Epilogue

T he wind howls, unceasing, cutting through the furs splayed across her body. It knives into her lungs with every inhale. Snow falls thick enough to obscure the world, turning the capital into a city wrapped in white.

"Well?" Vittoria Healer says at her side. "Do you see them?"

Xyla glances at the Kiteran soldier. The woman isn't looking at her, but instead gazing out at the twisted ice spires of the palace below. Her features are difficult to discern through the furs wrapped around her face and body, and only the harsh ridge of her nose and the blonde tips of her hair peek through.

Xyla wraps her fingers tighter around the cane in her right hand as she pretends to limp closer to the edge of the balcony. It's her one thin excuse for why she can't join the Kiteran's battle training sessions. She is learning to use a weapon, yes, but she still can't compare to the skill of a northern barbarian. She squints into the blaze of winter, but beyond the Winter Palace, she can make out little of Akull's sprawling expanse. Snow seizes the afternoon.

"The diplomat and his envoy should be here within the hour, according to our messengers," Vittoria continues. "We'll likely want you with us, since you've had some correspondence with their new king in the past."

"Not directly," Xyla says again. As always, the Kiteran dialect rolls off her tongue, almost more comfortable than her Siacchian. The scent of impyassus that follows her helps; no Kiteran would ever suspect her to be a Siacchian for the way she carries her beast with such pride.

"We have only dealt with him during war. So anything is better than that." Vittoria lifts her chin. "There, I see their party heading down the mountain now." She levels a leather gloved hand, and Xyla follows her finger.

In the heart of winter, Kiterans settle Akull in the North's center, nestled between the dip of the surrounding mountains. This means, typically, that people are sheltered from the terrible storms that come to ravage their crops and their livestock – but even the towering peaks can't keep away the blizzard that thunders down now.

Despite the winds whipping about, a pack of dark figures gradually make their way down the mountain, perhaps a few miles off. They move slowly and carefully. Even at a distance, with the snow storming about, Xyla can distinguish the Kiteran guides from their Southern counterparts; the Kiterans almost glide across the white, while the Southerners look like they might stumble from the mountain at any instant.

Vittoria releases a long sigh, and mutters for the third time, "I'm not sure about this."

Xyla's fingers tighten around her cane.

Was this Luka's doing? Did he and the Kiteran make it all the way to Balivartia and convince these people to help us?

Or, worse – is this another trap?

Xyla presses her lips together, smothering her fear. As she does so, something strange bubbles in her belly as she watches the foreigners draw closer and closer. Something akin to nervousness, but a bit lighter. Kinder. Something that feels like a stirring not of her human side, but of her beast.

As before, she shoves all those feelings away. There is no point in listening to her beast. Such emotions won't serve her now.

No, she can only wait for these people to arrive. She will get through this, and then she will help liberate the people of Siacchi from Linne and her people.

And to do that, Xyla will face the music, like she always does.