“Still not catching you,” Phil sang, analyzing a particularly stubborn nail.
But Mather ignored him. His eyes shot to the Cordellans, one building away.
Any sudden movement would only draw attention, which was the last thing they needed. Because Feige stood in a throwing stance, one arm wound back—and a knife in her hand. Another she had lodged into the wall on her lastthrow, the handle still vibrating from the force. Two of the pathetic blades Mather had stolen for their training, butonlyfor their training in the Thaw’s cottage, safely tucked away from Cordellan eyes.
Mather hissed at Trace and Hollis, who were out behind the cottage, one holding a beam steady while the other sawed through it. But with hammers pounding and saws grinding into wood, it got lost in the air, swirling away as uselessly as the flakes that danced all around.
“Well, what do we have here?” one of the soldiers ducked into the cottage just as Feige released her final dagger. It sailed through the air, knocked off course by her jolt of surprise, and clattered into the wall before dropping to the floor.
Feige dove for it, snatching it up and whirling with it held before her. The cottage wasn’t more than ten paces from the front door, which the soldiers now blocked, to the back wall. Even Mather would have felt a spike of fear at that, but Feige’s face was downright petrified. Her ivory skin grayed to a deathly hue, her eyes unblinking, her small body bent into a defensive hunch, both trying to protect herself and readying for an attack.
Mather moved the moment the first soldier stepped closer to her. He propelled himself off his roof and leapt into the air, clearing the space between the cottages.
“A weapon, eh?” the soldier asked, his boots gliding across the floor in daring increments. “What are you doingwith this?”
Mather landed on the cottage’s roof, momentum chasing him. He welcomed that momentum—because in the next second, Feige screamed.
This was the scream every Winterian wrestled into submission deep inside them, a scream that came from torture, from repeated and endless suffering. Mather felt it like a wolf’s howl, the noise catching at his insides and igniting. It spoke to him in a way he hated and feared and cowered from, both because he understood such fear and because he knew the things Feige had endured had been far worse than anything he had experienced.
She lunged, screaming still, and sliced the dagger through the soldier’s cheek. He howled, shock numbing him enough for Feige to swing again, the blade only battering against his sleeve this time. The soldier ducked Feige’s next swing and angled his body to tackle her.
Mather gripped the nearest joist and swung into the cottage. The raw wood bit into his palms but he pushed on, locking his legs into a battering ram that he slammed into the second soldier. The man flew to the ground, the air knocked out of him enough that he rolled helplessly as Mather dropped and turned to the other soldier, who flew up from his intended tackle.
“What do you think you’re doing?” the man bellowed, but Mather grabbed his collar and hurled him out onto the street just after Trace and Hollis darted inside.
Mather turned, skidding to a stop when he saw Feige curled into a ball in the corner, holding one of her daggers straight out. She still screamed that awful, sickening scream as though she had lost control of it. Maybe she had never had control of it to begin with.
When Hollis reached her, he knelt an arm’s length from her and glanced back at Trace with the broken, echoing expression of a man who had expected a battle but gotten a war.
One soldier still rolled around on the floor in front of Mather, coughing to recover the breath he had lost. Mather grabbed his arm and dragged him out as the other soldier gained his footing in the yard, sword drawn, face livid.
“King Noam banned all weapons except those held by his army,” the soldier barked.
Inside, Hollis’s gentle murmurings were now interspersed with Feige’s screams. Mather deposited the second soldier at the feet of the first and dug the heels of his boots into the snow in front of the cottage.
“She had a kitchen knife,” he growled. “Nothing more.”
They had drawn quite the crowd by now. All surrounding Winterians turned, pausing with nails in fists or hammers raised midswing.
“Besides,” Mather continued, “if you touch her, I’ll gut you.”
“Wewill,” Phil added, coming to stand beside him with Trace. Movement from just off to his right, and Kiefer andEli ran forward as Feige’s screams continued. They planted themselves alongside Mather, a single, united front.
“Mather!”
The pride swelling in Mather fogged his mind. His attention flicked to William, who shoved through the crowd alongside Greer. Alysson followed, pulling away from where she had been passing out water to the workers. All three stopped between him and the Cordellan soldiers.
“Stop,”William hissed, and had they still been in their nomadic camp, the order would have worked.
But now, Mather staggered forward, all of his anger and adrenaline fading to disbelief. “You’re ordering me to stop? What aboutthem?” He jabbed a finger at the Cordellans, who watched the dispute unfold with unadulterated rage.
“Don’t make a scene,” William growled, and swung to face the men. “I apologize for the misunderstanding. We will rectify the situation and comply with all of King Noam’s orders.”
The words made Mather snarl. “You can’t be—”
But Greer stepped in as Mather launched forward. “Stand down,” he snapped.
Mather tugged at Greer’s grip. The old man held tight, eyes set and dark. “Didn’t you hear her screams? They did that to her!”
