CHAPTER 49: THE TEST OF WINTER
The first heavy snow fell on the third night of the new moon, blanketing the valley in white and sealing the high passes shut for months. The roads turned hard and slick; the wind howled down from the peaks, piling drifts against cabin doors and fence lines; and the air grew so cold that even the strongest riders kept their trips short, staying close to shelter whenever possible. For the first time since we had formed the council, we were fully cut off from the wider network of chapters — left alone to face the hardest season exactly as our enemies had hoped we would.
The first sign of trouble came ten days into the storm. A rider from the northern settlement of Bramble Edge pushed through waist‑deep drifts to reach us, his face blue with cold and his bike
