The city freezes.

  The blood does not.

  Valunstrad was waking slowly, numbed by the cold and the packed snow lodged between the cobblestones. The streets were never truly silent, even at this hour. The rumble of carts, the voices of merchants setting up their stalls, the steady footsteps of guards on patrol.

  Sofie moved with a light, quick step. She knew these streets better than anyone. The shortcuts, the blind spots, the places where one could vanish for a few moments without being noticed. This morning’s goal was simple: lose her shadow.

  Gregor walked at a distance, feigning indifference. He had known for a long time that she had spotted him. It had become a tacit game between them: she tried to melt into the crowd, and he made sure she never quite succeeded.

  The faces around her were familiar. A baker gave her a brief nod and a distracted smile. A fruit merchant slipped an apple into her hand without a word, but the wink said everything. Some had been kind back when she still begged in the cold. Others had become so since her name had been tied to that of Thane Steel-Blood.

  Valunstrad’s market looked bleak beneath the snow-darkened, wind-choked sky. Gusts lifted the canvas of tents and stalls, the sharp, dry snapping of fabric quickly drowning out the merchants’ voices. From the market, she could hear the distant rumble of the forges deeper within the district’s austere maze: hissing steam and the rhythmic hammering of steel on anvils.

  Sofie headed toward the forges; the huscarl could not predict that she would take an interest in metalwork. As she reached the first street leading there, Gregor’s silhouette finally slipped into her field of vision. An incredulous laugh escaped her, and Sofie abruptly changed direction. Streets and intersections followed in quick succession, the trail game turning swiftly into a lively chase.

  Then there was the gathering.

  Sofie had reached the edge of Valunstrad, where the streets opened onto a cemetery as frozen as its dead.

  The circle was tight, unmoving… anxious. A guard pushed through the packed crowd, slipping between onlookers. As she drew closer, Sofie heard muffled sobs, strangled sighs, frightened murmurs. Voices had dropped low, broken, hurried. Someone had cried out, followed immediately by a heavy silence she knew all too well.

  She slowed, the game forgotten. Then, with a fluid movement, she slipped between two distracted adults, drawn despite herself by the tension pressing down on the crowd.

  Gregor, for his part, had kept a reasonable distance from the child, following her sudden turns with carefully concealed amusement. Their path was abruptly blocked by a crowd gathered at the cemetery’s entrance. The tension there was palpable. Yet to his knowledge, no burial was scheduled for that morning. He understood too late, when two guards moved along the crowd with unmistakable nervousness.

  At the edge of the circle of onlookers, Sofie spotted more guards stationed in front of a cluster of graves. Noticing her, one of them immediately stepped away from the improvised perimeter and, in long strides, cut off her path.

  “No, little girl. Not that way.”

  Sofie looked up and recognized Vagn. Her gaze was drawn, despite herself, to a strange shape behind him.

  It lasted only a moment. Long enough to recognize dark hair. A dress she had seen before, perhaps at the market, or behind a counter on a winter evening. A frozen face, blued by a cold that was not that of snow. An inner cold. And blood. Blood on the ice. Red on white.

  Her breath caught. Sofie stepped back.

  It was not horror that held her in place, nor disgust. It was fear… and a dull, familiar sadness.

  “That’s enough,” Gregor murmured.

  The huscarl came up behind her and immediately placed a firm hand on her shoulder. Sofie let herself be led away without a word. He turned her gently but decisively, placing her behind him. He called out to a woman shifting nervously on her feet, torn between morbid curiosity and fear.

  “You.”

  She flinched at the sharp call of the man-at-arms and approached hesitantly, facing the strange pair formed by the child and the huscarl.

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  “Take her away. Far from here.”

  The woman clutched her shawl tighter, uncertain. Gregor pushed Sofie firmly toward her.

  “Keep her with you,” he insisted. “Do not let her come back.”

  The woman nodded, pale, and led Sofie away without asking any questions. Gregor remained still for a moment, jaw clenched, then turned back toward the crowd and toward Vagn, who had stepped out of the gathering.

  “What happened?” the huscarl asked.

  The guard frowned and sighed.

  “Nothing meant to be seen by children,” he replied simply, shaking his head. “By anyone, really.”

  He stepped closer and continued in a low voice.

  “Another woman…”

  Gregor drew a slow breath.

  “The Butcher,” he finished with a grimace.

  Vagn nodded. The morning had barely begun, and his face already bore the marks of fatigue and a familiar sense of inevitability.

  “It’s the first time it’s happened right in Valunstrad.”

  They exchanged a brief look. The city had crossed an invisible threshold.

  “The Thane must be informed,” Gregor said.

  “She will be,” Vagn assured him. “When she returns.”

  Gregor glanced down the alley where Sofie had disappeared with the woman.

  “And she didn’t see anything,” he added, his gaze heavy with meaning.

  Vagn did not respond. They both knew it wasn’t true.

  He watched Gregor walk away in turn, then his hand instinctively closed around the pommel of his sword. News of another victim of the Butcher would spread like wildfire.

  He tightened his grip on the scabbard and stepped forward to face the crowd.

  “Move along. All of you! This is not a spectacle!”

  A suspended moment, then, one by one, the onlookers drifted away from the graves. The cemetery slowly emptied of the few living figures who had invaded it.

  Farther off, Sofie followed the woman in silence. The cold bit at her cheeks, but she paid it no mind. The market held none of its usual appeal that morning. She wrapped her arms around herself and kept walking, without looking back.

  The coming blizzard was no longer the only danger looming over Valunstrad.

  The cordon had formed without incident.

  Vagn had pushed the onlookers back in successive waves, supported by two additional patrols. Firm gestures, short orders, repeated until the curious understood the spectacle was over. In Windhelm, people still knew when pressing further became dangerous.

  The graves had returned to their frozen stillness.

  A guard stood at each entrance to the cemetery, back straight, gaze fixed. Others controlled the adjacent alleys, redirecting passersby toward the main streets. Officially, it was an investigation. Unofficially, everyone knew the city did not need to see more.

  Vagn surveyed the scene with weary eyes. Another woman.

  Not an unknown this time. Not a lost figure from the Gray Quarter. Valunstrad. The Butcher had shifted his hunting ground, and that fact alone was enough to destabilize what little fragile order remained in the city.

  He adjusted a guard’s position with a sharp gesture.

  “Stay here. No one passes.”

  The soldier nodded without question.

  The wind rose, stirring the packed snow between the stones. A metallic scent still lingered, despite the cold, despite the ice. Vagn pushed it from his mind and turned his attention back to the surroundings.

  Captain Thraìn approached at a brisk pace, expression closed, his fur-lined cloak impeccably drawn tight around him. They met aside, near a wall of dark stone, out of earshot.

  “Another?” Thraìn asked bluntly.

  Vagn nodded, a vague gesture toward the headstones.

  “Yes. Another woman. This time, right in Valunstrad.”

  A brief silence followed. Vagn studied his superior’s features. No surprise there. Only a long-dreaded inevitability.

  “Witnesses?”

  “No. Just onlookers.”

  He hesitated a second too long; Thraìn’s piercing gaze already demanded more.

  “A ‘child’… saw too much.”

  Thraìn’s expression hardened for an instant.

  “She’s safe?”

  “Yes. Gregor took care of it.”

  Thraìn exhaled slowly.

  “It’s starting to spread,” Vagn continued. “People are talking… too much. Taverns won’t take long to carry every kind of rumor.”

  The captain of the guard scanned the perimeter, assessing the men, their positions, the possible weak points.

  “Resentment will rise,” Vagn warned.

  And the Nine alone knew what an angry Nord was capable of. Vagn allowed himself a humorless smile.

  “The Commander must be informed,” Thraìn said at last.

  “She will be,” Vagn replied. “She’s back in the city.”

  Thraìn nodded.

  “Reinforce the patrols around Valunstrad until the storm breaks.”

  He stepped back, ready to leave. They parted without another word. The captain of the guard headed up the alleys now marked by blood.