Chapter 41
Eun-Ae Frost clung to the flagstones like a white breath that hadn’t found its way back into any chest. The courtyard stones remembered last night’s heat, but the air had turned thin and metallic, tasting of steel and old snowfall. I stood bareheaded beneath the paling sky with my ears pricked high and my nine tails restless—fanning, coiling, whispering through the hem of my cloak. Somewhere beyond the southern wall, a rot crept across the wind: sour tallow, wet fur, and that particular copper bite that meant wolves gathering for blood. Gon’s voice rolled across the yard, big as the mountain. “Ranks—form!” The wolves answered with the thud of spear-butts against stone, then the hush of leather and links as they slid into place. In human skin they were all clean lines and iron discipline
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