By morning, the world outside her windows had turned white.
Rhosyn stood with one hand braced on the stone sill, watching the snow fall in slow, lazy sheets over the Ravelocke grounds. The gardens, the training yard, the old apple tree where she'd once hidden from Uncle Halvar's tutors—everything looked softened, muffled, almost pretty.
She still hated it.
The cold had a way of pressing through even the thickest wool, seeping into bone until she felt eight years old again, small and shivering and furious with the crown. Snow meant numb fingers and wet hems and a weakness she could never quite forgive herself for.
Behind her, footsteps padded over the rug. She didn't have to turn to know it was Edrien.
"So it's true," he said, coming to stand beside her. Their reflections hovered faintly together in the wavy glass. "Hemsgate sent a raven. They say the roads are passable—for now."
"For now," she echoed, eyes following a flake as it traced down the pane and vanished against the sill. "It's early for this much snow."
He made a small noise of agreement. For a moment, they simply watched it fall.
"It is pretty from behind glass, though," she admitted at last.
"That's what people say about you," Edrien replied, tone so casual she almost missed the weight under it.
She snorted, but the words landed too neatly. People did think that, didn't they? That she was fine to look at—Lady Valewyn, loyal as marble, sharp as ice—but far less pleasant when up close and arguing over ledgers and law. Pretty from a distance. Trouble in person.
"Are you afraid I'll bite, Ed?" she asked, tilting him a sidelong look.
"Not me—promise." He held his hands up in mock surrender.
She rolled her eyes, but her mouth twitched. "I only tease."
"She says, flashing teeth," he murmured, and she realised she was half-smiling at the glass.
The smile faded as another gust of wind drove the snow sideways. The old saying rose up unbidden from some hearth-side memory: with snow, the north would come.
She'd always thought it an old women's superstition, something muttered into firelight along with aches and weather complaints. This year it felt different. The frost had come earlier, the snow settled heavier. And somewhere beyond that white horizon was a duke with a raven on his crest and a letter that still lay between her other correspondence, neither burned nor filed away.
Karsyn stood out in her mind more than she liked. For once, she caught herself wondering what he might actually sound like in person—or whether, like so many other things, he'd only disappoint her.
But that'll never happen, because the north never came south.
"You're doing that look again," Edrien said quietly.
"What look?" She didn't take her eyes from the snow.
"The one where you're three steps ahead of everyone else on the board and already annoyed we haven't caught up." His shoulder brushed hers as he leaned a little closer. "Tell me what's in that head, Rhos."
She thought of the key hidden now in her drawer, of the saintsbook with its marked psalms, of Merrow's request and her uncle's safe and the way her life seemed to be funnelling toward some narrow point she couldn't yet see.
"Only that winter's come early," she said. "And that the north won't stay quiet much longer."
He huffed a breath, fogging the glass. "Then we'd better get to Hemsgate before the roads vanish."
Rhosyn straightened from the window, pulling the weight of her thoughts back under her ribs where they belonged. Outside, the snow kept falling, smoothing the scars from the land.
"Come on then, Your Highness," she said, masking the tightness in her chest with briskness. "Let's go smile for your father's courtiers and pretend we're not freezing."
Edrien offered her his arm with an overdone flourish. "Anything to spend a few days locked in a palace with you, my Lady."
She took it, because she always did.