The Road to Winter (2)
Riana climbed down on stiff legs. Her bare feet touched snow for the first time. The cold bit immediately, sharp and vicious.
The scout looked her up and down: the white funeral cloth, the bare arms and feet, the blood-marked contract on her wrist. His expression didn't change.
He pointed north. "Walk."
The other scouts were already mounted. No one offered to help her into a saddle or onto the supply wagons. They simply started riding, slow enough that she could follow on foot.
Riana walked.
The snow came up to her ankles. Within the first mile, she couldn't feel her feet anymore. Within the second, her legs began to shake with each step. The funeral cloth clung to her body, soaked through with melted snow.
She fell on the third mile.
Her knee cracked against frozen ground beneath the snow. The scouts didn't stop. Their horses kept moving north at the same steady pace.
Riana pushed herself up. Her hands were blue. She couldn't feel her fingers.
She fell again on the fourth mile.
This time she stayed down longer. The snow felt almost warm against her cheek. Her vision blurred at the edges.
The scouts still didn't stop.
She rose on her own and continued.
By midday, the Kaelen fortress came into view.
It rose from the mountainside like something carved rather than built: black stone walls that climbed the slope in massive tiers, towers that pierced the low clouds, chimneys breathing columns of dark smoke into the gray sky. The architecture was brutal and precise, every line designed for defense.
This was where the Terror Triad lived.
This was where she would die.
The thought carried no emotion. Riana had learned years ago that terror required energy she couldn't spare. She looked at the fortress and felt nothing but cold.
The gates opened without sound.
The courtyard beyond was vast, filled with soldiers training in tight formations. Steel rang against steel. Commands barked in voices that expected instant obedience. The snow had been cleared from the training grounds, revealing black stone worn smooth by decades of boots and blood.
Every wolf in the courtyard stopped when Riana walked through the gates.
Three hundred pairs of eyes turned to stare at the girl in white funeral cloth, limping through their fortress on frozen feet. Their scents filled the air: leather and steel and Alpha dominance, layer upon layer of it until Riana could barely breathe.
She kept walking.
A man in dark furs approached. Not a soldier—a steward, by the silver chain of office around his neck. His face was carefully blank as he looked at her.
"The Claiming Ritual begins within the hour," he said. His voice was neither kind nor cruel. "Come."
He led her through corridors of black stone lit by iron sconces. Servants pressed themselves against walls as they passed. Their stares followed her: curious, contemptuous, pitying.
The steward stopped at a small room off the kitchens. Inside was a narrow cot, a cracked basin, and nothing else.
"Wash," he said. "Someone will fetch you."
He closed the door behind him.
Riana stood in the center of the room for a long moment. Then she moved to the basin. The water was cold. She washed the blood from her feet carefully, watching it swirl pink in the basin.
When she finished, she sat on the edge of the cot in her funeral whites and waited.
Her heartbeat was steady.
She counted each pulse.
One hundred. Two hundred. Three hundred.
At four hundred and seven, the door opened again.
The steward's face was still blank. "It's time."
**
```markdown