By midday, the snow had turned gray.
Smoke rolled across the wastelands in waves thick enough to make her eyes water. The wind carried ash instead of clean snow, and underneath it all was the smell of burning flesh.
Reign moved through the haze with the direwolf at her side. They'd been tracking the refugees since dawn, following the trail of blood and desperate footprints heading north.
She found them near the cliffs.
A dozen survivors, maybe less. Most were helping the wounded, dragging those who couldn't walk on makeshift sleds. Burns covered their exposed skin. Their clothes hung in charred tatters.
A child sat apart from the others, staring at nothing. He couldn't have been older than seven. When Reign approached, he looked up with eyes that had seen too much.
"They burned every
