The High Council’s letter was still sitting on the oak table, its white wax seal looking like a drop of frozen blood, but the weather was no longer interested in politics.
By noon, the sky over Nightfall didn't just turn grey; it turned a bruised, terrifying shade of charcoal. The temperature plummeted so fast that the moisture on the stone walls of the great hall turned into jagged needles of frost within minutes.
This wasn't just another storm. This was the Iron Frost—the kind of winter that killed the old and the weak before they could even draw a breath.
"The wind is shifting to the north-east," Jarek reported, his voice tight as he strode into the hall, his face already red from the cold. "It’s a whiteout, Alpha. We’ve pulled in the perimeter guards, but the eastern outpost hasn't
