"What do you possibly think that could be?" Aldyth asked as made our way slowly down the stairs.

"I haven't the faintest idea," I replied in kind. "He does seem a little on edge, doesn't he?"

"A little on edge is not the half of it," she scoffed. "Really what are we supposed to know?"

"I don't know," I shrugged. " -- Do you think he's scared?"

"Taurus? I wouldn't doubt it." The panelled floors creaked under our weight as we slowly made our way across the lobby. "But he does seem to be very cautious about making appearances all of a sudden."

"Anyone would be cautious of people if they were on the receiving end of all this hatred." Together the two of us crossed the lobby, and ignored the glares that the desk manager was giving us. The burst of air that greeted us as we stepped outside was a shock like getting dunked into a barrel of cold water when one is asleep. My breath seemed to solidify in the air before me, falling like snow to rest on the folds of my cloak. The freeze was so true that breathing through my mouth made my teeth ache.

"This isn't going to be a very pleasant journey," Aldyth mused as she wrapped her arms around herself tightly. "Why did the Autumn leave in such a hurry? I was just beginning to enjoy its company."

"I don't know," I whispered as I ducked my head under my hood. "But winter has arrived and it only gets colder from here. Where shall we go now? Browsing does not feel very appropriate for this weather."

"Seeing as that our resident elf friend appeared to be throwing us out, back there," Aldyth mused and started pulling me by the sleeve. "Let's go wish Hyde and Cwen a good morning. They'll know where we can find something to eat that isn't preserved over ice at the moment." I scoffed but allowed her to pull me along. There was once a time back when we were very young, back before her parents disappeared forever, when the winter came earlier than it had ever done before. No one knew what had caused it; just that one month it was the middle of summer, the next month it was fall, followed by half a year of winter.

The grownups said that that was the beginning of all the bad omens; that it had all started with a flock of woodpeckers cloaking the sky, followed by six months of bitter cold and ice. But Aldyth and I were both too young to remember much of anything. I remember her family coming to live with mine because we lived closer to the woods. We ate raw fish on ice and spent our time telling stories (and pushing Noah into snow drifts). My mum was pregnant with Ismay at the time and I remembered her worrying about her daughter getting born into a world of endless winter.

One other thing I remembered. It was very. Very. Cold.

I couldn't help but think back to that freeze all those years ago as Aldyth pulled me by the arm down the icy street The situation bore startling similarities, except this cold had come upon us even faster. Hyde's store came into view not a few minutes later as my boot slid out from under me and I to clutch the wall for support.

"I hate winter," Aldyth decided as she shouldered the door open to Hyde's shop. A small bell that I hadn't notice before rung from above. I followed her inside, just relieved to be out of the cold.

"Everyone does," I replied sullenly before gazing around the store. The sun had disappeared behind the clouds, and the curtains were closed, leaving the room dark and empty as if no one had lived here for many long years. The wooden floor creaked under our footsteps as we closed the door behind us and ventured a little deeper into the room. "Is anyone home?" I called.

"Hyde?" Aldyth echoed. "Cwen?"

"Maybe they're not here," I noted and nonchalantly picked up an eyepiece from the table to my right. The links clicked smoothly under my hands and I turned to find Aldyth staring at me with her eyebrows raised.

"Put it back, Eli," she swiped the spy scope and replaced it before I could protest. "Maybe they're still sleeping, it is a little early."

"Hardly," I rolled my eyes. "The sun is up, the sky is light." My gazed moved toward the shaded window where the curtains blocked most of the outside light from coming in. "Well its supposed to be."

"Let's go look in the back," she mused and tugged me by the sleeve. Together the two of us wandered through the dark store. The place seemed even more cramped than the day before, with clutter littering the places where feet should be and shadows filling empty space with mass.

"Can you find a lamp?" I grumbled after nearly tripping over a box for the fourth time.

"Maybe I could find one if I could actually see something," she snapped back.

"Your sarcasm is much appreciated."

"You're welcome."

"Move back toward the door -- "

"Is someone back there?" A voice called from beyond the darkness. A heavy set of footsteps grew louder in our direction until a door swung open several strides ahead of us revealing the Hyde's time worn face peering back through the light casted from a lamp held over his head.

"It's Eli and Aldyth," I replied and raised my hands. "From yesterday."

"Ah yes, sorry, I was out tending the horses," he set the lamp down on a table by his knee before cutting through the dark to open the curtains and light a few candles. "What brings you back here so soon?"

"We have some free time on our hands and we don't know anyone else in town," I smiled and carefully stepped around an old box of books.

"Well that's a matter of opinion," Aldyth muttered under her breath.

I discreetly stepped on her toes.

"You're travellers. I thought you would have been out of town by now, trying to outrun the cold out there."

Aldyth shrugged. "We wanted to stay a little while before we left. Things have been exhausting, you see..." I flickered my eyes over to her and she allowed me a brief nod to confirm that she was being careful not to mention Taurus.

"Ah yes, I understand," Hyde nodded. "Where are you two headed, if I may ask?" He lit a couple more candles before turning to face us.

"We're heading north," I replied before Aldyth could spin some elaborate excuse that she would forget a minute later.

"There's not much up there, what do you hope to find?"

"Anything is better than soldiers," Aldyth replied. "Even if that anything is nothing at all."

"You can't just keep going, you know. Those who try to get farther than a day's journey from here...they never return."

"Maybe we don't plan to return," Aldyth whispered. Her voice brought cold upon the room; the candles flickered.

Hyde froze. The seconds ticked past as his dark eyes moved between me and her. The silence grew louder and suddenly the pounding in my ears grew deeper and more pronounced -- as if someone were beating a drum in my skull. I pressed down the base of my right ear with my knuckle. His eyes turned to me.

"You're headed to the Cardinal. Tell me I'm wrong."

All we could do was stare back in silence.

"They'll kill you before you get within a mile of their border. You know that?"

"We have a plan to get past them," I replied quietly.

"Oh and what plan is that?"

"A signal flag, the Flag of --

"The Flag of Knowing," Hyde nodded and crossed his arms grimly.

Aldyth shook her. "But how would you know? You're just a --"

"This town is less than a two day's journey from the border of the North Cardinal. Do you really think we don't know better than anyone else what they do to people to guard their secrecy. They shoot before they ask questions. The flag will only save you if you can get them to sympathize with your case and they're not going to do that."

"I don't know what to say to you, Hyde." I sighed. "The East is going to war. The North may be the only safe place left. Admit it, if they admit us, it will be safer there than any other place in the Confederacy."

He ignored the question. "You're not going to listen to reason, are you?"

"I've lost my ability to hear sense in the world around me," I said quietly the only and wrapped my cloak more tightly around my shoulder. "The one ability I have left is to listen."

Hyde slowly started to move again, as if he were waking up from a deep sleep. His tongue ran over his lips as he closed his eyes for a moment and sighed. The candles flickered as he slowly made his way across the room to his desk where he riffled around in one of the drawers before coming back with small parcel tied with a string. His eyes were tired when he handed it to me. "You two are different than those before you. I can see it -- and I sincerely hope they can too."

"What's that?" Aldyth asked as I started tugging at the string. Suddenly Hyde's hand flew out and swatted my fingers.

"Don't open it now," his lips curled up into a timid imitation of a smile. "But if the Cardinals won't listen to reason -- and history says that they won't -- bring this out and announce as loudly as you can; you have the favor of the High Major, Faylinn."

"Faylinn is your daughter, is she not?" Aldyth asked quietly. Hyde froze and she quickly scrambled to add, "Y-you mentioned her when we were looking at your drawings yesterday."

Hyde turned away from us and started stacking a pile of books that had fall over onto the floor. "She is." There was a pause. "But she was also a High Major of the North Cardinal and her opinions carry more weight than the guilt of an accidental murderer. Luck will be with you if they bring you to her; she has deeper sympathies to outsiders than the rest. She knows what it's like to live beyond the borders."

For a moment there was nothing but silence, accompanied only by a low tampered buzzing in my head. Aldyth looked thoughtful, like she had finally regained some hope in what we doing -- or maybe I was biased, because after a moment I began to realize that her expression was less hopeful and more remorseful, like someone had taken away her hope for the last time. I blinked and looked again. Her face would flicker between the two expressions every second or so, making it hard to tell what she was feeling.

I was pocketing the parcel when Hyde asked, "So what were you two doing here anyhow?"

"We came to say hello to you and little Cwen," I laughed haughtily. "Like we said, we don't know anyone else around here and we have some time on our hands before we depart."

"Ah, prolonging the inevitable -- or maybe giving yourselves time to change your minds," he laughed. "Well, as long as you two are alive and making foolish decisions, you're welcome to stay for a bit. Cwen is still in bed; she tends to sleep late when the winter comes... Would you like something to eat?"

"If you can spare anything," Aldyth nodded. "Thank you."

The store owner nodded and beckoned for us to follow him as he opened a door and disappeared down a back hall. Aldyth and I shared a look before hurrying on after him. "I'm afraid we don't have anything worth remembering," he chattered as we made our way to small room with a table in the middle. It was clean and simple, which painfully reminded me of home. Hyde pulled a few plates out from a cupboard then went to go stock the fireplace in the back of the room.

"Anything you can spare," I murmured as I looked around. There was a tree growing through the floor by a door to the outside. It had started to wrap itself around the frame, which allowed for it's spindly, bare branches to spider their way into the house through the window. It should have been as cold as the outside world, yet the little room was just as warm as the rest of the store.

"Cwen!" he called before smiling apologetically at us. "She'll be down in a minute. Mind your -- well mind your everything, if you remember she likes to wave around a pol -- "

"They back! Ta rem a di day!"

Suddenly Aldyth squeaked as a savage little creature immerged from under the table and leaped onto her back. Cwen wrapped her arms around her neck and clumsily smacked my friend's face with a rolled up piece of paper. "We be friend!? Yes!"

Hyde had the sort of look that implied that some sort of animal was crawling up his throat. "I'm so sor --"

"It's alright," Aldyth laughed and pushed her hair out of her face before helping the small child sit on her back more comfortably. "I don't mind." She turned to Cwen. "You need to stop jumping out on people though. Not everyone is as nice as me."

"That is very true," I chortled before moving to help the store owner season the oats he had simmering in a pot over the fire. Now that his daughter was in the room, Hyde seemed much more relaxed and inclined to show hospitality to we poor tired travellers. He ladled the oats into four bowls and after scrounging up a couple chairs, the four of us sat down to eat.

We spoke of many things, from the weather to books. Every once in a while, Cwen would start saying something, and her father would abruptly change the subject. Aldyth and I did our best not to intrude, and in turn would speak of our impressions of the town and the strange aversions in the air. We would talk of anything and everything so long as we kept clear certain key topics -- namely the future...and the past.

"I want see the horsies," Cwen demanded at some point when the bowls were empty.

Hyde had been spending the better part of the last five minutes trying to convince the (conceivably stubborn) child to clean up her plate, but we soon found out that she was hardly the type who could be bothered to do anything when the word 'clean' was in the sentence. She crossed her little arms over her chest and glared down at the table with her blond hair covering her face. "Alright, alright," Hyde sighed at last. "Go show Aldyth and Eli the horses."

"Are you sure?" I asked even though Aldyth was already getting to her feet. "We can help clean up."

"Go, go," he waved my protest off easily. "You two are going to need all the joy you can get."

"Alright," I quickly got up to go follow the girls who were already out the door chatting excitedly about horses and trampling people to death. I cringed and decided it would be safer for me to keep a little ways behind them.

"We got two new ones yesterday," Cwen explained as she dragged Aldyth towards a stables out Bacall. "Chansor found them all alone in the woods."

"Really, that's great." Together Aldyth and I pulled open the door to the stables. Like the house, it was worn and in need of repair, but from the size of the town, it was probably the only place to get horses for miles. Cwen dashed ahead while the two of us dragged the doors shut behind us. Inside it was dark, with only pale daylight filtering in between the rafters.

Cwen scampered from stall to stall, patting the horses, throwing hay in their faces and telling us their names. "Those are Midnight, Luxor, and Ched," she ran up to a young horse that wasn't old enough to be ridden yet. The top of the girl's small blond head didn't even peak out over the door. "He's Fellix. Father said he's mine and I can ride him when we're both big enough." She ran up to Aldyth with her arms raised. "Up."

With a strength that I wasn't aware she possessed, Aldyth scooped the girl off the ground and carried her over to where the foal was hiding behind her mother. "Shh, have silence," she told Cwen. "You don't want to scare them."

I left the two alone to tend to the horses, and continued wandering deeper into the stables. There were about ten stalls lining the wall on each side, most of which were empty or being used for storage. On the back wall opposite of the door hung all the tack for the horses. Bridles and brushes were organized neatly on the shelves while countless other things that Aldyth could probably identify hung from hooks nailed to the ceiling.

My eyes caught sight of a worn saddle resting over a stall door. For a moment I couldn't place where I had seen it before, but then my gaze moved up toward the horse that owned the stall. The grey mare stared back at me with eyes as dark as coal.

"Oh wondrous. This is where you ended up," I muttered before calling for Aldyth. "And where's your conspirator in arms?" I leaned over to peak my head into the next stall only to find a wall of chestnut hide rushing toward my face. A loud yelp of surprise echoed across the stables as I stumbled back several steps before falling on my backside. The stallion whinnied at me as if he were laughing.

Aldyth chose that exact moment to come running to my aid, with Cwen still balanced in her arms. She looked at the horses before turning her gaze down at me. "Bethor, Ashless," a fresh smile broke across her face and she set Cwen down by my shoulder. "Well I told that they'd be alright."

A/N

This will be very long if I combine the two parts....almost 4000 words. Sorry to lack of updates I've been editing ,(currently up through where they bleeding out cuz piccolo.)

Tell me what you think.

Things are gonna start happening fast so stay tuned. Yay!