Whisper Waiting
Varn-eil, North Eilin
4093 - A.R.
Day 1
In Varn-eil, we didn’t call them monsters.
In Varn-eil, the sun didn’t set, it just slowly bled out, dying over the horizon until the cold settled in for good.
By three in the afternoon, the sky over northern Eilin was a flat, sickly purple, which dragged low across the jagged peaks before collapsing straight into the black icy waters. That brief two-hour twilight was the only time we were allowed out past the threshold of the city, and we ran through cobbled alleys like animals trying to outrun a storm.
Tav was ahead of us, running backwards down the narrow alley, behind the baker’s shop, with a carved bitter-root sat over his head, its cut slit-eyes and crooked smile making it hard to see Tav’s excited smile. It was a heavy root lantern, the kind usually set on stoops and porches for Whisper Waiting, with a variety of jagged eyes and wide mouths carved into their thick flesh.
“Look at me! I’m the Tall One!” yelled Tav, his voice echoing off the dark brick walls, muffled and hollow inside his root cage head. He flailed his arms, stomping his heavy leather boots into the dark frozen slush, right toward Oryn. “I’m coming to eat yer breath, Lythe-boy!” Tav laughed hysterically and swung his arms with fingers bent like claws.
“Tav, take that stupid thing off.” Oryn squeaked, ducking behind my brown wool coat. His ear-feathers, the soft, pale-blue ruff which framed his jaw and temples, was pressed flat against the sides of his skull, they clicked violently in terror. Oryn’s dusty, charcoal brown skin looked ash gray in the dying light that slivered into the alley.
“C’mon now Tav, he said stop. Seriously.” I said grabbing the top of the root by its twisted stem and yanking it off his head, nearly pulling Tav to the ground.
Harsh cold air hit his red, sweaty face, hair matted to his forehead.
“You’re goin’ to alarm someone or, catch someone off guard. And then the guard will kick us out past the palisade.” I scolded him.
“It’s just a mask Nesta, relax.” Tav muttered, wiping tallow and vegetable guts off his nose with his sleeve, but he picked the carved root up from the sludge and held it tucked under his arm, its hollow ghostly eyes staring blankly the cobbles.
We made it to the market square just as the sun ducked behind the not so distant mountains, and the sky turned a solid matte black.
Clang
The municipal iron bell struck once. The vibration hit the soles of our boots, vibrating up through our teeth.
Down at the perimeter wall, the massive oak palisade gates groaned on their iron hinges, swinging shut with a heavy, final thud. Royal guards dropped thick pine barricade beams into place. The first bell meant the town was officially locked inside for the night.
"Look at Mrs. Gable," Tav whispered, pointing toward a whitewashed porch across the cobbles.
The old woman was kneeling in the slush, placing a carved root-lantern on her top step. Her hands were shaking so hard she dropped her match three times. I stepped closer, my acoustic ear-feathers twitching as they caught a low, papery scraping sound from the roofline. "Oryn... look at her wall." Mrs. Gable stood up and turned to go inside, her body shifting toward her front door. But her shadow, which cast long and dark against the whitewashed brick by the streetlamp, didn't turn with her for but a moment’s breath.
It stayed frozen on the wall, its arms slightly raised, its head tilted at an impossible angle. Then, with a faint, wet flick, it snapped back to her heels and followed her inside.
Oryn grabbed my sleeve, his nails digging into my wool coat. "It lagged."
"Keep walking," I hissed, pulling him along. "Don't stare at them when they're slow."
We kept our heads down, stepping fast over the frost-crusted cobbles.
Between the first bell and the second, time in Varn-eil didn't move fast. It stretched out, cold and heavy, for two long hours while the sky turned from flat purple to solid black. The air bit at the inside of your nose, so sharp it made your eyes water.
Near the center of the square, royal attendants were dragging heavy timber casks off the flatbed wagons, black with age and branded with the crown’s seal.
"Look at the casks," Tav whispered, lagging behind us with his hollow root mask still tucked under his arm. "That’s the thick stuff. The berry-wine from the deep cellars."
"Don't get close to them, Tav," I warned, yanking his sleeve.
"I just wanna see," he muttered, but he let me drag him behind a stack of empty timber crates.
Two guards were unloading a long, iron-strapped crate by the unlit bonfire. One of them misstepped on a patch of black ice, and the corner of the crate hit the cobbles with a heavy, metallic thunk.
The guard didn't curse. He didn't even catch his breath. He just straightened his spine with a stiff, jerky snap, his head turning slowly toward the dark space where we were hiding.
In the yellow light of a nearby streetlamp, his scarf had slipped down. The skin on his neck wasn't red or sweating from the heavy lifting—it was dry, gray, and cracked in jagged lines like dried river clay. The acoustic ear-slits inside his iron helmet were dead quiet.
"Nesta..." Oryn whimpered, burying his face against my shoulder. "His neck... it looks like stone."
"Shh," I hissed, clamping my hand over Oryn’s acoustic feathers to keep them from clicking. "Don't look at him."
The guard stared at our crate for three long seconds, his eyes wide and blank, before grabbing the iron handle and lifting again like he didn't feel the weight at all.
We backed away slowly, slipping down the narrow alley between the apothecary and the baker's shop.
The square was filling up with people coming out of their row houses, bundled in thick wool and fur, but nobody was talking normally. They stood in tight, quiet huddles, shivering in the dark and clutching empty brass cups with blue-knuckled hands. Old men paced the stone steps checking their lantern latches over and over. Women whispered in tight circles, their eyes darting up toward the rooflines where the dark sat thick in the eaves.
My mother’s friend, Aunt Mara, was leaning against a hitching post near the baker’s wall. Her coat was unbuttoned despite the freezing air, her face blotchy and bright red from drinking straight out of a pocket flask.
"Nesta! Children!" Mara called out, her voice pitching up into a sharp, breathy laugh that ended way too fast. She staggered toward us, nearly tripping over a drainage grate. "What are you three doing slinking around in the dark? You ought to be over by the dais! They're fixing to light the phos-oil!"
"We're just heading upstairs, Aunt Mara," I said, putting myself between her and Oryn.
"Oh, don't be so gloomy!" Mara giggled, reaching out to pat Tav on the head, though her hand shook so bad she nearly knocked his root-lantern into the slush. "It’s Whisper Waiting! You have to smile, little human! If you smile, the cold thinks you’re warm!"
She let out another loud, brittle laugh that made my own ear-feathers fan out in a sharp shudder. She turned in an awkward circle and stumbled back toward the crowd, taking another long swig.
"She’s scared out of her mind," Tav said softly, watching her go. He dropped his eyes to his boots, his thumb tracing the jagged carved tooth on his root mask. "My dad’s inside drinking too. He told me to stay out of his way till morning."
Before we could head for the stairs, a heavy brass trumpet sounded from the high balcony above the municipal hall.
The crowd in the square went quiet, turning like sheep toward the light. King Vaelen stepped out onto the stone dais, flanked by four royal guards in dark silver plate mail. He looked huge up there under the flickering yellow phos-lamps, draped in a heavy crimson velvet mantle trimmed with dark wolf-fur. On his head sat his crown—a thick ring of twisted, dark iron forged to look like jagged nails.
"Look!" Tav whispered, his eyes going wide with awe as he grabbed my coat sleeve. "It’s King Vaelen! My dad says he’s the strongest man in all of Eilin. He said the King fought off the deep frost with his bare hands when the first palisade was built!"
"Shh, Tav," I murmured, watching the King closely.
King Vaelen raised a heavy golden chalice toward the crowd. His voice boomed out across the square—deep, grand, and smooth, echoing off the slate roofs:
"People of Varn-eil!" the King called out, his words ringing like bronze. "The winter grows long, but our city stands firm! Drink the crown's wine tonight! Drown the freeze in your bellies! So long as the three bells ring and the quiet pact is kept, Eilin gives what Eilin must, and the dark shall not cross our threshold!" The adults all erupted into frantic, wild cheers, shoving their brass cups into the air, begging for the wine barrels to be tapped. They hung on his every word like starvelings begging for crusts.
"See?" Tav grinned, nudging Oryn. "The King keeps us safe! The winters whispers can’t do shi-"
"Look at his arm, Tav," I whispered, my ear-feathers twitching.
High above us, as King Vaelen lowered his golden chalice, his velvet sleeve rode up his forearm just an inch. In the yellow streetlamp light, the skin at his wrist wasn't flesh, it was dry, gray, and cracked in deep jagged lines, like river-bed clay after a three-year drought. When he moved his fingers, a faint, papery grinding sound, like stone sliding over gravel, carried down through the cold air. If he was Lythen, it would have made sense, our skin does that, it looks dry, and it cracks especially bad in the cold months, but he was human.
Beside him, his shadow cast long against the whitewashed stone of the balcony hall. When the King turned to walk back inside, his shadow stayed frozen on the wall for a full two seconds, its arms raised in a strange, crooked bow, before snapping back to his heels with a wet flick.
Oryn gripped my coat, his charcoal skin turning ash gray. "Nesta... his arm... and his shadow lagged."
I swallowed a lump in my throat. "Don't stare," I hissed, grabbing both Tav and Oryn by their collars and dragging them toward the dark alleyway. "Come on. Up to the loft before someone sees us spying" they waddled slowly behind. "Come on," I said, pointing up toward the dark wooden fire escape running up the side of the bakery. "Let's get off the street."
We climbed the rickety wooden stairs, our boots crunching loudly over the rime-ice on the steps, and ducked into the unheated loft above the baker’s storage room. It smelled of dry flour and old pine, but it kept the biting wind off our faces.
We sat down on a pile of burlap grain sacks, pressing close together to share heat. Tav set his carved root-lantern between his knees, staring into its empty eye-holes. Oryn curled into my side, his charcoal skin freezing cold, his ear-feathers twitching every time a door slammed in the street below.
Through the frost on the loft window, we watched the square below us.
More adults spilled out from the alleys, crowding around the wine casks like livestock around a trough, begging the servants to tap the barrels early. The air grew heavier, thicker, until you could taste the coppery tang of the frost settling over the roofs.
And then, high in the municipal tower, the clapper swung.
Clang.
Clang.
We didn't move from the loft window for hours.
Between the second bell and the third, time in Varn-eil didn't march—it dragged like a heavy sled over bare gravel. The initial burst of noise from the market square started to sour as the cold dug its teeth in deeper.
Down below, the bonfire was losing its fight against the frost. The roaring orange flames dropped down, flickering low and sickly until they turned a icy, pale blue at the base. The wood hissed, spitting yellow sparks into the black sky that died before they even hit the cobbles.
Up in the unheated loft, the cold came through the floorboards like water through a leaking boot.
Tav sat huddled on the grain sacks, his knees pulled up tight against his chest inside his coat. He still held his carved bitter-root mask in his lap, his thumb idly turning the twisted stem over and over. His breath came out in short, thick clouds that hovered in the dark before dissolving.
"My mum used to sing that poem when she put me to bed," Tav whispered, his voice small and muffled in the corner. "The three-bell one."
"My dad made us recite it every time the frost came early," Oryn murmured. He was tucked under my arm, shivering so hard his teeth clicked together in time with his ear-feathers. "He said if you forgot the words, the long ones would hear you."
"It's just an old folk chant," I said, though my eyes never left the window pane. I kept my thumb pressed against the glass, melting a small, round circle through the thick layer of rime-ice so we could keep watching the square. "It’s just something parents tell you so you don't wander off into the drainage ditches."
"Is it?" Tav looked up, his human eyes wide and hollow in the dark. Quietly, almost under his breath, he started humming the tune, tapping his boot heel rhythmically against the floorboards:
"First bell strikes, the gates go black... turn your coat and don't look back..."
"Tav, shut up," I snapped in a low whisper, reaching out to kick his boot. "Stop tapping."
"Sorry," he muttered, pulling his feet back. "I just... my toes are gone, Nesta. I can't feel them at all."
"Rub your knees. Don't stamp."
Down in the square, the party was curdling.
The heavy berry-wine was wearing off its initial rush, leaving the adults sour, clumsy, and raw. The copper drums on the music dais had stopped; one of the players had dropped his pipe into the slush and was on his hands and knees, stupidly scrambling around for it while his fingers turned blue.
People were standing in tight, shivering huddles around the dying bonfire, clutching their empty brass cups. The frantic, hysterical laughter from an hour ago had thinned out into low, jagged mumbling. Every time a gust of northern wind rattled a loose tin shutter on the gables, half the crowd flinched, their heads snapping toward the dark alleyways.
And the Vesper-hounds were still moving among them.
There were six of them now. They moved like oil spilled across black ice—fluid, soundless, and impossibly long. One of them had slunk right up to the bottom of our wooden fire-escape staircase, its matte-black hide drinking in what little light was left from the lanterns.
It stood at the foot of the steps, its long, jointed front legs bent at unnatural, backwards angles. Its head didn't have eyes or a snout, just those two long, wire-thin acoustic ear-tufts flared upward, vibrating slightly as they caught the sound of Tav's shallow breathing from up in the loft.
Oryn saw it through the glass and froze. His pale-blue ear-feathers went entirely rigid, pinned flat back against his skull until they looked like painted wood. He grabbed my wrist, his small, dark fingers digging in until it hurt.
"It's right below us," Oryn breathed, barely moving his lips.
"Don't move," I hissed. "Don't even shift your feet."
We stayed locked in place for ten agonizing minutes. The cold in the room felt physical, settling over our shoulders like a wet woolen blanket. Outside, the hound didn't climb the stairs. It just tilted its featureless head toward the loft window, its ear-tufts swiveling in small, precise arcs, testing the air for a pulse, a breath, a panic.
Beside me, Tav let out a tiny, involuntary shudder, his shoulders jerking as a cold-spasm hit him. His arm brushed the side of his carved root mask, and the heavy bitter-root rolled off his lap, hitting the wooden floorboards with a dull thump.
The sound wasn't loud, but in the freezing silence, it sounded like a hammer hitting a plank.
At the bottom of the stairs, the hound's ear-tufts snapped straight up, locking toward our window.
My heart slammed against my ribs. I reached out instantaneously, slamming my hand over Tav’s mouth before he could gasp, while my other hand clamped down hard over Oryn’s acoustic feathers to keep them from clicking in terror.
We didn't breathe. We didn't blink.
Through the melted circle on the frost-covered glass, I watched the hound. It slowly raised one jointed foreleg, placing a silent matte-black paw onto the first wooden step of the fire escape. The timber didn't creak under its weight—it was like the thing didn't weigh anything at all.
It took a second step upward.
"Two bells rings, the hounds walk free..." Tav's earlier words echoed inside my head like a threat.
Then, down in the square, a heavy brass cup dropped onto the cobblestones with a loud, ringing CLATTER.
A drunk merchant had stumbled backward over a drainage grate, spilling the last of his wine and swearing loudly into the dark.
The hound on the fire escape stopped instantly. Its head snapped away from our loft, turning toward the noise in the square. Without a sound, it melted backward off the steps, sliding down into the shadow of the alleyway and gliding toward the merchant like a shadow returning to a wall.
I let out a long, shuddering breath, my hand trembling as I pulled it away from Tav’s mouth. Tav collapsed back against the burlap grain sacks, staring up at the dark rafters, his chest heaving.
"That was too close," Tav whispered, his voice shaking violently. "Nesta... that was too close."
"Keep your hands on your lap," I said, my voice tight and thin as I picked up the root mask and shoved it back into his arms. "Third bell's coming soon. The dark's almost thick enough."
We sat in the freezing, silent dark, watching the last embers of the bonfire die down to gray ash. The adults in the square were barely moving now, standing like wooden posts in the slush, their breath coming out in weak, white plumes, waiting for permission to run inside.
And then, high above the gothic roofs, the municipal iron clapper swung.
Clang.
Clang.
Clang.
The third bell struck, and the sound was flat, heavy, and final. It didn't ring out across the steep slate roofs, it hit the freezing air and dropped straight into the slush.
Down in the square, nobody sang or cheered. The response was a silent, desperate stampede.
Adults shoved past each other toward the narrow alleyways, throwing open heavy timber doors, hurling themselves inside, and slamming the iron bolts shut. Within thirty seconds, the market square was stripped completely bare. The amber string-lights strung across the gables cut out with a sharp snap, plunging Varn-eil into absolute, unyielding blackness.
Through the melted circle on the window pane, I couldn't see the cobbles anymore. The bonfire was dead ash. There was only the bitter night, the freezing wind, and the knowledge that the hounds were still down there in the dark, stepping silently through the empty streets.
"Time to go home," I whispered, reaching out to grab Oryn's cold hand and pulling Tav up by his coat collar. "Keep close. Don't look at the eaves."
Day 2
Morning in Varn-eil didn’t come with a golden sunrise. The black sky just thinned out into a bruised, sickly purple that felt heavy enough to press down on the slate roofs.
Inside our house, the stone hearth was dead gray ash. My father was slouched face-down over the pine table in his heavy wool coat, his leather boots still caked with frozen slush from the night before. His hand lay limp on the grain, fingers twitching every now and then beside an empty brass cup that smelled of sour, fermented berry-wine. He didn't even groan when Oryn and I crept down the loft ladder. In Varn-eil, after a Three-Bell night, the adults slept like corpses until midday, trying to drown out the iron ringing that settled in their bones.
Oryn’s pale-blue ear-feathers were still puffed up real big and sensitive, twitching toward the floorboards every time a joist creaked. His charcoal-brown skin looked a little less gray in the dim light, but he kept his small fingers hooked tight into the pocket of my wool coat. I grabbed two stale crusts of rye bread off the counter, handed him the larger piece, and pulled him out the back door before my dad could wake up and find a reason to keep us locked in.
Tav was already waiting for us down behind the baker’s wood-shed. He didn't have his bitter-root mask today, but he was practically vibrating with nervous energy, kicking sharp chunks of blue rime-ice against the brick wall just to hear them shatter.
"You two took long enough!" Tav yelled in a sharp whisper, his face turning red in the biting wind. His hair was sticking up in all directions. "Look at the sky, Nesta! It’s already purple-ing! We’re wasting the daylight!"
"Dad was passed out by the hearth," I said, shoving a piece of rye bread into my mouth. "He didn't even move when we came down."
"My dad’s the same," Tav scoffed, bouncing on his toes. "He’s snorin' loud enough to rattle the windowpanes. C'mon, let's get out to the northern drainage ditch before the guards get off their lazy rear-ends."
"Nesta... no," Oryn squeaked, ducking behind my shoulder. His soft ear-ruff pressed flat against his skull, clicking twice in worry. "We shouldn't go past the wall today. What if the guards see us? What if the cold comes down early?"
"Ah, don't be a scaredy-cat, Lythe-boy!" Tav grinned, making a claw with his hand and swooping it toward Oryn’s face. "The guards are still inside their guardhouse warming their hands over the coal braziers. We got two full hours of light! Me and Nesta want to see the woods, don't we Nesta?"
"We don't have a choice, Oryn," I said, pulling his hood up tight over his pale-blue feathers to hide his shivering. "The hearth at home is dead ash, and my dad drank away our last coppers on berry-wine. If we don't fetch a sack of dry pine-knots from the treeline before noon, we're gonna freeze in our beds tonight."
Oryn chewed his lip, looking back at the dark alleys. "What about... what we saw on the fire escape?"
"They only come out in the dark," I lied, though my own ear-feathers gave a tight, nervous click. "The sun's up. Sort of. We get the wood, we haul it back through the ditch, and we lock ourselves inside. Twenty minutes, in and out."
We snuck along the back wall where the town’s waste-water drained out, crouching low behind the timber stacks. Sure enough, the two guards at the northern perimeter wall were huddled inside their wooden watch-shanty, their iron helmets pulled low, arguing over a deck of greasy cards. We scrambled through the narrow gap where the ditch runoff froze into long, jagged ice-pipes, scraping our knees on the rough stone until we tumbled out into the snow on the other side of the palisade.
Out past Varn-eil, the Iron-pine woods were vast, white, and dead quiet.
The snow underfoot was deep, covered in a hard crust of rime-ice that gave way with a loud CRUNCH-SNAP under our heavy boots. The giant pines towered sixty feet above us, their thick needle-canopies heavy with frozen powder, blocking out what little pale light filtered down from the purple sky. The toothed peaks of the mountains rose up behind the trees like broken black teeth against the twilight. We stopped, crouched in the shadow of a sixty-foot pine, holding our breath and waiting for the whistle of a guard's horn. Nothing came. Only the low, hollow sigh of wind through the needles.
Tav looked at me, his eyes wide above his wrapped collar. Then a slow, wicked grin cut across his face. He wound back his boot and kicked a slab of hard rime-ice right at my shins. It shattered against my leather wraps with a loud CRACK.
"Hey!" I hissed, but he was already moving, vaulting over a fallen log with a wild yip.
For an hour, we completely forgot about the hounds, the lagging shadows, and the iron bells, it was exactly the break our minds needed from the horrors they seemed to imagine.
We ran through the deep drifts like wild dogs let off a chain. Tav found a steep, snow-covered bank leading down to a creek that had frozen into a sheet of smooth, black glass. "Watch this!" Tav shouted, taking a running leap and sliding on his boots halfway across the ice, his arms flailing everywhere before he lost his balance and landed flat on his back with a loud OOF!
Me and Oryn burst out laughing. Oryn’s ear-feathers finally unpinned themselves, fanning out soft and relaxed in the crisp cold. "You look like a flipped turtle, Tav!" I yelled, scooping up a handful of crusty snow and packing it tight into a hard ball. I threw it right at his chest, and it hit his coat, bursting into a cloud of white powder.
"Oh, you're gettin' it now, Nesta!" Tav scrambled up, his hands bright red from the snow, yelling as he chased me through the thick pine trunks.
We played hide-and-seek among the massive fir roots, packing ice-balls and throwing them at the frozen bark until the trunks were chipped and white. Tav tried to climb up a low-hanging fir bough to drop snow on my head, but he grabbed a dead branch, and the whole bough dumped a barrel's worth of heavy, powdery drift right over his face and coat, burying him up to his chin.
Oryn laughed so hard he had to hold his stomach, his pale-blue ruff flaring up bright in the cold air.
We were breathless, our cheeks burning red, sweat drying cold on our foreheads inside our wool caps. We had checked the municipal tower clock before we crawled through the pipe—we had a full hour of twilight left. But in Eilin, the sky doesn't obey clocks when the winter gets hungry. Quickly ours’ and the trees’ shadows began to stretch infinetly towards the walls of Varn-eil.
It felt like one second the sky was a bruised purple, and the next, a thick, greasy blackness poured out from the mountain peaks like ink dropped into the fading sky. The sun didn't set, it was snuffed out. The first bell struck before the shadows even had time to stretch.
Clang.
Then, the cold didn't just bite—it dropped like a sharp, jagged stone.
The distant municipal bell struck once from the city towers. The single iron strike rolled low across the snow-laden treetops, hitting us right in the chest.
"The first bell!" I gasped, the fun instantly vanishing out of my gut like spilled water. "Run!"
"Oh spirits, oh Ignea," Oryn whimpered, his ear-feathers slamming flat against his skull as they started clicking violently in terror.
We scrambled up the slippery snowbank, our boots plunging deep into the drifts, tearing through the pine needles as the forest turned pitch black around us. Branches whipped across our faces, pulling at our wool coats. We burst out of the treeline near the northern palisade, sliding on the slush toward the main gates.
Through the narrow seam in the heavy timber, we saw the guards moving fast.
THUD.
A massive timber barricade beam fell into place on the inside of the perimeter. The oak gates groaned on their iron hinges, shutting with a final, heavy slam.
The first bell had struck. The town was locked shut for the night. And we were still on the outside.
"No, no! Hey!" Tav screamed, running up to the heavy oak wood and pounding his small, wet fist against the gate. "Open up! We're still out here! Hey!"
"Tav, shut yer mouth!" I hissed, grabbing his coat collar and yanking him back into the shadow of the perimeter wall. "Ya want the royal guards to hear ya? If they catch us out past the bell, they won't open the door—they'll drive us further out into the trench!"
"We're locked out, Nesta!" Oryn cried, his fingers digging into my arm so hard I could feel his nails through the wool. His acoustic feathers were clicking out of control, making a frantic, papery noise. "We're gonna freeze out here... the hounds... the long ones are gonna get us!"
"We hide," I said, my teeth already chattering so bad I could barely keep my words straight. "We get back under the big firs in the deep woods where the wind can't hit us, and we stay quiet till we figure out how to get back inside."
We scrambled backward into the dense Iron-pine woods, ducking under the low, snow-heavy branches of an ancient, massive fir tree. We squeezed into the tight, frozen hollow between its huge roots, pressing our bodies close together to keep from freezing to death.
Hours went by in total, suffocating darkness. The wind howled through the high pine canopy, but down in the root hollow, it was dead quiet.
Then, my acoustic ear-feathers twitched. A strange, metallic crunching sound was echoing through the deep drifts.
Crunch. Clack. Crunch. Clack.
"Don't move," I whispered, barely breathing. I slammed my hand hard over Oryn’s mouth to keep his clicking feathers quiet, pinning Tav down by his shoulder.
Through the frosted pine needles, a sickly, pale-orange phos-light flickered against the deep snowbanks.
It wasn't the regular town watch. Six tall, heavily armored figures marched in rigid, unnatural unison into the small clearing just thirty paces from our hiding tree. They wore dark silver plate mail and thick, dark wolf-pelts over their shoulders, carrying long iron pikes that glinted with blue oil at the tips. The King's Black Guard.
And walking right in the center of them was King Vaelen himself.
He was huge, draped in a heavy velvet mantle stained dark with frost-grit. On his head sat a crown of twisted, melted dark iron that looked like jagged nails forged together.
Tav nudged my elbow, his eyes wide as saucers in the dark. He crawled forward on his belly, snaking his head closer to the gap between the big fir roots to see better. I tried to grab his coat-tail, but I couldn't stop myself from peeking out either. We were terrified, but we couldn't look away.
The procession stopped beside a moss-covered standing stone half-buried in the snowdrift. King Vaelen stepped forward alone, his heavy iron boots crunching into the rime-ice, and slowly unbuckled his heavy leather gauntlet.
When he pulled his glove off, my blood went dead cold in my veins.
In the pale oil-light, the King's right hand wasn't skin. It was dry, gray, and cracked in deep crude lines, the exact same stone-like, dried river clay we had seen on the guard's neck in the market square.
King Vaelen raised his gray stone palm and pressed it flat against the frozen face of the standing stone.
High up in the dark pine boughs directly above our heads, a low, wet, papery scraping sound echoed out. The heavy branches groaned under a sudden, massive weight.
Tav squeezed his eyes shut, but he tilted his head up. Through the needle canopy, something was lowering itself down the trunk of our tree.
It wasn't just a hound. It was bigger, it was impossibly long and skeletal, its matte-black hide drinking in the orange light until it looked like a hole torn in the dark. It slid down the bark without a single creak, its long, jointed forelegs bending at backwards angles, its featureless head weaving low to the ground.
Two wire-thin feathery ear-tufts flared straight up from its skull, vibrating violently in the freeze.
“First bell strikes, the gates go black,
Turn your coat and don't look back.
Second bell rings, the hounds walk free,
Drink the wine so you cannot see.
Third bell falls, the silence clings,
God help the child the winter brings.” Sang the king, in a low chanting rhythm. His hands turned palm up to receive a mound of golden shimmers, before the something caught our scent.
It didn't look at the King. It tilted its head toward our root hollow, sniffing the air with a faint, wet hiss.
My heart hammered so hard against my ribs I thought it’d snap 'em. Beside me, Oryn was shaking so bad his knees were knocking together.
The thing's wire tufts swiveled, locking right onto the warm, white breath puffing out from Tav's nose.
It dropped silently off the trunk, landing two feet from our hiding spot. Its matte-black snout thrust straight through the snow-draped fir boughs, poking right into our dark hollow. The freezing, coppery smell of its hide hit us like a slap. Its featureless face was inches from Tav's cheeks, testing the air, sniffing out the life in his chest.
Tav froze for one second, two seconds—and then he lost it.
"GET AWAY!" Tav shrieked, a raw, shrill scream of pure terror. He swung his fist, striking the black snout with a dull, hollow thud.
The thing let out a sound like wet glass grinding together.
"SEIZE THEM!" a guard roared from the clearing.
“NOOO!” roared the king, his voice breaking and stained by the heavy cold air.
"RUN!" I screamed, yanking Oryn up by his coat collar.
Everything erupted into pure, violent chaos. Iron pikes slammed through the pine boughs, tearing up the snow and dirt. The giant black beast lunged into the root hollow, its long, jointed legs snapping like iron traps. I threw myself sideways, dragging Oryn with me as a pike blade whistled past my ear and bit deep into the tree trunk.
We exploded out the back of the fir, kicking up clouds of powdery drift.
"Tav! Run!" I yelled over my shoulder, but the dark was thick, and the forest was screaming.
Shadows were dropping out of the pine canopy all around us. The heavy, iron-clad boots of the Black Guard were pounding through the snow right behind us, their armor clanking like iron buckets. We ran blind, branches whipping across our faces, slicing open my cheek, tearing the wool off my coat.
"Nesta! Nesta!" Oryn sobbed, stumbling over a buried log. I hoisted him back to his feet without stopping, my lungs burning like I was breathing in liquid fire.
"Keep runnin'! Don't look back! Don't look at 'em!"
We burst out of the tree line into the open snowfield near the northern perimeter wall, skidding wildly on the black ice. The massive oak gates of Varn-eil towered above us, locked shut, dark and silent.
"The culvert! Get to the culvert!" I screamed.
We scrambled down the snowy bank into the drainage ditch. The stone pipe was a narrow, pitch-black hole choked with frozen mud and razor-sharp ice-icicles.
"Get in, Oryn! Go!" I shoved Oryn headfirst into the pipe. He kicked his boots frantically, crawling into the dark stone like a scared mole.
I turned around, gasping for air, waving my arms into the pitch-black tree line. "Tav! Tav, over here! Get to the ditch!"
Through the black pines, a torch flared. I heard the crunching of boots, a harsh shout, and a sudden, sharp cry that got cut off with a heavy THUD. Then... dead silence. Just the howling northern wind.
"Tav?!" I yelled, my voice cracking in my throat. "TAV!"
Nothing answered.
Heavy footfalls were coming fast through the snowdrifts toward the bank.
I threw myself belly-down into the filthy, frozen culvert, dragging myself into the pipe just as a heavy iron pike slammed into the stone opening behind me, spitting sparks.
The icy sludge soaked straight through my wool coat, freezing my skin instantly. The sharp ice-pipes scraped the skin right off my knuckles and forearms as I clawed through the dark, pulling myself forward by pure instinct while my heart screamed in my ears.
I tumbled out the other side, crashing hard onto the frozen cobbles of the alley behind the baker's shop.
Oryn was already on his knees in the dark, shivering violently, sobbing into his hands, his pale-blue ear-feathers pressed flat and clicking out of control.
I scrambled up on my elbows, spinning around to face the drain hole. I reached my bleeding hands deep back into the freezing stone pipe, straining to catch a boot, a coat, anything.
"Tav!" I hissed into the pipe, my breath coming out in ragged, white gasps. "Tav, grab my hand! Tav!"
The pipe was dead silent.
Nothing came out of the dark hole except a gust of freezing wind and the wet, slow drip of melting slush.
I stared into the black opening, my hands shaking so hard I couldn't feel my fingers anymore. The cold inside the town was heavy and absolute, but the dark out past the wall was bigger.
I pulled my hands back out of the stone pipe, my fingers so frozen they felt like snapped twigs.
"Tav..." I choked out, but the stone culvert just blew back a gust of dead, icy air.
"Nesta, he ain't coming," Oryn sobbed, his small hands clutched over his pale-blue ear-feathers. They were pressed so tight against his skull they looked flat as paper, clicking and vibrating in pure panic. "Nesta, we gotta get someone! We gotta tell 'em!"
"Yeah," I gasped, my chest heaving so hard it felt like swallowing glass. "Yeah, someone's gotta open the gate. The guards... the guards'll go back for 'im!"
I grabbed Oryn's wet wool sleeve and dragged him out of the alley into the wide cobbles of the market square.
We expected to find people hiding, or guards marching', but what we ran into was a nightmare in broad color. The square was packed tight. They’d lit the big fiery braziers, and the harsh yellow light made everyone's shadow stretch long and jagged against the whitewashed brick. Copper drums were banging out a frantic, clumsy rhythm on the dais. The adults were crowded around the black berry-wine casks, shoving brass cups into the taps, laughing too loud, their voices high and shrill like whistling kettles.
Nobody was talking about the cold. Nobody was talking about the dark. They were drinking like if they stopped swallowing for two seconds, the winter would jump down their throats.
"Help!" I screamed, my voice cracking, slicing right through the drumbeats. "Hey! Somebody help!"
I ran straight up to a thick-set timber merchant standing near a wine barrel, his face red and slick with sweat despite the freezing air. I grabbed the front of his fur coat, my bleeding knuckles leaving dark smears on his wool.
"Mister! Mister, please! Tav’s still out there!" I yelled, pulling on him with all my weight. "He’s past the palisade! The Black Guard—the King was out in the woods, and the long ones—"
The merchant didn't even look down at me properly. His eyes were glassy, wide, and unblinking, floating on berry-wine. He just let out a wet, booming laugh and shoved a brass cup toward my face.
"Drink yer sweet-juice, kid!" he slurred, spilling purple wine all over my coat collar. "Ain't nobody out past the bell! The gates are bolted tight! You’re seein' spooks in the snow!"
"I ain't seein' spooks!" I shrieked, kicking his boot. "Tav’s caught! He’s stuck in the ditch by the northern wall!"
"Get this noisy brat outta here," a woman laughed beside him, her cheeks painted bright red with tallow cosmetics, her hands shaking as she drained her cup. "It’s Whisper Waiting! You’re supposed to be merry, little girl! Smile or the cold'll hear ya!"
I let go of him, my teeth chattering so hard my jaw ached. "Oryn, find his dad! Help me find his dad!"
We shoved through the crowd, past shivering adults who just laughed off our screams or swiped at us like we were stray dogs underfoot. Near the baker's hitching post, we found Tav’s father. He was leaning against the stone wall, a half-empty jug clutched in his fist, his coat unbuttoned to the chest while his skin turned a mottled, icy blue.
"Uncle Ren!" I yelled, grabbing his heavy arm. "Ren, wake up! It’s Tav! Tav didn't make it back through the pipe!"
Tav’s dad slowly turned his head. His eyes were bloodshot and heavy, staring right through me like I was made of glass. A slow, stupid grin spread across his chapped lips.
"Tav’s upstairs..." he mumbled, his voice thick and slurred, waving a limp hand toward the empty alley. "Tav... Tav’s in his bunk... fast asleep..."
"He ain't in his bunk!" I screamed into his face, shaking his arm with both hands. "He’s out in the Iron-pines! The King’s guards are out there, Ren! They got him!"
Ren’s smile didn't fade, but his graying ear-feathers gave a sudden, sharp CLICK. He reached out with a heavy, numb hand and slapped me across the shoulder—not hard, but slow and careless, spilling his wine onto the cobbles.
"Don't you talk about the King," Ren muttered, his eyes narrowing into little red slits. "Don't you go spookin' the square with bad tales, Nesta. Tav’s home. Everyone’s home. The gates are closed... the darkness love-loves us."
"They didn't listen," Oryn whimpered beside me, pulling at my wool coat, his voice barely a whisper. "Nesta... nobody’s listenin'. They don't care."
They didn't care because they couldn't. To admit Tav was out there meant admitting the wall didn't save us. It meant admitting the night was stronger than the oak gates.
Suddenly, the copper drums on the music dais didn't just slow down—they stopped with a loud, metallic THUD.
The laughter in the square dried up in a single breath. The amber braziers sputtered, their bright yellow flames shrinking down until they turned that pale, sickly, icy blue at the base. The heat vanished out of the air instantly, turning everyone's frantic breath into thick white plumes that hovered like ghosts over the crowd.
The adults stood glued to the cobbles, their brass cups frozen at their lips, their wide, drunken eyes staring blankly at the dark.
Far above the gothic roofs, in the dark spire of the municipal tower, the iron clapper swung.
Clang.
Clang.
Clang.
Three bells was the lock. Three bells meant you stay inside.
Clang.
The fourth bell struck.
The sound wasn't a chime—it was a heavy, iron crack that vibrated right through the stone under our boots, rattling the teeth inside our skulls. The fourth bell. The bell nobody ever talked about. The bell that meant the night wasn't just waiting outside anymore.
The string-lights across the gables snapped, throwing the square into absolute, pitch-black dark.
The oil lamp fires died completely.
In the sudden, suffocating blackness, nobody ran. Nobody screamed. The adults just stood there like wooden posts in the slush, paralyzed by the sheer, heavy weight of the freeze.
Oryn grabbed my wrist, his fingers trembling wildly against my skin.
"Nesta..." he breathed, his voice terrified. "Look up. Look at the wall."
I turned my head toward the northern perimeter.
High above the dark roofs, towering over the thirty-foot oak palisade wall, the sky was pitch black. But along the top edge of the timber stakes, where the sharpened spikes pointed into the night, the dark was moving.
Row after row of wire-thin acoustic ear-tufts flared up against the starlight.
Dozens of them. Hundreds of them. Featureless, matte-black heads were lined up along the top of the city palisade, leaning over the sharpened logs, staring down into the market square with silent, unblinking intent.
The gates were locked tight, but the long ones weren't outside anymore. They were sitting on our walls, watching us wait.
Day 3
Morning didn’t bring relief in Varn-eil. It just turned the pitch black into a bruised, heavy gray that sat over the slate roofs like lead.
Downstairs, the house erupted before the hearth even caught fire.
Tav’s mother was screaming down in the alley, her voice high, thin, and ragged. Word spread fast through the frozen slush: Tav’s bed was cold. He hadn't come home.
Me and Oryn ran out to the baker's wood-shed where the adults were gathering. Tav’s father, Ren, was pulling on a heavy fur coat, his hands shaking so bad he couldn't thread the wooden buttons through the slots. Four royal guards stood by with iron lanterns and long pikes, their iron helmets pulled low against the freeze.
"We know where he is!" I yelled, shoving my way through the shivering crowd, dragging Oryn by his coat sleeve. "We were out at the northern ditch! He got cut off near the standing stone—"
"Shut yer mouth, Nesta!" Ren roared, turning on me with a red, wild face. He grabbed me by my coat shoulder and shoved me back so hard I nearly knocked Oryn into the slush. "Don't you go speakin' wicked nonsense about the woods! Tav’s just hidin' in a cellar! He’s just scared of the dark!"
"He ain't in a cellar!" I shrieked back, kicking at the ice. "We were out there! The King’s guard—"
My father grabbed me from behind, his rough hand clamping over my mouth, squeezing until my lips hit my teeth.
"Get inside," my dad hissed into my hair, his breath smelling of stale berry-wine and sour sweat. "You don't talk about past the wall. You don't say those words in front of the watch."
He dragged me and Oryn up the rickety wooden stairs of our house, shoved us into the loft, and slammed the heavy oak door. The iron bolt shot home on the outside with a loud CLICK.
"Stay put," my dad grunted through the wood. "Don't you touch that window."
They locked us in.
We sat on the pile of rough burlap grain sacks in the dark room, shivering in the cold. Outside, the brief hour of gray daylight thinned out and died, collapsing straight back into pitch black.
We waited. Hours dragged like heavy lead weights over bare stone.
The municipal bell struck its three cycles—Sunset, The Mid-Night, Midnight.
The town went dead quiet. No copper drums tonight. No wild laughter or clinking brass cups. The adults sat in their locked row houses in total, suffocating silence, too terrified to drink, too terrified to pretend.
Me and Oryn didn't sleep. We sat pressed together under the wool blankets, listening to the frost freeze thick over the glass. Every few minutes, I used my thumb to melt a small circle through the rime-ice, staring out into the pitch-black market square.
It was way past midnight when I saw the light.
Out near the northern palisade, a faint amber glow flickered against the dark timber wall. The heavy oak gates groaned on their hinges, opening just enough to let a small procession slip through.
A line of amber lantern lights bobbed slowly across the frozen cobbles.
The search party was back.
They walked in a slow, broken line into the empty square. The guards held their iron pikes low, their wool cloaks stiff with white frost. Behind them came Ren.
There was no Tav.
Ren walked like a man whose bones had turned to glass. He didn't look up at the windows. He didn't call Tav's name. In his hands, held tight against his chest, he carried Tav’s carved bitter-root mask.
In the center of the dark square, under the pale glow of a streetlamp, Ren stopped. He dropped to his knees in the slush, his hands sliding away from the root.
The mask hit the cobbles with a dull, hollow thud.
Through my melted circle on the glass, I saw it clearly. The bitter-root was frozen solid, caked in blue ice and dried ditch-sludge. The crooked grin Tav had carved into it was split wide down the middle, cracked open by the sharp point of an iron pike, stuffed with frozen mud.
Ren didn't weep. He just sat on his knees in the dark, staring at the broken wooden face resting in the slush.
The guards didn't wait for him. They closed the timber gates, dropped the pine barricade beams, and vanished down the alleyways, leaving the line of amber lanterns flickering low on the stones.
Oryn pulled at my sleeve in the dark, his ear-feathers pressed flat against his skull, clicking in a tiny, shivering rhythm.
"They didn't find him, Nesta," he whispered, his voice cracking.
"No," I said, my chest feeling hollow and cold as the dark outside. "They found what the winter left behind."
We sat together on the grain sacks in the pitch-black room, watching the amber lanterns slowly sputter and die in the square below, listening to the frost creep across the windowpane, waiting for a spring that felt a million years away.
