To Tame a Winter Wolf

6.

“We take shifts,” I said, spreading Brynja’s blanket carefully over the cleared stone.

“One sleeps. One watches.”

Krystal nodded approvingly.

“You sure you’re not secretly trained for this?”

I forced a faint smirk.

“Wood before parchment, where I came from. I only chopped, never studied.”

She huffed a quiet laugh, but didn’t press it further either.

Outside our rocky shelter, the wind howled across open snowfields. Somewhere out there, recruits still hunted—or were hunted. But here, for now, we were hidden.

I adjusted the knife at my thigh and sat back against the cold stone wall.

One night.

Just one.

If this was what Fighting House demanded before even letting us inside, then I understood now. This wasn’t about proving strength. It was about proving you were willing to become something harder than mercy.

Krystal settled beside me, eyes scanning the darkening forest.

“You think we’ll make it to dawn?” she asked quietly.

“Yes,” I said. Because I had survived a mad king. I had survived exile. I would survive this stupid test, too. Even if they never knew exactly who they were trying to kill.

The wind never truly stopped. It scraped across the stone like teeth. I lay on my side atop Brynja’s blanket, eyes closed, feigning sleep. Krystal sat at the mouth of the rocky hollow, shoulders squared against the cold, blade resting loosely in her hand. She hadn’t complained once. Hadn’t suggested we draw lots for the first watch. But trust was a luxury I couldn’t afford. Not here. Not in a place where permanent spots were, by the looks of it, earned with blood.

I listened for the subtle shift of boots against stone. For the whisper of fabric. Minutes passed. Then more. But Krystal did not move from her post. She shifted her weight once. Rolled her shoulders against the cold. Adjusted her grip on her knife. But she stayed facing outward.

Guarding the entrance.

Guarding me.

The tension in my spine refused to loosen. Even when exhaustion clawed at my thoughts. Even when my eyelids grew heavy. Because I knew too well how quickly safety could become an illusion. So instead of focusing on my fear… I tried focusing on a memory from earlier tonight. The memory of a pair of glacier blue eyes. The sight of the most handsome man I had ever seen in my life.

The fact that that man had looked at me as if he wanted to skin me alive was something I granted myself to erase from that memory, at least for tonight…

When it became clear sleep would not come, not even from thinking about the man called Fannar, I opened my eyes and slowly pushed myself upright. Krystal glanced back immediately, alert.

“Can’t sleep?” she murmured.

“No.”

She studied me for a moment, then stepped back inside the hollow and sat across from me, still close enough to the entrance to react if needed.

“Good,” she said lightly.

“I was getting bored with talking to the wind.”

Despite everything, a faint smile tugged at my lips. Silence settled between us—not uncomfortable. Just cautious.

Krystal tilted her head slightly as she looked at me, really looked at me, in the dim silver wash of moonlight reflecting off snow.

“I’ve never seen hair like yours before,” she said honestly. I stilled. Her gaze drifted over it openly now. Even in the dark, it almost glowed—white as frost, pale as bone. Curious.

“It’s not gray,” she continued.

“Not silver. Not blonde. Just… white.”

I tucked a strand behind my ear.

“It wasn’t always like that.”

“No?”

I shook my head.

“When I was a child, I became very ill,” I said evenly.

“Fever for days. Nearly didn’t survive it. When I recovered… the color from my hair was just… gone. I was always told the sickness had pulled the color from my body.”

That was the story. The one repeated enough times that it rolled off my tongue smoothly now. The truth… the truth was something else entirely…

Krystal frowned slightly.

“I’ve heard of sickness leaving scars. But never that.”

“It happens,” I replied.

Just not from disease.

Not from a fever.

I remembered the cold stone floor of my father’s chamber. Remembered the way his hands had glowed with stolen power. Remembered the feeling of something being ripped out of me—thread by thread—while I screamed until my voice broke. The King had not tolerated weakness. And he had certainly not tolerated power that wasn’t his. The moment he sensed magic stirring deep inside of me, he had decided it belonged to him instead. And he had taken it. By brutal force.

I was seven years old when my father stole my magic. By the time he was done trying to drain my magic from me, I was barely breathing. The court healers had called it a miracle that I had even survived such horrors at such a young age. The white hair had been the only visible mark of what that man had done to me that horrible night. The only reminder that it hadn’t just been some horrible dream. The invisible mark was the fact that I did not have a wolf hidden inside me like everyone else living inside the realm of Nyxryn. I guess the mad king took that away from me, too.

I met Krystal’s gaze steadily. She didn’t look suspicious. Just curious.

“Well,” she said after a moment,

“It suits you.”

I blinked.

“It does?”

“Makes you look like you belong to the winter more than the rest of us.”

If only she knew how far from the truth that was...

Krystal leaned back against the stone, drawing her knees up slightly.

“My oldest brother used to say those unique things make people interesting,” she added.

“Even the crazy ones.”

“You said earlier that you have brothers,” I spoke quietly. Her expression softened instantly.

“Two. Had two.”

Something in her tone made my stomach tighten.

“The eldest just got mated this winter,” she said, a small grin appearing.

“He’s insufferably happy. It’s disgusting to see.”

I huffed softly.

“And the other?”

The grin faded.

“He died in the last war.”

The words were simple. Flat. But they carried weight. Snow shifted faintly outside as the wind changed direction.

“I’m so sorry,” I said, but Krystal shrugged, her fingers tightened slightly around the hilt of her blade.

“He was stationed near the southern front. He said it would be a quick battle. Said the Mad King’s forces were much smaller than ours.”

My lungs forgot how to work.

“I guess he was wrong,” she continued.

“Because he still died.”

The Mad King. My father. Every story of that war carried his shadow. And every time someone spoke of a lost brother, a dead mate, a murdered father, a burned village— I felt the invisible crown pressing heavier against my skull.

Krystal glanced at me.

“You must’ve seen some of it, living at the borders.”

“Yes,” I said carefully. Which was true. I had seen the aftermath. The smoke. The bodies. I just hadn’t stood on the side, Krystal believed I had.

“I used to think I’d avenge my brother,” she went on.

“Join Fighting House, rise high enough to matter.”

Her eyes flicked toward the distant capital walls.

“But now? I just want to survive. And make sure his death meant something in the end. Become the warrior he never got a chance to be.”

It struck me then with painful clarity: If she knew I was the daughter of the Mad King, there would be no more shared blankets. No more quiet conversations. There would be a blade between my ribs before I could explain myself.

“I’m glad you ran with me,” Krystal said suddenly. The confession caught me off guard.

“You are?”

She nodded once.

“Most people freeze when blood spills. You didn’t.”

I thought of palace corridors slick with red while growing up. Of servants dragged away for speaking too freely. Of learning, from a very young age, that stillness could be fatal.

“I’ve seen enough to know standing still gets you killed,” I said. Krystal studied me again—but this time not with suspicion. With something warmer.

“Good,” she said quietly.

A faint, unexpected warmth spread through my chest. Not heat from the blanket. Not protection from stone. Something else. Fragile. Tentative.

Friendship.

Outside, the wind howled again. Inside our small shelter, two girls from very different truths sat side by side, sharing pieces of themselves—carefully edited, carefully guarded. But real, nonetheless.

“We’ll make it,” I said softly. Krystal smiled.

“Yeah,” she agreed.

“We will.”