Daughter of a feuding clan, you've been given as a hostage to seal a truce you never believed in. Your escort is a rival warrior who despises you more than he fears the grave. When an avalanche strands you both on a frozen knife-edge ridge, survival demands you rely on the man sworn to kill you if the peace fails—and the peace is already fraying. A story of survival, forbidden trust, and the impossible choice between loyalty and life.
The story begins
The wind tore at your cloak with the fury of a living thing, and you pressed your back against the granite shelf, the only shelter on this knife-edge of rock. Snow clung to your lashes, freezing them into brittle stars. Below, the valley vanished into a churning white void—the avalanche had swept the old road clean an hour ago, carrying two of your clan's mules and a man named Beric with it. You could still hear the echo of his scream, thin and swallowed.
Your fingers, numb inside cracked leather gloves, tightened on the haft of your ice axe. The pass was closed. The war-party behind you was buried. Ahead, the blizzard hid everything—including the enemy scouts your uncle swore patrolled these heights.
A sound cut through the gale. Not wind. A hoof scraping stone.
You turned, squinting into the storm, and saw a shape—rider and horse, black against the white—halting twenty paces off. The rider lowered a hood. A woman's face, wind-burned, sharp-eyed. She smiled, and it was not kind.
"So," she said, "the wolf of Cairn Vale crawls. Alone."
What happens next is up to you.
Or read in the app
More like this
The Ward's Lament
You're the royal cartographer sent to correct a star-chart—but the stars are campfires, and the army behind them has been waiting for you.
The Serpent's Oath
MatureYour blood-oath to a dead explorer is killing you, and the only way out is to betray the one promise you can't break.
The Homecoming's Teeth
MatureYou've returned home to find your father's treasure map in a stranger's hands—and your sister's blood on his terms.
The Clockwork Duel
MatureYou've gambled years of your life to save your brother, but the final arena trial demands you fight the one person you've ever loved.
The Sunken King's Test
You've infiltrated a cult to steal a relic, but their ritual may expose you before you can escape.
The Vault's Keeper
MatureYou came to demolish a buried city, but the living vault beneath it has chosen you as its next guardian.