the coast, I’d find her. And this time, I’d ask for more than just silence.

By midday, the wind had turned cruel.

The sky hung low and bruised, thick with snow that lashedagainst my face like glass shards. The mare’s sides were lathered with sweat beneath her winter coat, her breaths coming hard and fast. I urged her on until her hooves began to slip on the frozen ground, until I could see the tremble in her legs with every step.

She couldn’t go further. And neither could I.

I spotted the cave just as the first flakes thickened into a blizzard. It was a narrow gash in the side of a hill, half-hidden behind a cluster of pine trees already half-buried in white. I dismounted, nearly crumpled from the jolt that shot through my side, and led the mare inside.

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