The ridge was a frozen serpent's spine. Wind, sharp as shattered glass, screamed in my ears, clawing at my hood, trying to pry me off the mountain. Ice, black and treacherous as sucker ichor, glazed the rock under my boots. Every step was a prayer against gravity. My pack – Flynn's pack, a monument to stupid hope – dug into my shoulders like knives, each jolt grinding bone against bone. Sweat froze instantly,forming a brittle mask on my face.
"Rot this mountain," Aila snarled beside me, her voice barely audible over the wind. Her auburn hair, mostly hidden beneath her hood, snapped like a banner in the gale. She stumbled, catching herself on a jagged rock. "Rot this cold, this trail, rot the suckers, the Wolves, rot whoever decided bonding meant playing goat on a gods-damned frozen cliff!"
Her words were raw nerves exposed. We all felt it, the gnawing dread beneath the exhaustion, but Aila spat it out like venom.
Behind us, Marco grunted, hauling himself up another step. His face was grey with strain under his fur trim. "Breathe less, bitch less," he gasped, the humor stripped bare, leaving only grim survival. "You'll need the air higher up."
"You breathe less," Aila shot back without turning. "You two are the idiots carrying dead weight." She jerked her chin towards the extra pack strapped awkwardly over his shoulders – Flynn's salves, his rope, his useless hope.
"Don't. Remind. Me." Marco panted, adjusting the strap biting into his collarbone. "Next time you decide martyrdom involves hauling frostbite ointment up a vertical hell, Liren, leave me out of the damn will."
I kept silent, knowing I needed to do something about these packs. My throat was scraped raw, lungs burning with each thin, icy gasp. Ahead, Roan was a ghost in the swirling snow, sure-footed and utterly focused. He didn't waste energy on words or looks back. The wind shoved against us like a physical wall. The drop yawned beside my boot, bottomless. Words were pointless. The mountain screamed enough for all of us.
We edged around a brutal rock fang, the trail plunging into a shallow, snow-choked gully. The wind dropped suddenly, muffled by the walls. The silence was shocking, thick and heavy after the constant roar.
A sharp, guttural cry echoed down from above. Distant and muffled by rock.
We froze. Instinctively crouching, hands going to weapons.
Another voice called after it, higher and just as desperate. "No—!" It cut off with brutal finality.
My head snapped up, scanning the treacherous scree slope flanking the ridge high above. Movement.
Two figures, tiny against the vast and indifferent grey. One scrambling, stumbling frantically downhill. The other, limping badly, gaining on them. Silhouettes against the bruised sky.
Then it happened.
The fleeing figure's boot slipped on scree. They pitched forward, arms windmilling uselessly. A choked gasp ripped the air as they vanished over the edge in a plume of snow.
The pursuer lunged, arm outstretched, a hopeless grab. But the ice beneath their feet betrayed them too. They skidded, twisted wildly, and simply… disappeared. Swallowed by the void.
No scream. Just the awful, rushing silence of the mountain reclaiming its own.
Aila sucked in a breath like a blade between ribs. Marco whispered something that might have been a curse or a prayer. My own heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic drum against the sudden, deafening quiet.
Nothing. No sound. No sign. Just the wind beginning to keen again at the gully's mouth, and the terrible, empty space where two lives had just been erased.
The silence after the falls was worse than the wind. Thicker. Heavier. It pressed in, filled only by the frantic hammering of my own heart and the ragged gasps tearing from Aila's throat beside me. Her eyes, wide and shockingly bright against the pallor of her face, were fixed on the empty space where the two figures had vanished.
Marco shifted, the clink of gear in his pack unnaturally loud. "Gone," he muttered, the word flat. "Just... gone." He sounded numb. We all were. The abstract horror of the culling had just become brutally, irrevocably real.
Roan hadn't moved. His knuckles were white where he gripped his axe haft. His eyes, narrowed to slits, scanned the ridge above, not where they fell, but where they'd been. Hunting for the threat that remained.
The cold settled deeper into my bones than the mountain's chill ever could. The culling wasn't some distant horror waiting on the Field of Thorns.
It was here. Now. Breathing down our necks.
Aila spun towards Roan, the motion brittle and abrupt. "We're standing targets!" Her voice scraped high and ragged. "We're all going to fucking die on this rotten cliff!"
"Nobody's dying," Roan countered, low and steady, his gaze never leaving the ominous tree line. "Not if we keep moving."
The words were still hanging in the air when Aila gasped, stumbling backward. Her boot landed on a moss-slicked rock. The snap was small, but chilling. She folded with a strangled cry, hands clawing at her ankle.
"Shit," Marco breathed, lunging forward, but Aila slapped his hand away.
"Don't!" she hissed through gritted teeth. "I'm fine."
"You're not," I said, dropping beside her. Her boot jutted at an unnatural angle, laces stained dark with mud. "It's bad. Sprained, maybe broken."
"I said I'm fine." She shoved herself upright, leaning heavily against a tree trunk. Sweat beaded on her bloodless face, her lips trembling against a scream she refused to release.
Roan's eyes met mine. A subtle shake of my head. She wouldn't accept help.
The path tightened, dwindling to a treacherous ledge carved into the ridge-face, barely shoulder-width. Every step was a gamble. Aila limped behind us, her breaths rasping like choked bellows. The sheer effort of each step seemed to be devouring her from the inside.
We rounded a bend and froze.
Another group huddled in a shallow depression just off the path, maybe twenty yards ahead. Four figures, slumped against the rockface like discarded sacks. Their clothes were torn, faces smeared with grime and exhaustion so profound it looked etched into their bones. One man cradled a swollen, discolored arm. A woman stared vacantly at the chasm below, her eyes hollow.
No words were exchanged. Our hands drifting silently to weapons, knives loosened in sheaths, fingers curling around axe handles. Tension crackled in the thin mountain air, thicker than the mist swirling below. Their eyes, wary and assessing, tracked us as we picked our way past the narrow stretch separating us. We moved deliberately, giving them a wide berth, every muscle coiled and ready. They watched, silent sentinels of despair, their own hands resting near their weapons. A grim, unspoken understanding passed between our groups: survival was fragile, and trust was a luxury none could afford. Thankfully, we passed without incident.
Silence hung heavy, broken only by the crunch of our boots and Marco's muttered curses as branches snagged his gear. And Aila, her gasps grew louder, harsher, as if her lungs were being seared from within.
Aila lagged further behind, her limp worsening with every step. Finally, she simply stopped and sank onto a flat boulder jutting from the cliffside, her back pressed against the cold stone. Sweat plastered strands of hair to her temples and shone on her pallid skin despite the biting wind. Her chest heaved, each breath a desperate struggle.
Marco, his own face tight with strain, tilted his head back, shielding his eyes against the weak, grey light filtering through the high clouds. "Noon." The quiet word landed like a stone in my gut.
"Noon," I echoed, my pulse stuttering. My gaze flew east. "Gods. If Kyklos is still tracking—"
"He'll find us," Marco finished grimly. "Especially if we don't move soon."
Aila's head snapped up, eyes blazing. "So that's it? I'm dead weight? We just... leave me for the wolves?"
"No one said that," I cut in, stepping closer. But she was already lurching upright, swaying dangerously.
"Don't lie!" she spat, jabbing a finger inches from my face. "I know this game! First it's 'we'll help.' Then whispers. Then waiting for me to fall behind so you don't have to push me!"
"Aila, it's not—"
She launched herself at me.
I barely raised my arms. Her impact slammed us backward, boots skidding on loose scree towards the sheer drop. Shoving her off, I fought for footing, but she came again—wild, desperate. I thought I was a good fighter, but Aila with only one functioning foot could rain hell on me. Nails raked my cheek, the coppery tang of blood flooding my mouth.
"I see it in your eyes!" she screamed, a sound ripped from something feral. "Fear! I'm slowing you down, so you'll turn on me! Like the others—just like—"
"No!" Roan's shout echoed, but he and Marco were trapped around a bend. The ledge was too narrow. Hopelessly narrow.
"Aila—" I gasped, grappling her wrists as she surged forward once more. Her eyes were wide, glassy, a raw terror unraveling behind them. "We weren't going to hurt you! We were trying to help!"
"Liar!" The shriek tore from her and then her footing vanished.