The cold gnawed.
It didn't just press against Maverick's skin—it got in. Beneath the leather, beneath the wool. Beneath the silence.
He stood atop the western battlement, spear in hand, wrapped in layered furs and a black watch-cloak that cracked when the wind caught it. His breath left his mouth in short, disciplined puffs—rhythmic, practiced. The kind of breathing that came from someone who had stood in the cold for longer than any sane man would.
The sky above him had collapsed into a ceiling of dark iron. Clouds pressed low and wide, starless. The moon was a secret behind them, casting neither light nor permission.
Eldenhold's walls had seen better seasons.
They were still strong, still lined with jagged points and burnt-iron torches, but their pride had faded. Like a fighter that had once won duels and now stood simply because no one had knocked him down yet.
Snow clung to every surface like mold. It didn't fall in swirls anymore—it drifted downward like ash.
Maverick gripped the haft of his spear, adjusting the hold with gloved fingers. The frost on the wood had grown thick. Another layer he wouldn't feel until the numbness receded.
Which it wouldn't.
Not tonight.
He'd stood this post for five winters. This stretch of wall. This section of field. He knew every divot, every tree branch that dared to reach past the outer fence.
But tonight, something was different.
Not visibly. The forest remained as it always was—black trunks like crooked ribs, limbs skeletal, frozen and unmoving. The horizon had no movement. No sound.
But the quiet had changed.
It was no longer emptiness.
It was watching.
Maverick shifted his stance and looked out across the field beyond the wall. The snow spread wide, smooth and unbroken. No tracks. No bodies. No fallen birds.
That was the first thing that had felt wrong this week—no birds.
Then no dogs barking at the walls.
Then no goats braying from the outlying farmhouses.
Silence, even in winter, wasn't meant to be this deep.
It felt artificial.
Like something had taken the noise.
His ears twitched at a sound—stone scraping. He turned slightly.
Footsteps behind him. Familiar cadence.
A flicker of lamplight.
"Evening," came Alric's voice.
Sergeant Alric. Senior post commander. Battle-scarred and sleep-deprived. Wore his beard like a flag and his belt like a lifeline.
He climbed the steps slow, holding a shuttered lantern in one hand and a thick roll of parchment in the other.
"You're early," Maverick said, not turning back to the field.
"You're late to go," Alric replied, joining him at the edge.
They stood there a moment, shoulder to shoulder, eyes out.
Alric unrolled the parchment, looked it over, and then sighed through his nose. "We're three men short tonight. Bastion post's undermanned. Half of Fourth Shift's gone down with frostbite."
Maverick nodded once.
Alric didn't ask if he was tired.
Maverick didn't ask why replacements weren't sent.
Both already knew the answers.
"Strange quiet," Alric said after a pause.
Maverick finally spoke. "No birds."
Alric grunted.
"And the wind," Maverick added. "It's wrong."
"You think so too."
"Been wrong for days."
They stood in the silence together.
A flake of snow landed on Alric's glove. He stared at it. It didn't melt.
"Selene stopped by the posthouse," he said suddenly. "Dropped something off for you."
Maverick said nothing.
"She said it wasn't urgent."
Still nothing.
Alric gave him a sidelong glance. "You two still playing the long game?"
Maverick's jaw tensed.
"She's good for you," Alric muttered. "Better than that spear."
"This spear keeps me alive."
Alric smirked. "She would too."
Eventually, Alric moved off, muttering about patrol lists and checking the lower tower torches.
Maverick stayed.
The wind shifted slightly. He adjusted his stance again. His toes had long since gone numb. His shoulders ached from tension he refused to show.
Then he saw it.
A shift.
Just at the edge of the field.
Not a figure—not quite. Just... a ripple. Like the snow bent, or recoiled.
His hand tightened on the spear.
A trick of the light. A failure in focus.
Still, he didn't look away.
"Who's there?" he called, softly.
Nothing.
No movement. No answer.
Not even wind.
He stayed like that for minutes. Or an hour. He wasn't sure.
When his replacement finally climbed the tower—young, barely of age—Maverick didn't speak to him. Just nodded once and descended the stairs like a man returning from the edge of something invisible.
The village lay still in the night.
Eldenhold's upper street was little more than packed stone and shuttered windows now. The oil lamps were out. Snow had buried the front stoop of Brune's inn, and someone had left a wooden bucket tipped over by the well. Its shadow stretched toward the forge.
Maverick passed through without speaking. The cold had followed him down the wall.
He opened the forge door slowly.
Inside: warmth. Flickering. Smell of coal and ash. Charred metal and wool smoke.
His father, Torren, sat near the whetstone.
He didn't look up.
Maverick took off his gloves, laid his spear beside the bench, and began peeling off his cloak.
Elira appeared from the pantry door, hair tied back, a cloth in her hands.
"You're late," she said, not harshly.
"I stayed through Third."
"Torren said you would."
The old man grunted. "Didn't take bets on it, though."
Maverick cracked a faint smile and moved to warm his hands by the coals.
The twins—Ren and Rune—burst in from the back, wrapped in mismatched scarves and dragging half-melted boots.
"We saw a crow!" Rune shouted.
"It had two heads!" Ren added.
"It did not," Elira said.
"It looked like it wanted to have two heads!"
Maverick turned slightly. "Where?"
"By the old fence," Rune answered, breathless.
"It was watching us," said Ren.
"Everything's watching you," Elira muttered, nudging them toward the fireplace.
Maverick blinked.
"Was it dead?" he asked quietly.
The twins froze.
Ren shook his head. "No. It flew away."
Maverick didn't answer.
But something about that made him feel colder than the wind ever had.
That night, when the forge dimmed and the twins finally passed out mid-argument over which snowball had landed a better hit, Maverick sat at the far corner of the workshop.
He took off his boots slowly.
Pulled out the folded slip of paper from his inner coat pocket.
Selene's handwriting. Small, neat. Firm. The kind of hand you could read even in bad light.
He didn't open it.
He didn't need to.
He knew what it said.
"I know you won't ask for help. So here it is anyway."
He folded it again.
Set it back in his coat.
And leaned his head against the stone wall.
Outside, the snow whispered like it had something to say.
But Maverick was not listening.
Not tonight.