The sun dipped below the jagged peaks of the Frostfangs, and Mole's Town was quickly swallowed by a suffocating, freezing darkness.
Inside The Black Cache, Serena stayed much later than her usual hours. The sudden, brutal drop in temperature was a stark reminder that winter was no longer knocking on the door—it had broken the hinges. She spent an extra hour preparing the shop for the long night.
With a bucket of thick, wet clay mixed with straw, she meticulously patched several small holes near the floorboards where the freezing wind whistled through. Once the drafts were sealed, she dragged three heavy bear-skin furs from the inventory and arranged them tightly around Silas's rocking chair and his small sleeping cot near the hearth.
"There," Serena said, wiping a smudge of clay from her forehead. "That should trap the heat from the fire. You won't freeze tonight, Silas."
The old shopkeeper pulled a thick woolen blanket over his shoulders, his watery eyes reflecting the dancing flames. He offered her a tired, grateful nod.
"Such good heart," Silas mumbled, leaning back into the warm furs. He looked toward the frosted window, listening to the howling wind. "The storm is getting worse. You should stay here tonight, all three of you. Sleep by the hearth. It's madness to walk all the way to the edge of the woods in this freezing dark."
Serena paused, touched by the genuine concern in the old man's voice. But she gently shook her head.
"Thank you, Silas, but no," Serena replied softly. "We will go home."
It might be called idiocy by some to refuse a warm fire during a Northern blizzard, but Serena was a fiercely independent woman. She had spent too much of her recent life at the mercy of others, surviving on borrowed warmth and conditional charity. She refused to owe anyone anymore, not even the kindly Silas, and she certainly didn't want to rely on someone else's roof. She wanted to sleep in the home she had bought, secured, and made for herself.
Silas sighed, knowing full well he couldn't change her mind. Her stubbornness was forged from iron. "You are more than this wretched town deserves. Be careful on the road then. The snow is falling thick, and the wolves—both the four-legged and the two-legged kind—love the dark."
"I will," Serena promised.
She bundled Lyra and Yoriichi into their heavy cloaks, pulling the hoods up tight, and wrapped her own thick scarf around the lower half of her face. With a final wave to the old man, she pushed open the heavy oak door and stepped out into the biting night.
The cold was absolute. It hit them like a physical blow.
Walking was incredibly difficult. The snow had accumulated rapidly throughout the afternoon, turning the usually muddy paths of Mole's Town into knee-deep drifts of white powder. What was usually a brisk ten-minute walk to their secluded hut at the edge of the woods was going to take much longer.
Serena trudged forward, breaking the path so her children could walk in her footsteps. As her boots sank deep into the snow, her practical mind went to work.
I need to craft thicker boots, Serena thought, her toes already going numb despite the wool linings. This is just the beginning of the cold. I also need to pack more dried grass and snow-dirt against the outer walls of the hut tomorrow for better insulation. And the meat... the salted mutton and turnips I bought yesterday have probably frozen solid as stone by now.
She kept her breathing steady, using the Total Concentration rhythm Yoriichi had taught her to keep her core temperature up.
Behind her, Yoriichi walked in silence. He was using the breathing techniques as well, but he frowned deeply beneath his hood. The dense, swirling blizzard was wreaking havoc on his Transparent World vision. The thick curtain of falling snow and the howling wind dampened his usually god-like senses.
He could feel a faint, malicious intent lingering in the distance, but he couldn't pinpoint it. He focused his senses to their absolute limit, trying to pierce through the swirling storm. But he found nothing but the howling wind and the blinding snow.
Perhaps it is just my imagination, Yoriichi thought, a rare moment of doubt brought on by his freezing, dampened senses. Deciding it was too risky to stop and search further in this freezing weather, he simply stayed close to his sister and kept moving forward.
Far behind them, obscured by the storm, Lord Gared and his seven hired mercenaries were tracking their footprints.
At the exact same time, on the opposite side of Mole's Town, the heavy wooden doors of the Mole's Hole brothel exploded inward.
The local thugs drinking in the tavern area jumped up in alarm, but their courage vanished instantly. Five men stepped out of the blizzard and into the warm, smoky room. They wore dark, boiled leather armor, their faces entirely hidden beneath black cowls. They did not look like the drunken brawlers of Mole's Town; they moved with the eerie, synchronized silence of professional killers.
These were the assassins hired by Officer Glendon from Eastwatch.
Several women in the brothel screamed, clutching their thin robes and scrambling away from the terrifying intruders.
The assassins ignored them completely. They were paid a king's ransom by a desperate Night's Watch officer to do one job: silence Gared and burn the ledger. They had no interest in the whores or the cheap ale.
"Where is the fat man?" the leader of the assassins demanded, his voice a low, gravelly rasp that cut through the screams.
He lunged forward, grabbing a scrawny man who had been trying to crawl under a table. It was Pete, Gared's spy. The assassin hauled Pete up by his collar, pressing a wickedly sharp, curved dagger directly against the rat-faced man's eyeball.
"The landlord," the assassin repeated coldly. "Where?"
Pete didn't even try to hold the truth. His bladder let go, and he squealed like a stuck pig.
"He's not here!" Pete cried, pointing a trembling finger toward the back door that led into the woods. "He left! He took seven mercs to the edge of the woods to kill the witch! They went that way, I swear it by the Gods!"
The assassin dropped Pete in a puddle of his own making. The five killers didn't say another word. They turned and sprinted out the back door, diving into the blizzard, drawing their longswords as they followed the fresh trail of footprints leading toward the tree line.
Back on the path, Serena and her children were halfway to their hut.
Suddenly, Lyra stopped dead in her tracks.
Because she lacked sight, the blind girl's hearing had evolved to an almost supernatural degree, far surpassing even Yoriichi's in a dense storm. While the wind howled and the snow crunched, Lyra's ears twitched, isolating a specific rhythm in the distance.
"Mother," Lyra said urgently, her small hands gripping Serena's cloak. "No... shadows are coming towards us. Fast. We need to go!"
Serena and Yoriichi were startled. If Lyra said they were moving fast, it meant they were running.
"Hold onto my belt, both of you," Serena commanded, abandoning her measured pace. "Do not let go!"
They began to jog, fighting through the deep snow drifts, their lungs burning as they increased their pace toward the safety of the trees.
A few dozens of yards behind them, Gared and his mercenaries were struggling.
"Seven Hells, what is this cold?!" one of the mercenaries cursed, his teeth chattering violently as he trudged through the snow. He wrapped his arms around himself. "I pray to the Gods we don't freeze to death out here before we even swing a sword, in spite of this heavy bounty."