The wind had grown cruel by the time they stepped outside.
Snow clawed at their faces, finding every gap in their cloaks, and the world beyond the inn's lanterns blurred into a swirling white void.
Xiyue led, his boots crunching in the thick powder, his hand never straying far from his sword hilt.
Ruo Han followed close, breath misting in the air, while Ling Han brought up the rear with a hood pulled low against the icy sting.
They'd barely gone ten paces when Xiyue stopped dead.
"What is it?" Ruo Han asked.
Xiyue crouched, brushing the snow aside with a gloved hand.
"Fresh," he murmured. "Four sets of tracks… and they're circling back toward the inn."
Ling Han's lips twisted into a grim smile. "Guess they didn't want to wait for your 'next time.'"
The snow muffled all sound, but now that Ruo Han was listening, he could feel it—subtle shifts in the storm's song, like breath drawn in the wrong place.
They weren't alone.
A shadow flickered at the edge of his vision, vanishing behind a drift. Another followed, low and fast.
The wind carried the faint whisper of boots breaking through crusted ice.
Xiyue rose smoothly, steel whispering free from its scabbard. "They're driving us away from the road."
"And into what?" Ruo Han asked.
The answer came as a shape emerged from the white—a figure cloaked in frost, mask gleaming faintly in the moonlight.
Behind him, three more followed, closing the circle.
The leader tilted his head. "Orders were to bring the omega alive. Kill the rest if they resist."
Xiyue's smile didn't reach his eyes. "Then you've already failed."
The blizzard swallowed the rest of his words as they moved—steel and snow colliding in a fight where every breath could be their last.