ow caught me i

rrowed cloak and the wool beneath it, and the instant it touched my skin, every gift inside me went out at once.

een so alone

helter of the bridge. We landed hard in the snow behind a stone pillar. Arrows

t's iron. I can't, I

pulling at the arrow in my

lread

t briefly gray at the edges. Then the heat of the iron was gone from me, and a trickle of Cinder's warmth c

ace was close to m

r. Tha

how many there are." He drew a s

of the road. "Fourteen of them! Maybe m

at me. "If the ice comes back, do not use it. Not

f I ha

id, "and I'll worry a

gle smooth movement, and as his boots lef

ul, like a wave breaking. One moment he was a man, and the next there was an enormous gray wolf, as tall as my shoulde

ushed against my ribs.

as strange how much I wan

ack arrows kept coming. I pressed myself behind the pillar, my hands over my ears, and I counted my ow

ted m

were nine in black on the ground, and four more had fled up the slope. Edda was kneeling in the mud holding

ed for

nd pressed against his side. His shirt was dark with blood. As

ra

as gray in the face. "Not iron. I can fe

ron did to the Tidefolk guards. "It w

ar

own, A

it was obedience. I think he

humb. A thread of blackness spread out around the wound like ink in water, creeping u

Get me hot water. C

ed," said Cinder,

ow. P

n. I called Orin next, as softly as I could, because I could still feel the hole where the breath had gone out of

ill," I

olding

re ta

drop by drop, pulled into the water in my hand until it hung there in a small dark bead. I had to concentrate so hard that my vision

His voice sounded fa

qu

were half closed. "H

"What did

deep and slow. I pulled the last of the iron out of his blood and d

nds would not stop trembling. I had do

Bram with her mouth slightly open. "I've seen a wolf die of that,"

still need

and for the first time there was no humor in h

lean man in a black cloak, with a mask of dark cloth still tied across his

tunic was a small silver pin

The same pin every rider in o

their cloaks. Somebody gave them the badge of the Northern Grey.

t Bram, lying p

for him," I said. "Th

w," sa