Chapter 1

Catherine

I stop feeling my toes somewhere past the tree line.

By the time we reach the ridge, the biting wind has stolen the feeling from my fingers, my lips, and the tip of my nose. There is a mercy in the numbness. If I cannot feel the cold, I cannot feel the terror. I am a ghost walking to her own grave, and ghosts do not shiver.

"Keep moving!" Alderman Gunther shouts over the howling gale, his voice immediately swallowed by the storm.

He doesn't push me. He doesn't need to. The two village guards flanking me have grips of iron. They are massive men, bundled in thick bear pelts and heavy wool cloaks, their faces wrapped in scarves until only their eyes are visible. They are equipped to survive the Frost-Marches.

I am wearing a thin linen dress. It was my mother’s summer dress, the only clean thing left in the house when they came for me. My boots are made of worn leather, paper-thin against the elements. The snow is up to my knees, burying the hem of my skirt with every step, the ice crystals acting like thousands of tiny, biting razors against my bare shins.

The blizzard is a whiteout. I can no longer see the smoke of the chimneys in Manheim behind us.

When the guards had come to my house this morning, my father didn't fight. He didn't even argue. He just stood in the doorway, his face as blank as a sheet of parchment, and watched them drag me into the snow. Then, he quietly shut the heavy oak door and slid the iron bolt home.

I don't hate him for it. I am the town witch. The girl who sees death before it arrives. The cursed child who brings the bad weather, the sickness, the stillborn calves. I am a problem, and the village needed a solution.

We reach the clearing at the very edge of the plateau. The wind up here is a physical blow, screaming in my ears, whipping my hair into a frenzy.

The Offering Stone waits for us.

It is a massive slab of black iron-wood and granite, jutting out over a sheer drop into the white abyss of the valley below. The stone is ancient, older than our village, older than the Alderman’s grandfather. It is stained a dark, rusted brown from generations of blood and offerings. The dark elves used it centuries ago. Now, we use it to appease the monsters of the peaks.

"Put her down," the Alderman orders, his breath pluming in the freezing air.

The guards shove me. My knees hit the stone, sending a shockwave of agony up my frozen legs. The rock is so cold it feels like it’s burning my skin.

One of the guards grabs my right wrist. He slams it down against the iron ring embedded in the rock. Clank. The heavy iron shackle closes around my wrist. The metal bites deep, freezing instantly to my skin. He locks the left wrist next. I am splayed out, tethered to the cliff, facing the endless drop.

I don't fight. I don't scream. I am too empty for that.

Alderman Gunther steps forward. He looks down at me, his eyes flat and pragmatic beneath his fur hood. This is just bookkeeping to him.

"The winter is hard, Catherine," he says, his tone conversational, as if we are discussing the harvest. "The food stores are rotting. The children are sick. We cannot survive a raid from Clan Isen. The Warlord demands a tribute for safe passage."

"Why me?" The words scrape out of my frozen throat. It’s the first thing I’ve said all morning.

Gunther doesn't flinch. "Because you are no longer of use to us. Your visions bring nothing but panic. You are bad luck, Catherine. You belong to the dark now. The Orcs will eat the curse, and Manheim will see the spring."

He doesn't wait for a response. He turns his back on me.

"May the Gods have mercy on your soul," he calls out over his shoulder, a practiced, hollow line.

The guards fall in step behind him. They don't look back. They trudge back into the storm, their heads down against the wind, desperate for the warmth of the fires I will never see again. Within seconds, the whiteout swallows their forms. The wind sweeps over their footprints, erasing the only path home.

I am completely alone.

I curl into a ball as best as the short chains will allow, tucking my chin into my chest to conserve whatever pathetic scrap of body heat I have left. The snow begins to coat my shoulders, matting my hair, freezing my eyelashes together.

This is what it feels like to die.

It’s not violent. It’s not the screaming, bloody mess of the visions that have plagued me since I was a child. The visions are always loud. Fire. Rending claws. Screams. But this... this is just a slow fade. A quiet sinking into a deep, dark lake.

My body stops shivering. That’s the first sign. The violent shaking that wracked my ribs just minutes ago ceases, replaced by a heavy, lethargic warmth. It’s a trick of the mind. Hypothermia’s final lie. I actually feel... comfortable. Sleepy.

My heartbeat slows down. Thump.... thump.... thump.

The blizzard’s howl fades into a low, droning hum. The pain in my wrists vanishes. The white of the snow begins to turn grey, then black, creeping in at the edges of my vision.

I close my eyes. I embrace the dark.

Then, the ground shakes.

It is a subtle vibration at first, humming up through the black stone beneath my cheek. A rhythmic thud.

Crunch. A heavy, deliberate step. Too heavy for a man. Too heavy for a deer.

Crunch. My eyes snap open. The comfortable warmth of the hypothermia is instantly shattered by a spike of raw adrenaline.

The wind suddenly shifts. The sterile, icy smell of the snow is overridden by something thick and overwhelming. Cedar. Woodsmoke. Iron. And beneath it all, a musky, primal scent. The scent of a predator.

Crunch. A shadow towers over me. It is massive, blotting out the swirling white of the storm.

I tilt my head back, my neck stiff with frost, looking up, up, up.

A monster stands over me.

He is wearing a massive cloak of white wolf-fur, the pelts so thick they make his already gargantuan frame look like a mountain. Beneath the fur, I see glimpses of heavy, blackened steel and scarred, grey leather armor.

His skin is the color of a bruised storm-cloud—a deep, slate grey that seems to absorb the light. Thick, sharp tusks jut from his lower lip, framing a mouth set in a grim, violent line.

It is a Frost Orc. A Warlord of the high peaks.

He is at least seven feet tall, his shoulders broad enough to block the gale-force winds from hitting my face. He stands as still as a statue, immune to the freezing temperatures.

He tilts his head, looking down at me.

His eyes are a shocking, vibrant gold in the gloom of the storm. They are not human eyes. They are the eyes of a great cat. They do not view me with the pity the Alderman showed. They do not regard me with the cruelty of the guards. They do not even regard me with the simple hunger of a beast.

He looks at me the way a man looks at something he suddenly realizes he owns.