The sun did not rise over Mourn-Hold. The sky simply transitioned from a suffocating black to a flat, bruised purple that offered no warmth and very little light. The snow had stopped falling sometime during the night, but the wind had picked up, driving the drifts into hard, frozen waves against the stone foundations of the village. It howled through the eaves of the Inn like a dying animal, rattling the shutters and stripping the heat from the walls.
Vane was already awake when the first grey light touched the windowpane. He didn't need to wake Isole. She was sitting on the edge of the bed, her boots already laced, her emerald dark green hair tied back loosely with a strip of rough leather she had cut from her spare cloak. She didn't look like a Saintess preparing for a ceremony. She looked like a soldier waiting for the whistle. Her face was pale, but her hands were steady as she checked the seals on her mana-harness.
