Despite the warmth of exertion, the cold gnawed at Triss's fingers and bit at her nose and cheeks. Missing a step, she stumbled and fell in the powdery snow, sending up a plume of white. Before she could get up, a large, warm hand grasped her arm and helped her to her feet.

"Alright?" Behn asked, his voice muffled by the cloth covering the lower half of his face and his eyes shadowed by his overhanging hood.

"Fine," Triss said, dusting snow from her clothes and hair and rearranging her own face cover. "How about you?"

"Peachy," Behn puffed. "Hungry, tired, sore, and somehow sweaty and freezing at the same time. But great, otherwise."

He gave a thumbs up, and Triss laughed. Three days had passed since they left the Haven — three days of gruelling marches through thigh-deep drifts and two nights of sleeping in freezing temperatures that left them aching with cold by sunrise. Behn had kept up admirably well, and insisted on doing his share, preparing their meals morning and night in the one small cook-pot he'd been permitted to bring, while Triss and Obi handled the shelter and fire.

"Same. We'll stop soon, I think. We need time to build a shelter before nightfall, and getting a fire started in the snow is a bitch."

"Everything all right?" Their third companion, Obi, retraced his steps along the path he'd ploughed, having noticed they'd fallen behind.

"Yes. I was just saying we ought to keep an eye out for a good place to shelter for the night," Triss said.

Obi frowned and squinted up at the sun, which still sparkled at a high angle through the snow-clad trees. "You may be right," he said. "But knowing Rea, she won't slow or stop until evening. She's already got almost a two-day head start. I'd rather not fall further behind."

"If Rea's not a fool, she'll have stopped early as well," Triss said. "If she didn't, then we'll catch up to her frozen corpse soon enough."

"I don't get it," Behn said, following the direction of Obi's gaze and squinting at the cloudless blue sky. "Is there more snow on the way?"

Obi smiled grimly. "No. We might be better off if there was. Clouds are like a blanket for the sky, even when they come bearing snow. A clear night — like the one to come — can be much colder. Nothing between you and the indifferent stars above, which will twinkle on merrily as you freeze to death."

Triss shivered as an unwelcome memory rose in her mind, and shoved it down again.

"Are you cold?" Behn asked. "You want my gloves? My hands are sweating."

"How are you always warm?" Triss asked, ignoring the offer and setting off after Obi as he turned and trudged on through the snow.

"Big boys... burn hot!" Behn huffed, bringing up the rear. "That's what my dad always says."

Triss glanced at him over her shoulder. "Your dad would be proud, if he could see you now."

Behn waved his free hand dismissively, gripping his walking staff with the other. "Nah. Any time spent outside the brewery is time wasted, far as he's concerned."

"Well, I'm proud of you," Triss said, and shot him a wink as what little she could see of his face flushed crimson.

Facing forward again, her smile faded. It was the truth — she was proud of him. Behn wasn't the chubby boy she'd played hound-and-hare with all over the streets of Dern. He was a man now: a man with a good heart, a kind soul, and a stalwart strength that could be relied upon. He'd never be a warrior — wouldn't last two days in the Guard — but he'd fight to the death for his friends.

She knew he liked her — was maybe a little in love with her, even — and in a different life she might have returned those feelings. Behn would make a good partner: supportive and caring; someone who could fill a house with love and keep it full. He deserved someone who could do the same; someone who wouldn't break his heart.

Behn would scale mountains, fight barrowlings, and trudge through snow for his friends, but his heart belonged to the brewery, the bakery, and the hearth at home — where Triss would never be content for long.

Adventure and danger would always call to her. Sooner or later, Guard or not, she would answer; and eventually a day would come when she would leave and not return.

She knew the pain of waiting for someone who never came back, and she wouldn't wish it on anyone — especially on someone as sweet as Behn. Her father and her older brother had both been men of the Guard. Both left, never to return.

That was why her mother had tried so hard to discourage her from joining, and why she had been so determined to join. Part of her had wanted to follow them — to discover where her father and Tristen had gone, and maybe to find them someday and bring them home. As she got older, she'd come to understand the hard truth: 'lost' didn't mean they were out there somewhere, waiting to be found. It meant they were gone forever: bones scattered in the earth somewhere.

Still, some part of her had held on to a sliver of that naive, childhood hope. Another part of her was just plain angry. That was the part that drove her through years of brutal training, never giving in to pain or weakness, never allowing herself to think the word 'quit.'

'Warrior' was the word she wanted for herself; to prove that she could triumph where her father and brother had failed.

In time, she understood that there was no weakness in failure; that sometimes fate just dealt bad hands, and the bravest and best must take what they were given; the proudest and mightiest must one day bow before death.

What mattered then, more than physical prowess, was strength of spirit. Her father and Tristen had that in spades, she was sure.

Her father's demise was well-documented, as she had discovered after a furtive peek at the Archives. He'd drowned trying to save his horse during a botched river crossing. Not a 'warrior's death,' and so not worthy of the official Annals; just an act of courage and loyalty that led to his demise.

As for her brother...

Tristen had been in the elite ranks, like her: a Watcher. He'd been the best of the best — slated for promotion, expected to achieve great things. Then he'd been sent on a secret mission to Yothaim, in the frozen north. He'd corresponded regularly until the moment he crossed the border into that realm; then, he'd never been heard from since.

What drove Triss now was the simple mission of finding out what had happened to him. At least, that had been her mission until a more urgent one fell in her lap.

In truth, abandoning Dern to follow Galen hadn't been a hard decision. She'd seen the writing on the wall: as the Temple gained power, others lost it — namely, anyone who wasn't a man of pure Thrynian blood. Most of her brethren in the Guard held their sisters in equal esteem, but some — including Darek's father, the Captain of the Guard himself — did not. Given the slightest official encouragement to do so, he'd scrub women from the ranks faster than he'd brush a spider from his sleeve.

She didn't regret leaving the Guard; the only thing she regretted leaving was her mother. Unable to leave a proper note for fear it would fall into the wrong hands, she'd left the clearest sign she could. Removing her Guard's brooch, which bore the insignia of her rank and honors, she'd placed it on the mantelpiece beside her father's and Tristen's, along with a single coin — an old Thrynian symbol of hope and luck. Her mother would know what it meant: that if fortune favored her, Triss would return one day, perhaps bearing news of her brother's fate, and that she would send better word when she could.

In fact, if all went well, she would send word from Lastiff in the form of Behn.

She accepted the utility of his presence — if he could convince his uncle to lend them cloud-racers, it would give them a marked advantage — but safe in Lastiff was where she hoped to leave him. From there, he could return to his father and Dern, and take up the comfortable, safe, fulfilling life for which he was suited.

At least Galen was back at the Haven with Iksy and Zenír. He'd surprised her even more than Behn — the pretty Pyrran boy she'd mistaken for a girl when they first met. On their travels, she'd seen him suffer without complaint and face danger without flinching, and he clearly had talents of his own; but, like Behn, she still judged him as unsuited for the hardships of a warrior's life. She was glad he was safe.

"Who'd have imagined... we'd end up... friends with a mage!" Behn exclaimed breathlessly, perhaps thinking along the same lines as he trudged along a few steps behind her. "And not just... any mage, either! The p'yrha! 'Course, I hadn't heard of a p'yrha 'fore now."

"Quiet," Obi barked from where he led the way a dozen paces ahead. "Keep your voices down, and do not speak of Galen again."

"What's got his tail in a twist?" Behn huffed, when Obi turned his back again.

Behind her protective face cloth, which shielded her skin from the bright glare of sun on snow, Triss smiled as Behn's voice brought her back to simpler times, when she and he and Galen were little terrors on the streets of Dern.

Her smile faded. The last thing she wanted was to hurt his feelings, but her campaign to leave Behn in Lastiff had to start sometime, and this was as good an opportunity as ever. The less welcome and the more out of his depths he felt, the more likely the decision to remain behind would be his own.

Besides, hurt feelings never killed anyone, as far as Triss knew. Lots of other things did, though, and Triss would sleep better knowing Behn was safe from at least some of them.

"He's right," she said. "Sound travels far in the cold air. And as we say in the Guard: never say anything you wouldn't want an enemy to hear."

"My dad says something similar," Behn said, either oblivious to, or ignoring, the coolness in her tone. "He says, 'never share a recipe unless you're happy with your rivals having it.' At least, I think that's similar."

Triss frowned. Now would be the perfect time to say something crushing — something about the difference between secret recipes and secrets that got people killed, or about Behn's inability to keep anything a secret for long — but she found herself saying something else instead.

"Same concept," she agreed. "So, let's be careful, okay?"

"Who do you think might be out here?" he asked in a nervous undertone. "Barrowlings?"

"No. We're beyond their territory now. Or leastways, I'd wager as much," Obi answered over his shoulder. "But if we're sharing sayings, 'the forest has ears' is one among Hands."

They went on his silence after that until Obi called a halt with a sharp whistle and pointed to his left. Through the trees, Triss saw what had drawn his eye — a place where the bright snow dropped off abruptly into the blue shadows of trees: likely a ledge at the end of a natural slab of glacial granite. Trudging over, Triss peered down into a little hollow at the base of a drop of a dozen feet or so: perfect shelter from the prevailing wind, and it would even hide most of the light from their fire.

"Looks good," she said.

"Home sweet home." Behn sighed wistfully, but shed his pack with dutiful determination. "Alright, what you two want for supper this time? We got... the dried stuff, or... the other dried stuff."

"The other dried stuff," Obi said, shooting him a wink as he let his own pack drop from his shoulder. "We had the dried stuff last night."

"Other dried stuff it is," Behn said stoutly, and set to work.

Triss watched him for a moment, a fond smile on her lips. Then she shook herself and set off after Obi in search of firewood.

-✵-

Dried food threw Behn for a loop, at first. Dried fruit and dried meat, he understood. But a whole cooked meal dried to a powder and sealed in a little leather pouch? That was weird.

As the cooks at the Haven had explained, water was heavy. Removing it made the food more travel friendly. All you had to do was add hot water back in and the meal cooked itself.

Behn had to admit it was convenient. On the other hand, flavor was sacrificed. A rehydrated mash of bean paste, jerky, and vegetable flakes was not the same thing as a fresh bowl of beans and roast meat. After a long day of trudging through the snow, however, bean paste would do just fine.

Behn had a theory, however, that dried food was as unkind to one end of the digestive tract as it was to the other, but at least he wasn't the only one contributing mysterious noises to the night.

As he lay swaddled in his bedroll that night, with Triss snoring at his side and Obi's intermittent bouts of flatulence disrupting the stillness, he let his thoughts wander on the borders of dreams.

He had very little hope of ever winning Triss's heart. He'd never be a warrior like her; never be her equal. But maybe he could be something else. He could prove, when they reached Lastiff, how useful he could be. His family was humble — his father considered bragging almost a sin — but the truth was, his was one of the wealthiest families in Sakkara.

Triss had sacrificed her future in the Guard, but Behn could give her a better one. He could build them a beautiful home, wherever she wanted; and she could be whatever she wanted — a sword for hire, a merchant, a mariner — as long as she came home to him at the end of the day.

He sighed, letting the dream dissipate like the white cloud of his breath.

It was just that: a dream. A girl like Triss would never love a boy like him. Still, he planned to prove himself, one way or another. In Lastiff, he'd somehow convince his weird uncle, Merrick, to lend them horses, and then he'd (somehow) remember how to ride, and then he'd show Triss what he was made of.

He fell asleep to a vision that became a dream: two horses, riding hard up the Sakkaran plain, while the great city of Tal P'Nir glittered like a shard of broken glass in the distance, lit by the bloodied tint of a setting sun.

[Obi and Triss camping in the snow]