The solstice came and the days began their slow return toward length, though in the north the return was gradual enough that you could not feel it immediately. The cold was at its most serious now, the kind that had no interest in being pleasant about itself, that arrived each morning with complete commitment and departed only partially by afternoon.
Elowen found she liked it.
She had always been told the cold of Frostfall was something to be endured, a feature of the landscape that required management, proper clothing and heated rooms and the careful maintenance of the citadel's warmth against the weather's indifference. She had endured it for years in the way she had endured most things, with composure and without complaint.
She did not endure it now. She simply lived in it. There was
