Snow did not fall in flakes anymore.
It poured—slow and dense, like a white curtain dragged steadily down across the world.
The caravan moved through it like a stubborn thought, refusing to be swallowed. The wheels creaked over hardening ground, now more ice than earth. The horses snorted shallow clouds of mist with every breath, their flanks dusted white, heads bowed against the cold they knew all too well.
Under the canvas cover, the air was only marginally warmer.
Cold seeped in anyway.
It always did.
Kel sat where he had been all this time—back straight, shoulders aligned, facing the partially open flap where the outside bled in. Thin winter light touched his face, turning his already pale skin almost spectral.
His eyes had been watching the snowfall.
Tracking it.
Measuring it.
But even those storm-grey eyes had limits.
At some point, as the world blurred into white and the caravan's rocking settled into a steady, lulling rhythm, his lashes lowered.
Just for a moment.
Just for a breath.
His head dipped.
A slight tilt forward.
Not a full collapse—merely the small surrender of a body that had been demanding more than it received.
Inside his chest, the curse pulsed once, reacting to the cold like a dormant wound reminded of its existence. His breath hitched imperceptibly, then resumed its quiet rhythm.
His head remained lowered for a heartbeat too long.
Then—
It snapped up again.
Sharp.
Consciousness reasserted itself like a blade dragged from its sheath.
His eyes opened.
For half a second, they looked almost empty—caught between waking and dreams—before focus returned, sliding everything back into place.
Kel inhaled slowly.
The air felt like breathing frost.
From his lips, a thin stream of white mist rolled out—colder, denser than before.
Not just from the winter outside.
From the chill inside him too.
He watched that breath leave, eyes narrowed slightly.
…Colder than it should be.
His lungs did not burn from exertion.
The chill felt internal. Like the curse was drinking his warmth and returning it as ice.
He flexed his fingers in his gloves, testing movement.
Still responsive.
Still his.
He leaned his head slightly back, letting it rest against one of the wooden support beams of the caravan's frame.
It's good, he thought, with faint, dry satisfaction, that this coat is warmer and lighter than my usual robes.
He had chosen it deliberately—something that would allow movement while trapping heat. The inner lining clung close to his thin frame, doing its best to keep his body's reluctant warmth contained.
Even so… the cold found him.
It always did.
He was about to straighten up fully—resume his silent vigil over the winter outside—when something pressed softly against his left shoulder.
Not fabric.
Weight.
He turned his head slightly.
Reina.
Her head had tilted sideways while she sat, posture relaxed for the first time since they had boarded. Sleep had slipped over her without warning, like the snow outside—clean, quiet, and uncaring if she approved.
Her eyes were closed, lashes dark against her pale skin. Her lips rested in their usual neutral line, but without the faint tension that always lived there when she was awake. The tight tie of her hair had loosened just slightly, a single strand falling forward against her cheek, touched with the faintest trace of moisture from the cold.
Her body leaned toward him at an angle that suggested she had resisted as long as she could before exhaustion betrayed her.
Her head now rested against his shoulder.
Precise.
Unmoving.
Light as a feather that had forgotten how to float.
Kel looked at her for a heartbeat.
No surprise passed through his eyes.
Just acknowledgement.
So even you…
He did not move her away.
His shoulder remained where it was.
Bearing weight.
Silently.
Then something nudged his right side.
He shifted his gaze.
Landon had also tipped over—less gracefully.
At some point in his half-dozing state, fighting the pull of sleep with stubborn blinks and shallow breaths, he had lost that battle. His head, heavy with fatigue, had drooped toward Kel's right side, landing with more force than Reina's, but somehow finding a position that did not rock the caravan's balance.
His hair, slightly messy as always, brushed against Kel's sleeve.
His mouth was parted just a fraction, breath gusting in faint bursts of mist. His brow, often furrowed with confusion or concern, was now relaxed. A small scar near his jaw, usually hidden beneath shifting expressions, showed more clearly in rest.
His weight was warmer.
More grounded.
Kel's arm shifted fractionally to accommodate him, not enough to wake him, but enough to ensure neither would slip if the wagon jolted.
For the first time since stepping into this world, Kel von Rosenfeld…
Found himself acting as a pillow.
He leaned his head back again, this time more slowly, letting it rest fully against the wood.
The caravan rocked gently.
Snow cascaded down outside, heavy and unrelenting.
Inside, beneath his cloak and their shared proximity, a fragile warmth was beginning to gather.
He exhaled.
Another visible plume of mist escaped his lips.
Snow really does pull everyone into sleep quickly, he thought, watching the curtain of white.
His eyes shifted sideways briefly, feeling the minute weight of two heads resting on his shoulders, the quiet, steady rhythm of two sets of breathing near him.
Reina… who walked alone for a year after her house fell.
Landon… who stands in third place, but never falls in spirit.
Both had accepted his offer to walk a road with no guarantees.
Now both slept.
As if for this moment, they had decided to trust the world to remain still while they closed their eyes.
Or perhaps…
They trusted him to stay awake.
Kel's lips twitched faintly.
Not in mockery.
Not in irritation.
In something else.
Something quieter and more dangerous than either.
Trust is heavy.
He felt the weight of their heads.
The weight of their decisions.
The weight of their ignorance about where he truly intended to lead them.
Heavier than any pack.
He tilted his face slightly upward, eyes half-closed.
I should also rest.
The thought surprised him.
He had never allowed himself such softness easily.
Rest meant vulnerability.
Vulnerability was usually punished.
But here…
They were in motion.
Inside a covered caravan.
Snowfall cloaked the road from wandering eyes.
Ganz, at the front, drove with practiced hands, his silhouette a steady, reliable presence.
Kel listened a moment—to the creak of wood, the crunch of snow beneath the wheels, the low, occasional mutter of the driver to his horses.
No immediate threat.
No aura fluctuation in the surroundings.
Only cold.
And he was already living with that.
He shifted his shoulders ever so slightly, enough to settle his support for Reina and Landon, then let his muscles ease.
Slowly.
Carefully.
Like allowing himself to step onto uncertain ground.
His lashes dipped.
The world blurred again.
Just for a short while, he thought. If I want to walk tomorrow… I should not pretension my strength now.
His body, despite his iron will, had limits.
His curse was a constant gnawing, invisible thief.
He had pushed it through duels.
Through training.
Through forbidden aura experiments.
Through leaving the estate.
Now it asked, not gently, for a moment.
Fine, he told it. You may have this.
The cold inside him settled.
Not gone.
Never gone.
But patient.
Kel let his eyes close fully.
Not with the flinch of collapse.
With controlled acceptance.
The atmosphere inside the caravan shifted.
The cold still swirled.
But beneath it, there was a pocket of shared warmth—a finite, fragile space where three travelers rested despite everything outside trying to make them stop.
Kel listened to their breathing as his consciousness began to thin at the edges.
Reina's breaths: softly measured.
Landon's: slower, heavier, full-bodied and unguarded.
His own: quiet, perhaps too shallow, but steady for now.
From the front bench, Ganz glanced back once, his gaze briefly piercing the dimness of the covered wagon.
He saw them like that.
The poet between the "scribe" and the "wheelwright".
Three young figures huddled together, snow-muted light casting them in faint grayscale.
Two heads resting upon one.
Lips parted in sleep.
Eyes closed.
The driver's features softened.
A small, unforced smile tugged at the corners of his mouth.
"Snow takes everyone in the end," he murmured to himself, turning his eyes back to the road. "But, for now… let it just take them into sleep."
He adjusted his hold on the reins, posture straightening.
"You rest, little wanderers," he said, so low that the wind almost took the words away. "I'll carry the road for a while."
The horses pressed onward through the snowfall.
Slow.
Steady.
Within the caravan, Kel's head leaned back against the wood.
The cold seeped in.
But so did something else.
The heat from Reina's shoulder.
The solid warmth from Landon's.
For all its unpredictability, the body was still a furnace.
And this close…
Their combined warmth seeped through his coat, bleeding slowly into the parts of him the curse kept trying to claim.
He did not cling to it.
He merely acknowledged it.
Warmth borrowed is still warmth endured.
His mind drifted.
Snow outside.
A lake ahead.
A curse inside.
Two companions.
One road.
If I die, his thoughts whispered at the edge of sleep, let it be knowing I walked this path on my own will… and that those who chose to walk beside me did so knowing what I had become.
The next breath left his lips in another thin cloud.
His body eased.
Not completely—never completely.
But enough.
Sleep took him the way snow covered the land—
Quietly.
Gradually.
Without asking permission.
The caravan rolled on through the whitewashed world, bearing three shadows whose names had been changed, but whose fates were slowly aligning.
Outside, winter clawed.
Inside, for just a brief stretch of road, three fragile warmths leaned against one another—
Unknowing that this might be one of the last peaceful rests they would have before the mountains.
And before the lake that waited beyond them.