Yrsa no longer dreams of rising snow.
She is it.
Not in body.
Not in form.
But in blood.
Every winter, when the first storm comes, her skin grows cold — not from the air, but from within.
Her breath fogs, even in shelter.
And if she sings — even a hum — the frost on the longhouse walls moves.
The elders call it the Taint.
They say it's Haldor's curse, passed through Ingrit's silence, into the child who watched it all.
But Yrsa knows better.
She feels it — not as poison.
As memory.
Like something old waking up.
She is seventeen now.
Not a girl.
Not yet a woman.
But a thing between — like the light before dawn.
She does not speak much.
Not because she cannot.
But because words feel thin.
Inadequate.
Like trying to hold water in a net.
She works:
Mending nets.Grinding lichen.Tending the fire.
But always, her eyes drift north — to the ridge where he vanished.
To the stone ring, now half-buried in snow and time.
To the icefall, where the dark shape no longer moves.
The others avoid her.
Not with cruelty.
With fear.
They do not curse her.
They do not cast her out.
But they do not touch her.
Do not let their children play too close.
And when she passes, they turn their faces, just slightly, as if the air around her is too cold to breathe.
Only one still looks at her.
Still speaks.
Ingrit.
Older now.
Thinner.
The left side of her face is marked — not with scar, but with blackened veins, like roots under skin, spreading slowly from the cheek to the temple.
The touch of the Wolf.
The last kindness.
They do not live together.
Not as mother and daughter.
But as two who share a silence too heavy for others.
They sit by the fire most nights.
Not speaking.
Just being.
One evening, as Yrsa scrapes fat from a hide, Ingrit says:
"He didn't die that night."
Yrsa doesn't look up. "I know."
"He became something else."
"A vessel."
"A hunger."
"And it wears him still."
Yrsa sets down the knife.
"What was he before?"
Ingrit stares into the fire. "A man who wanted to be more than a man."
"He thought power was freedom."
"He was wrong."
"Freedom is not in the howl."
"It's in the voice that calls you back."
Yrsa touches her wrist — where the silver line still pulses faintly, like a second pulse.
"Can it be undone?"
Ingrit doesn't answer right away.
Then: "Only if he remembers what it was to be loved."
"And if he doesn't?"
"Then the world will burn," she says.
"And we will be the ash."
That night, Yrsa dreams.
Not of the stone ring.
Not of the shadow-pelt.
But of a forest — black trees fused overhead, ground glowing red.
A woman walks ahead — barefoot, in white hide.
She turns.
It is Ingrit.
But younger.
Bleeding from the mouth.
"You carry it," she says.
"The memory of the first song."
"The one that stilled the Wolf."
"Now it's your turn to sing."
Yrsa tries to speak.
Can't.
The woman raises a shard of black ice.
Plunges it into her chest.
But instead of blood, light pours out — silver, singing, rising like steam.
And the voice —
not the woman's —
but hers, from somewhere deep:
"I am not afraid."
She wakes gasping.
Her hands are frost-covered.
The hide on her bed is rimed with ice.
And outside —
the snow is rising again.
The elders gather at dawn.
They do not call it a council.
They call it the Choosing.
Yrsa is brought before them — not bound, not accused, but presented, like an offering.
The eldest, a man with eyes like cracked ice, speaks:
"The Taint grows.
The snow answers her breath.
The fire dims when she passes.
This is not survival.
This is the beginning of the end."
No one argues.
No one defends.
Ingrit stands at the edge, silent, her marked face half in shadow.
The elder turns to Yrsa.
"You are of the Blood.
But the Blood is broken.
We do not know what you are.
We do not know what you will become."
He pauses.
"You must go."
She does not flinch.
"Where?"
"To the Black Fen."
"To the old places."
"To the bones of the world."
"If you survive, return.
If not…
then the snow will have you, as it should."
It is not exile.
It is a test.
Or a death sentence.
No one knows which.
Yrsa looks at Ingrit.
The older woman does not weep.
Does not plead.
But her hand moves — just slightly — to her chest, over the place where her heart is.
A gesture.
A memory.
A blessing.
Yrsa turns.
Walks out.
Alone.
She does not go to the Black Fen.
Instead, she goes to the icefall.
It is midday.
The sun glints on the frozen wall.
The pool at the base is half-frozen, half-flowing.
She strips to her shift.
Steps into the water.
It is colder than memory.
It bites.
It burns.
But she does not cry out.
She stands where Ingrit stood.
Where Haldor knelt.
Where the Wolf sighed.
She closes her eyes.
And she sings.
Not the lullaby.
Not yet.
First — a hum.
Low.
Steady.
From the chest.
The water trembles.
Then — a note.
Clear.
Pure.
Like a thread of silver.
The ice cracks — not loudly, but deep within, like a bone healing.
She sings louder.
Not in words.
In feeling — of loss, of love, of the hand that touched her cheek when she was seven, of the man who smiled before he vanished.
And then —
from deep in the ice —
a sound.
Not a howl.
Not a growl.
But a pulse — slow, faint, like a heart buried under centuries.
She opens her eyes.
In the ice —
not a shadow —
but a shape.
Faint.
Fragile.
Like smoke in glass.
It has no eyes.
But it looks at her.
She does not fear it.
She steps closer.
Places her palm on the ice.
And whispers:
"I remember."
The shape stirs.
Moves toward her hand.
And for the first time in ten winters —
the runes on her wrist glow.
Not silver.
Not black.
But white, like light through snow.
She does not go to the Black Fen.
She does not return to the longhouse.
She walks north —
toward the ridge.
Toward the place where the snow rises.
Toward the silence where a man once let the Wolf wear him.
And behind her —
the icefall sings.
The snow follows.
And the first whisper of the Bloodlines begins:
She is not the end.
She is the sound.
And the Howl is coming back.