The Road to Winter (1)

The guards fed the horses before they fed her, and by the second day, Riana understood she ranked below the livestock.

The caravan moved without pause except to rest the animals. Five wagons, twenty armed guards, all bearing the Sunstone crest—but none would meet her eyes. She sat in the rear wagon surrounded by supply crates and burlap sacks, the canvas overhead rattling with each jolt of the wheels.

They ate in front of her.

At midday on the first day, the guards built a small fire and roasted strips of dried meat over the flames. The smell made Riana's stomach cramp. She watched through the gap in the canvas as they laughed and passed a leather flask, their scents mingling in the cold air: earth and sweat and the sharp tang of cheap wine.

No one offered her anything.

She'd been given a single water skin when they loaded her into the wagon. By evening of the first day, it was half empty. She rationed carefully, taking only enough to wet her cracked lips.

The landscape changed as they traveled north. Green hills gave way to frost-covered plains, the grass turning silver under a pale sky. Trees grew sparse and twisted, their branches black against the horizon. The temperature dropped with each passing mile until Riana could see her breath in the enclosed wagon.

The funeral cloth was thinner than she'd realized. It had been chosen for ceremony, not function. By the second night, she huddled between supply crates to conserve warmth, her bare arms wrapped around her knees.

At night, the guards talked.

"—heard the eldest one killed his own father to take power—"

"—all three of them. Unnatural, sharing a mate like that—"

"—they say the middle brother bathes in the blood of conquered Alphas—"

"—Terror Triad, they call them. Demons of the North—"

Their voices carried through the canvas. Riana listened with her eyes closed, cataloging information the way she'd learned to catalog pain: distant, clinical, useful.

On the morning of the third day, they crossed the border.

The southern guards stopped at a line of towering black pillars that marked the boundary between territories. Each pillar stood three times the height of a man, carved from volcanic stone and etched with wolf skulls. The craftsmanship was brutal and precise.

Beyond the pillars, the world turned white.

Snow covered everything: the road, the fields, the skeletal remains of trees. The sky pressed low and gray, and the wind carried teeth. Riana's breath became visible inside the wagon. Frost formed on the canvas overhead.

The northern scouts arrived within minutes.

Six riders on massive black horses, their armor dark steel etched with silver runes. They moved in perfect formation, disciplined as a blade. Their scents hit Riana even through the canvas: ozone and iron and something else, something sharp that made her eyes water.

The lead scout dismounted and approached the caravan master. Riana watched through the gap as he inspected the contract box with gloved hands, his movements efficient. He read her name aloud from the documents inside.

Then he laughed.

It was a cold sound. Joyless. The kind of laugh that came from seeing a bad joke played to its conclusion.

The southern guards handed over the contract box and backed away quickly, relief visible in their postures. They didn't look at Riana's wagon as they turned their horses south. Within minutes, the Sunstone caravan was retreating, leaving her alone with the northern wolves.

The lead scout opened the rear canvas of her wagon. Cold air flooded in, stealing her breath.

"Out," he said.