The first thing I noticed was not the cold. It was the color of the sky.
Midnight stretched overhead, but the darkness was wrong. It pulsed. Deep crimson veins threaded through the clouds as if the heavens were bleeding. Snow reflected the color, staining the world in shades of red that made my skin crawl. The wind shifted and seemed to hiss against my ears like a whispered warning.
The moon stared back at us like an eye that had been cracked open and left to rot. Splintered streaks of red cut across its pale surface. The shape was unmistakable once you saw it. I hated that I saw it. The Elders hated it more.
One of them dropped to his knees beside the courtyard wall, breath rattling, hands shaking as if someone had shoved a spirit of winter down his throat. “Not this,” he rasped. “Not
