For three long years, winter refused to loosen its grip.

  For three years snow buried the valleys, ice split rivers into jagged veins, and the world beyond the hearth had become a wastend of white and silence. As the seasons blurred and fields y fallow, children grew taller without ever seeing a summer bloom.

  But now, finally, the thaw had come.

  The cobbles of Eodwyn were wet with meltwater as Ny flicked the reins, urging her horse forward.

  "Come on, Anya."

  The mare huffed in reply, a deep, theatrical sound, and pnted her hooves stubbornly at the city's gate. Behind her, the cart creaked under the weight of gss bottles, crates, salves, and tinctures bound for the festival markets. The road ahead bustled with colour and movement, but Anya stared, unimpressed by the whole affair.

  "Don't start," Ny sighed. "We're not doing this again."

  "She giving you grief already?" Ewan called from his wagon nearby, his grin wide beneath his beard. "That beast nearly took my arm off st time I tried to shoe her. Don't know how to you handle her."

  "That's because I treat her like a dy," Ny replied, tugging the reins lightly, gncing pointedly at Ewan. "You treat her like an anvil with legs."

  As if irked by the conversation, Anya threw her head up and down and whinnied loud enough to draw eyes. Ny scowled. "But even she has her limits with me."

  That earned a round of chuckles from the caravan. With a final, grumbling snort, Anya tossed her mane and relented, kicking up a spray of thawed mud as she trotted through the gates. Ny gave her neck a fond pat. "Praise the Gods. Thank you, Anya."

  They entered the rge stone walls of Eodwyn. Last Ny was here, the city was quiet and solemn, winter hard enough to make people bitter. But today the city was transformed.

  Spring was upon them, and the festival was a resurrection of everything Ny had been longing for, for three long years.

  Lanterns swung from high ropes, their golden light catching on rivulets of melting snow. Garnds of thaw-flowers wound around doorways, and banners in deep greens and golds rippled in the breeze. The air smelled of roasted chestnuts, spiced wine, damp earth, and smoke. After so many years of silence and cold, the noise and colour felt almost overwhelming, and profoundly welcome.

  Alva walked close at Ny's side, eyes wide beneath her hood. "It's so loud," she whispered.

  "It's life," Ny said pulling her coat tighter around her. Faint forest stitching ran along the seams, more craftsman's pride than ornament. Androsi craftsmanship was second to none. Beneath it she wore fitted trousers and worn leather boots, practical for the road. Her gloves were sturdy but finely made, and a belt at her waist carried small pouches and vials that marked her as a healer. "It seems we've forgotten what that sounds like."

  The girls solemn expression broke for a moment as a juggler's fming torches arched high above the crowd. She was still a child, though grief had aged her, and here, amid ughter and song and spring's return, a spark of wonder crept back into her gaze.

  They were not alone, the entire vilge had come together for the journey. Ny exchanged nods and brief words as they halted their carriages and carts in the square. Climbing down from the cart, Ny lifted Alva down and pnted her feet on the cobblestone.

  Ny double checked the locks on her cart and paid some young boys from the vilge a few coins to safeguard her stock until she returned.

  "Make sure you stop by the grain stalls!" Maris called from ahead, rounding the rge curve of her swollen belly. "Prices are down, the snow melt's been good for trade."

  "I'll check them before we leave," Ny promised, adjusting the strap of the satchel slung across her shoulder. "Come, Alva. There's a few things we need before we open up shop."

  The festival market was in full swing now, stalls crowded with fabrics, herbs, metals, and foods from neighboring vilges. The air smelled of spice and smoke, sweetbread and oil. Ny moved through it with purpose, Alva trotting at her side, wide-eyed at every glimmering trinket that caught the light.

  They stopped at an apothecary's table where bundles of dried flowers hung from the rafters, their scent fragrant and sharp. Ny inspected the jars one by one. "Maris will need something stronger than willowbark soon," she murmured, half to herself. "If the poppy seeds don't ease her pains, we'll have to find the mushrooms before the frost gets them."

  Alva wrinkled her nose. "The glowing ones?"

  "The very ones," Ny said, smiling faintly as she counted out a few coins for a bundle of herbs. "Keep an eye out for them. They're hard to find, but worth the trouble."

  The deeper they ventured into the festival, the thicker the crowd became. Beastfolk merchants hawked rare spices beside human bakers selling pies still steaming from their ovens. Children chased enchanted ribbons through the alleys. Snatches of conversation swirled in the air, rumours of the Capitol politics - of Eodwyn's lordly house preparing for the arrival of the princes and of old treaties and new alliances.

  Ny paid them little mind.

  Politics had never interested her. The sick needed tending whether kings rose or fell.

  As they passed through the upper market, banners of deep blue and silver fluttered over the stalls, a Goldtalon bird in flight. The crest of House Eodwyn was unmistakable.

  Every year the lords of the east quarter funded a festival "for the people," and every year the price of bread seemed to rise the week after. "They say Lady Endra herself blessed the harvest this morning," Ny overheard one merchant say to another.

  "Aye," Ny muttered under her breath. "From the balcony of her marble garden, no doubt."

  "Healer Ny!" a round-faced merchant called as they passed. Don. "You'll not walk by without sampling my Frostbloom salve, surely?"

  Ny smiled, pausing. "Frostbloom, is it? You've been raiding my recipes again."

  The man ughed, scratching his beard. "Can't say you don't inspire good work. Here-" He held out a small tin, its seal unbroken. "Trade me one of yours. I want to see if mine's half as good."

  She opened the tin, sniffed, and tilted her head approvingly. "You're learning."

  He puffed up, pleased. "So, trade?"

  "Trade," she agreed, passing one of her own salve's in exchange. While she and the merchant chatted about spring herbs and weather, Alva drifted a few paces away, drawn by a glint of light down the ne.

  A small cage hung from a post, half-shadowed by colored silks and inside, something moved, small and winged, its translucent scales catching the light in shimmers of blue and gold. Its eyes were sharp, too sharp, following every motion with uncanny focus. As Alva shifted her eyes the creature appeared translucent.

  The merchant beside the cage was shouting above the din, in a deep gargling voice, "Skyrifter hatchling! Caught in the southern peaks! Last one this season!"

  Alva frowned, stepping closer. The creature pressed itself back against the bars, the delicate bones of its wings trembling. Then, suddenly, it hissed, a soft, electric sound that made the hairs on her arms rise.

  "Hands off!" The voice came like thunder across the crowd.

  Ny spun toward the sound, the warmth of the market gone in an instant.

  The merchant loomed behind a counter piled with small cages, his eyes locked on Alva, the sound sharp enough to turn heads. His thick fingers, ending in dull cws, clutched the edge of the counter as if he meant to leap across it. "You touch it, you buy it."

  Alva flinched, stepping back, her small hands tucked quickly behind her. The merchant's gaze followed her like a whip, full of suspicion and something uglier, something that had nothing to do with her at all.

  Ny was between them in an instant, clutching Alva behind her.

  "What the hell is the problem here?" she said, voice sharp enough to draw a few curious gnces. "She's a child, not a damn thief."

  The merchant's lip curled. "Then teach her to keep her hands to herself."

  "She didn't touch anything," Ny snapped. "What are you doing to that poor creature anyway?"

  "You want it," he sneered, "you pay for it."

  "I don't want it. I want you to apologise to her." She didn't need an exotic pet, let alone one that looked like it'd grow to eat all the vilge cats and possibly some small children.

  "Unless you're buying, get lost, Iska. And take your je'ska brat with you." He muttered something low and bitter, a word Ny didn't recognise in a guttural outnder nguage, before sneering outright. "Your kind. Always think you're owed something."

  Ny blinked, bewildered. "My kind?"

  But he turned his back on them, dismissing the exchange as if it had never happened.

  "Let's go," Alva pleaded quietly, tugging her cloak tighter.

  The beastman made a gurgling noise and spat a disgusting goop on the ground in front of Alva.

  Ny saw red - she turned to give him a piece of her mind, if not for the voice that cut in, calm and cool as a bde sliding from its sheath.

  "Apologise."

  The merchant froze. He turned, and his leathery face took in the man standing a few feet away.

  Valtor.

  Carved from the same earth he worked, solid and weathered. His hair was a shade between wheat and ash, tied back in a short knot, the sides shaved close, the way many Androsi men fancied it. A beard framed his jaw, not neat but kept and his skin held the warmth of long days spent in the heat. There was a steadiness in his eyes, clear, northern blue, the kind that saw more than he said.

  The bcksmith's hands rested loosely on the hilt of his sword, but there was a quiet weight to his presence, the kind of steadiness that made men hesitate. "You're going to apologise," Valtor said, his tone still measured, "and you're going to sell me the creature for five darics. Poaching Skyrifter pups is a crime now, don't you know?"

  "I don't answer to you, r'eshi," the beastman spat.

  "You will," Valtor said simply, stepping closer. "Or we're going to have a serious issue, ze un'thir Gorg le secho izsna."

  The merchant's eyes flickered to the sword slung around his fur coated shoulders, jaw clenching, but his eyes flicked to the gathering crowd. Whispers were already spreading. With a curl of his lip, he looked down at Alva with bright yellow eyes, "Ha'ulm, je'ska."

  Ny didn't know what it meant but when she gnced at Valtor, he nodded.

  He reached a long scaled arm down to pick the cage up. The creature screeched in its cage, wobbling against the gravity. Valtor put the coins on the bench. "You want 'im?" the Gorg said voice half on the edge of a growl, thrusting the cage forward. "Take him."

  The movement jostled the tch. The cage door burst open, and the Skyrifter shot out like a spark, a blur of iridescent scales and air. The crowd gasped as it spiralled once overhead, shrieking, before darting up into the sky and vanishing into the clouds.

  The Gorg clearly didn't expect it as he stared up into the sky and watched it disappear, his face morphing from surprise and then anger. "Your waste," he snatched the coins.

  "Let's go."

  Ny gave the Gorg a final scathing look, before ushering Alva away, with Valtor hovering close.

  Only when they reached the other side of the market did Ny take a breath, "Thank you," she said.

  "Of course," he said with a bow of his head, "Worry not, little Alva. Some folk just ck manners."

  Alva looked to the sky, eyes pale green, "Where will it go now?"

  "Hopefully back to its home. It's much too cold here for it," only now did his gaze settle on Ny, eyes of storm steady grey - steady, searching, a flicker of something like recognition passing across his expression. "Iska. He called you Red-One. Your hair," he said after a beat, "and your skin. That's likely why."

  Ny frowned. "How do you mean?"

  "Dark auburn hair like yours isn't common here, especially not with the sun in your skin, that's southern blood. His people fought yours once. Some of them don't know how to forget."

  She huffed out a bitter breath. "I don't even know my own people," she said. "But I'm grateful you stepped in, I nearly earned myself a night in an Eodwyn jail-cell."

  "The entire vilge would've come to plead your innocence, I fear." There was a joke there, but underneath it glimmered with seriousness.

  There was a quiet between them then, not uncomfortable, but charged, as though some thread had been pulled taut and neither quite knew what to do with it.

  "Still. You didn't have to do that."

  His eyes softened, just for a moment. "Someone had to."

  He went to say something else but to their right, Ewan called out for him. He gnced back at him and then Ny, tipping his head once, a gesture that was almost courtly if she'd ever seen it, "The forge never sleeps, as they say. Healer Ny. Healer Alva," his lips quirked as he bowed his head towards her too, causing her to face to break out into a beaming smile, before turning and walking towards the carts.

  Ny watched him go, her heart beating faster than it should have been.

  Valtor walked towards Ewan, tall and broad-shouldered, astride a cart stacked with wrought hinges and bde bnks.

  He wasn't the kind of handsome that came from fine breeding or polish; his was a quiet sort, rough around the edges, softened only when he smiled, and even then, only slightly. He was a man at ease with silence, with work, with his own company. Yet that rare smile of his had a way of settling people, like warmth after a long frost.

  Even here, surrounded by noise and bustle, he carried himself with the same steady stillness he did back in the vilge. Ny hadn't expected to see him in Eodwyn; he wasn't one for crowds or festivals. Most days he barely left the forge and kept to his cabin outside out town.

  "Are you looking at the forge," Alva asked beside her, far too innocently, "or the man next to it?"

  Ny didn't move. "The forge," she said ftly.

  "Mm-hm." Alva's hum dripped with disbelief.

  "Don't you start," Ny muttered, though a reluctant smile tugged at her mouth. "You're far too young to meddle."

  Alva's lips curved. "He's very handsome, isn't he?"

  "Alva."

  "I'm just saying."

  "Don't just say."

  She should have walked on. Should have kept browsing the spice stalls or gone to find the herb vendors from the southern valleys. But something in her feet, stubborn as Anya on a muddy road, kept her rooted where she stood.

  A merchant handed Valtor a wrapped parcel of iron stock, and he hefted it easily into a crate by his feet. Even from a distance, Ny recognised the precise strength that came from years of physical work. He paused briefly when a dog, too curious for its own good, tangled itself in his legs. Without hesitation, he crouched, patting the creature's head before sending it on its way. No one else noticed. But Ny did.

  She'd seen that same gentle steadiness once before, deep in the forest where one of her snares had caught a fox. She'd watched from a distance as he spoke softly to the terrified creature, easing it free with careful, patient hands. He hadn't known she was there. He still didn't.

  "We should invite him to dinner," Alva whispered, breaking into her thoughts.

  Ny blinked. "Absolutely not."

  "Why not?"

  "By the Gods, Alva-" Ny looked down at Alva bewildered, "I'm not arguing with a child about my love life. We're here for medicine and salves and trade, not," she gestured vaguely toward Valtor, "-that."

  Alva grinned, knowing she'd struck a nerve. "If you say so."

  Ny shot her a look, but the warmth beneath her irritation was difficult to disguise. "One day you'll learn to mind your own business."

  "One day."

  She would have replied, some half-sharp remark about children speaking out of turn, but Valtor turned then, gncing across the market square. For a fleeting moment their eyes met. His expression didn't change, but there was a flicker of recognition there, something like a nod between two people who lived in the same world but rarely shared it. Ny's pulse betrayed her with a quick, inconvenient jump.

  And then, just as quickly as he spotted her, she turned away. "Come on," she murmured to Alva. "We still have work to do."

  The noise of the festival wrapped around them once more as they wove their way back through the square toward the outskirts, where their caravan had set up shop along a quieter stretch of the pza. A row of familiar faces greeted them, neighbours from the valley, all bundled in heavy cloaks, each tending to a modest stall piled with winter stores, herbs, dried meats, and wool goods. Smoke rose from small cooking fires, the air alive with the scent of stew and woodsmoke and spice.

  "Back at st," Maris called, waving them over. "How'd you fare in the thick of it?"

  "Could've gone worse," Ny said wryly. "Could've gone better too."

  Alva pnted her bag on the cart seat, skipping towards Maris, "Valtor scared off a mean merchant."

  "Valtor, eh?" Maris' beaming brown eyes looked up suggestively at Ny. "Miracle worker getting him to speak more than two words in a row. Should I start preparing wedding bouquets?"

  Ny snorted, "Let's not get ahead of ourselves."

  Maris pressed a steaming cup of mulled cider into her hands. "You've earned it. Fresh out the barrel. Come on, help me unload these wagons. I may be eating for two, but I'm definitely not as agile."

  They unloaded the carts together, and soon the rhythm of trade took over, a familiar, comforting dance after the ugliness of the confrontation.