5.
1405 Words
Boots hit snow. The cold struck my body like a physical blow, stealing breath, numbing exposed skin in nearly seconds. The gates slammed shut behind us. The sound echoed too final.
No turning back.
No warm cavern to retreat into.
Just open territory and a single night to prove we deserved a place inside those walls.
I adjusted the strap of my pack, feeling the reassuring weight of the knife at my thigh and the blanket against my back. I scanned the horizon quickly. Groups were already forming. Others sprinted toward tree lines as if they needed a place to hide. The broad-shouldered asshole glanced at me once, a slow smirk curving his mouth before he turned away with two others.
Good.
Let him underestimate me.
I stepped forward into the wind.
One night.
I had survived worse than cold.
I just had to make sure the cold wasn’t the only thing hunting me tonight. Because once people started to move, one of them grabbed a knife and started stabbing the people standing closest to him, and all hell broke loose.
For half a second, none of us moved. Soft snow swirled between us, the world still adjusting to our sudden presence beyond the walls. Then steel flashed like a bolt of lightning.
One of the recruits—dark cloak, hood still half-up—drew his blade and drove it straight into the side of the boy standing closest to him. The sound the blade made entering flesh was sickeningly soft. The boy who got attacked only gasped, eyes wide in disbelief and surprise, and collapsed into the snow, red blooming instantly against white.
Chaos exploded.
Another recruit shouted.
Someone swung wildly.
A second blade appeared from nowhere.
“They’re serious?!” someone screamed.
Another body hit the ground.
It happened too fast—like a spark landing in dry brush. I felt Krystal’s hand slam into mine.
“Run!” she barked.
We didn’t hesitate.
Not for one second.
We bolted.
Boots tore through the snow as people scattered in every direction in a frenzy of panic. Some fought back. Some froze and got slaughtered. Some tried to intervene and were cut down for it. I caught a glimpse of the broad-shouldered boy—the one who had gotten under my skin before—locked in combat with someone twice his size. His smug-ass grin was gone completely now. Blood streaked across his sleeve.
A blade whistled past where my shoulder had been a heartbeat earlier. I ducked instinctively, dragging Krystal with me as we made it to the tree line.
“Left!” she shouted.
We veered toward a sparse cluster of trees not far from the outer perimeter. Snow sprayed up around us like pixie dust as we ran, lungs burning, wind slicing through every layer of fur that was supposed to keep us warm.
Behind us, more screams.
More steel.
More death.
No instructors came to our aid. No horns sounded to stop this madness. The gates just remained shut. The capital remained quiet.
This was part of it?
Krystal and I dove behind the first thick tree trunk we reached, crouching low as we caught our breath. My heart hammered so violently I thought it might bruise my ribs from the inside.
“What the hell was that?!” I hissed. Krystal was breathing hard but not panicked. Not shocked. Focused.
“Selection,” she said.
I stared at her in horror.
“Selection?!”
She risked a glance back toward the open field. Figures still clashed in the distance, dark shapes against endless white. More bodies than I cared to count were on the floor. Dead or dying.
“They’re thinning the numbers,” Krystal said bluntly.
“The fewer people left by morning, the better your chances of a permanent placement.”
My stomach twisted violently.
“They’re killing each other before we’ve even—”
“Yes.”
She looked at me sharply.
“You didn’t know?”
“No!”
The word came out louder than I intended. I forced my voice lower.
“No. I didn’t know.”
Krystal studied me for half a second, confusion flickering in her dark eyes.
“You really did grow up at the borders,” she muttered as if she couldn’t believe it.
“Yes,” I said quickly.
“Eastern posts. We didn’t… do things like this for fun.”
That, at least, wasn’t entirely a lie. At the cabin, survival meant enduring winter. Not orchestrating slaughter just to thin out the numbers.
These weren’t wolves
These were barbarians!
Krystal shook her head slightly.
“Inside the capital, Fighting House isn’t just about surviving the cold. It’s about surviving each other. The ones that make it, the ones that graduate, are practically Gods living among men. That’s what most of us are aiming for by signing up.”
The words settled heavily.
Lion’s den.
No.
Wolves den.
And wolves killed the weak.
Another scream carried faintly through the trees, then silence. I swallowed hard.
“This is insane.”
“It’s Skadi.”
She peered around the trunk again.
“They’ll spread out soon. Once the easy targets are gone.”
Easy targets.
My grip tightened around the knife at my thigh.
“Are we easy targets?” I asked quietly. Krystal’s eyes flicked to me. Assessed.
“Not if we don’t act like it.”
Good enough for me.
“We need to find shelter, quickly,” she said, shifting into action.
“Trees won’t cut it once night falls. And if someone walks by, we will be sitting ducks out here.”
She was right. The sun was already sinking lower, bleeding weak light across the horizon. Once darkness came, the temperature would plummet even further. And God only knew what kind of creatures would wake up to go hunting then.
“Caves,” I said automatically.
“Rock overhangs. Something that blocks wind.”
Krystal blinked at me.
“You’ve done this before?”
“Border winters,” I replied.
“Different scale. Same principles.”
That part was true. I just didn’t add that I’d always had Brynja’s voice correcting me and Oren’s steady presence nearby whenever I was about to mess up. Now… it was just us. And whoever else was still alive out there.
“Stay low,” Krystal murmured as we got out behind the tree trunk. We moved carefully now, keeping to the trees, circling away from the field where blood now stained snow. Every crunch beneath our boots sounded too loud. Twice, we froze when distant movement caught our eyes. Twice, it was only other recruits fleeing in different directions.
No one approached us or attacked us, thank the gods.
Not yet, anyway.
After several minutes of weaving through sparse forest lands, the land began to slope upward. Dark rock jutted through the snow in uneven formations as it rose into one of the mountains surrounding Skadi lands.
“There,” I whispered, spotting a shallow recess between two stone outcrops. It wasn’t a full cave by any means. But it was something. We climbed toward it carefully, scanning behind us every few steps.
No one followed us.
Inside the rocky hollow, the wind dropped noticeably. Not completely gone—but dulled in a way that it was still cold, but it didn’t cut our faces like a blade. It would have to do for now.
Krystal exhaled slowly once we were inside.
“Good eye, girl.”
I set my pack down and immediately began clearing snow from the ground, exposing rock beneath. Snow would steal heat if we lay directly on it. Krystal joined me without question. After a moment, she glanced sideways.
“You really didn’t know they’d start cutting each other down as soon as the gates would close?”
“No.”
She studied me again.
“You’re full of surprises, border girl.”
If only she knew.
If she knew I wasn’t just some forgotten outpost child—but the daughter of the man whose war had carved scars into this very pack— Would she still be clearing snow beside me and wanting us to be allies during this test? Or would she have drawn her blade the moment the gates had shut and slit my throat?
I pushed the thought away quickly.
Not tonight.
Tonight was about surviving winter.
Not history.
- Writer
