Chapter 1The air was cool, carrying with it the scent of pine and distant rain. Birds had long since fallen silent, and the last glimmers of daylight filtered through the cloud-thick sky like dying embers in a hearth.

  In a world like Tirros, an inn such as The White Ox should have been a sanctuary of noise and warmth—a place where spilled ale, off-key lute songs, laughter, and shouted wagers filled the air like incense in a holy temple. The kind of place where a half-giant arm-wrestled a local thug atop a table reinforced with metal bars, while a dwarf in the next booth drank himself into a soft, contented stupor. The kind of place where an orc could devour an entire roasted pig in under a minute, to the roaring approval of a crowd so loud, you could hardly hear your own voice at the other end of the room.

  But The White Ox was quiet that evening. Uneasily quiet.

  Not the comforting stillness of peace, but the brittle, hollow kind—like sitting alone in a dark cellar and realizing the silence is too deep to be natural. The kind of silence that creeps up your spine and curls behind your ears, whispering something is wrong.

  Only a few sounds dared disturb it.

  In the left corner of the room, three bearded mercenaries sat hunched over a battered table, clad in rust-red armor that gleamed dully in the firelight. They didn’t speak. Instead, they methodically dragged whetstones along their blades, the rhythmic, metallic shink-shink of their sharpening sending unpleasant ripples through the room like ghostly echoes of violence to come.

  Across from them, near the windows where the fading light cast bars of gold across the floor, four cloaked figures sat around a table playing cards. Their faces were obscured by the deep hoods of their travel-stained garments, but occasionally one would let out a dry chuckle or mutter something to the others. The cards clacked softly on the wooden tabletop, their laughter too brief to lift the oppressive atmosphere.

  By the hearth, a group of merchants huddled in tight formation, wrapped in crimson robes heavy with embroidered symbols and sparkling jewelry that caught the flickering light like embers on silk. Their guards stood close—tall men bearing only iron-tipped spears—but their eyes were wide, darting, afraid. The fire before them had shrunk to a few weak flames, its warmth quickly dying, and the woodpile had long since run dry.

  And then there was the healer.

  Tucked away in the farthest corner of the inn, half-shadowed by the crooked beam that split the ceiling overhead, she sat as she always did—alone, unnoticed, and almost entirely forgotten. No one greeted her. No one offered her a drink or asked for her name. She simply was—an afterthought in the grand scheme of this frozen little drama.

  And why was this place filled with such tension and unease? Why the silence, the shivering merchants, and the way everyone's eyes kept drifting to the windows as though something might come scratching at them?

  Because of that damned storm.

  It had come out of nowhere—violent, furious, and almost unnatural. A blizzard so dense it swallowed sound and light, burying wagons and choking out the once-passable roadways. It had slammed into the mountainside village like a howling curse from the gods themselves, and now the entire region lay entombed beneath thick, impenetrable snow. We were trapped. Completely. The cold crept through every gap in the wooden beams, down from the attic, up through the floorboards. It was in our lungs, in our teeth. The fireplace was dying. The windows were rimmed with frost. And though no one would admit it aloud, we all knew what this meant.

  We were slowly, but surely, freezing to death.

  A wonderful situation. Truly. A fitting end for a paladin like me.

  I sat hunched at the wooden bar, arms folded across my chest, my third mug of beer already half-empty and going flat. The foam clung lazily to the rim as I tipped it back, swallowing more out of habit than thirst. The ale was bitter and lukewarm—but what did it matter? I wasn’t here for the taste. I was here to forget that I was wasting precious time.

  Me. A sworn paladin of the Eagle Order.

  A dragon-slayer by oath. I had trained my entire life to hunt down Zarkhural, the Crimson Maw—a fire-born terror that had turned entire provinces into ash. Villages burned. Families lost. The world screamed for vengeance. And I had followed that trail of scorched ruin for years. Years! Across continents, through kingdoms, deserts, and godsforsaken ruins, gathering clues, connecting legends... and now?

  Now I was stuck.

  Snowed in.

  To my right sat a young woman who looked as though she had recently been dragged through a battlefield. Her skin bore a warm bronze tone, but it was hard to say whether it came from sun, sand, or suffering. Her black hair was tangled, windswept in every direction—like she’d just walked out of a thunderstorm and hadn’t yet noticed.

  Come to think of it, that might literally have been the case.

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  She wore a robe the color of crows' wings—deep, oppressive black. Around her fingers and wrists coiled rings and bangles, etched with divine symbols I recognized at once, though I wished I hadn’t.

  The sigils of Erebos.

  The God of Plague.

  The Lord of Rot and Silent Death.

  In other circumstances, in warmer places and clearer times, I might have drawn my blade and ended her where she sat. A plague priestess, even a minor one, was rarely tolerated in civil lands. But here, in this frozen purgatory, contempt was all I could muster.

  She didn’t even glance at me. Just stared into the fire with dead eyes and rubbed the metal rings like prayer beads.

  Behind her sat the elf. Gods, the elf.

  She looked young in that ageless way elves did—smooth porcelain skin the color of moonlight, hair like silver thread, pulled into a tight braid that had started to fray at the edges. Her cheeks were pink from the cold, though she tried her best to maintain an air of aloof calm. She smiled. Too often. Too brightly.

  And she kept mumbling spells.

  Her fingers traced glowing runes into the air, her lips whispering syllables with a practiced rhythm. But judging by the way her face tightened after every attempt, the spells were failing. Again and again. Her fingers trembled from cold or frustration—or both. One spell fizzled mid-air and vanished with a soft pop, leaving behind only the scent of burnt lilac and disappointment.

  She sighed. Loudly. Then tried again.

  And then, to my left, there was him.

  An older man—though “man” might not be the right word. His skin was a soft, mossy green, like old bark touched by spring. His beard was thick and white, curling like smoke around his mouth and down his chest. He wore a long, flowing coat dyed in deep shades of purple, with embroidered constellations and leaf patterns running along the hem. The moment you looked at him, you felt two things: confusion… and an odd sense of calm. As if he could grow flowers and summon a thunderstorm in the same breath.

  He seemed peaceful, the kind of eccentric who would stop to chat with squirrels. But during an earlier conversation—over a lukewarm stew and a sputtering candle—he had told me quite casually that he specialized in ghost summoning.

  Not just any ghosts.

  Cats.

  “Feline spirits,” he had said with a grin, his eyes twinkling like candlelight reflecting off a pond. “They keep me company. Whisper little secrets when I’m bored.”

  Strange man.

  And then—thank the Light—Markus finally emerged from the back with a hot plate in hand. The innkeeper and barkeeper both, he was a thick-bellied man with tired eyes and a patience that seemed to be cracking with the cold. But in that moment, he was a savior, carrying the platter that held my salvation: crispy, golden strips of bacon, still sizzling from the pan.

  He placed it in front of me with a grunt. I nodded, muttered a quick thanks, and then, in less than three minutes, the entire portion had vanished. I chewed the final piece slowly, savoring the salt and fat, then pushed my empty mug forward and asked, “How much for a room?”

  Markus rubbed his face and replied in a tired tone, “Under the circumstances? Twenty gold talers. One night.”

  I nearly choked.

  Twenty?!

  I stared at him, then at the cold room, then at the pitiful excuse for a fire, and nearly protested. But before I could reach into my coin pouch, a hand grabbed my wrist.

  It was the warlock.

  He smiled as if this was all perfectly normal, plucked ten gold coins from my pouch with surprisingly nimble fingers, and placed them on the counter.

  “We’ll take one together,” he said matter-of-factly, as though this had already been decided days ago.

  I blinked.

  “We?” I began to say—but before I could finish, the elf reached around him and gently added another five coins to the pile.

  “From me,” she said sweetly, her voice like honey on ice. Her smile was still that forced, practiced thing. “I hate wasting gold."

  Great. Just great.

  I, a divine warrior in service to the gods of justice, now officially had roommates.

  Still… I couldn't argue with the math. Saving fifteen gold talers was a small miracle in itself.

  But the final blow came when the plague-priestess—yes, I was fully convinced now—stepped forward, her black robes swaying like smoke. With barely a word, she slid five more coins across the counter and said in a calm, almost pleasant voice, “I’ll pay my share.”

  Markus nodded, counting the full twenty talers now before him. “Good,” he said plainly. “A room with a fireplace. Four beds. You'll find it up the stairs, end of the hallway on the right.”

  He dropped a large brass key into my hand. It was cold to the touch, heavy and ornate, the teeth worn from years of use.

  I nodded, thanked him, and tucked the key away. But inwardly, I sighed. Not with relief—but with a kind of grim resignation.

  I had trained all my life to travel alone. My faith had always been a solitary thing, between me, my sword, and the gods I served. I wasn’t built for company—especially not a necromantic cat-summoner, a too-perfect elf, and a plague-worshipping priestess.

  But here I was.

  Sharing a room.

  With them.

  This… was fate.

  A cold, ironic, beer-soaked, bacon-greased fate.