Chapter 5: Winter's preparations

Raina's pov

The winter came early that year, sweeping down from the mountains with a ferocity that suggested the world itself was trying to reinforce the Scourge's work by freezing us to death. The first real snow fell in October, thick and heavy, and by November, we'd already lost two of our number to cold-related injuries and complications.

But we adapted. We prepared. And slowly, slowly, something that looked like stability began to emerge from the chaos.

Captain Solace proved to be invaluable in the organization of the keep. She worked with Corvin to establish a routine—morning duties, afternoon food preparation, evening discussions about rationing and supplies. She also set up a training schedule for those who were willing to learn basic combat skills.

I joined her class, partly because Dovette did, and partly because the idea of being able to defend myself against something other than my own despair was appealing.

"You're thinking too much when you fight," Solace told me one afternoon as we sparred with wooden staffs in the courtyard. "You're trying to anticipate what I'm going to do, instead of reacting to what I'm actually doing. Stop thinking. Start listening."

"Listening to what?" I asked as she swept my legs out from under me.

"To your body. To the weight of the staff. To the movement of the world around you. Your mind is the slowest part of you. Your instincts are faster." She offered me a hand up. "The Scourge—if we're going to fight them, if we're going to do anything other than hide, we need to learn to trust our instincts more than our thoughts."

I'd been training with Solace and the other soldiers for about a month when the travelers arrived.

They came down out of the high passes on a day when the snow was thick enough to obscure the distant peaks. There were three of them—two women and a man—all bearing signs of hard travel and harder survival. But they were armed, properly armed, with swords and bows and the bearing of people who'd actually used them.

Corvin met them in the courtyard with an armed escort, which told me immediately that we weren't in a position to assume all travelers were friendly.

"I'm Vex," one of the women said, pushing back her hood to reveal dark skin, braided hair with silver threads running through them, and scars that ran down one side of her face. "We're scouts from the southern expedition. We were sent to check on the mountain settlements, see if anyone had survived the initial attacks."

"From where?" Corvin asked carefully.

"From Karenthel. There's a functioning government still there, or at least there was when we left two weeks ago. The city held against the initial assault, and they've been organizing some kind of resistance."

That got everyone's attention. A functioning government, an actual town that hadn't fallen—these weren't things any of us had dared to hope for.

"What do they want?" I asked, without meaning to speak up.

Vex looked at me with sharp interest. "They're looking for people. For survivors, for refugees, for anyone willing to help rebuild. They're also looking for information about the Scourge. About what they are, where they're going, how far inland they've penetrated." She paused. "And they're looking for fighters. People willing to actually fight back instead of just hiding."

"We don't have fighters," Corvin said. "We have people trying to survive."

"So teach them to be both," Vex said. "This isn't ending, by the way. The creatures—the Scourge, you're calling them—they're not passing through. They're settling in. We've found evidence of structures being built, of some kind of... well, we're not sure what. But it's not random destruction. It's purposeful. Organized."

"Which means?" Solace asked.

"Which means they're not going to eventually get bored and go away. They're here to stay. Which means we either need to get strong enough to fight them, or we need to get far enough away to outrun them. And there's only so far you can run on a continent."

That night, Corvin called us together. The tone was different from previous meetings. We were no longer just trying to survive—we were being asked to consider whether survival was even the goal anymore.

"Vex has offered to stay for the winter," Corvin told us. "To help train anyone who's willing to learn to fight. She's also brought information about what's happening in the larger world. Some of it is good—there are other settlements that survived. Some of it is bad—the Scourge is moving in an organized pattern, suggesting intelligence and purpose. And some of it is... well, it's unclear what it means."

"The creatures are building," Vex said, stepping forward. "We found structures in the ruins of the southeastern settlements. Stone structures, arranged in patterns that don't seem random. We don't know what they're building or why. But whatever it is, it's taking time and resources. It's not just destruction."

"What are you asking us to do?" I asked.

"I'm asking you to consider whether you want to spend the rest of your life hiding in this keep," Vex said flatly. "Because that's one option. You can probably survive here through the winter. You might even survive the spring, if you're lucky. But eventually, the Scourge is going to move north again, and this keep won't protect you indefinitely. The other option is to start training now, to prepare for a time when you might be able to fight back. To be part of something more than just survival."

There was silence in the hall. Everyone was thinking the same thing I was—that we were being offered a terrible choice between different types of death.

"I'm in," Solace said quietly. "If nothing else, I'd like to die fighting instead of hiding."

"Me too," Dovette said. I could feel her looking at me, waiting to see what I'd do.

I thought about what Solace had said about being seventeen, about having time to become something. I thought about my mother trying to prepare, trying to save us. I thought about the creatures burning down the fort, moving north with purpose.

"I'm in," I said.

By the end of the night, we had twenty-three people willing to train as fighters. It wasn't much. It was barely a fraction of our group. But it was something.

As I lay in my bed that night, my arm finally healed enough to be useful again, I thought about what Dovette had said in the courtyard—about going after the Scourge, about doing something instead of just existing.

Maybe the winter would give us the time we needed to become something more than just refugees waiting to die.

Maybe.