A giant 50-foot wall oversees the frozen hell that lies beyond the reaches of Everfrost Kingdom. A small village is engulfed in snow as the guarded wall, towers impossible height.
Winden, a small village consisting of two-thousand people, remains disconnected from the world.
For them, this small village is everything; they don't travel to different cities and kingdoms like the citizens of Athelguard. And why would they? They don't lack anything, maybe sometimes the cold eats away the bones, but that's just life in Winden.
Guarding the wall, a voice rang out. "Oh, but the tensions have risen recently. The envoys of human kingdoms lingered far longer this year than in the previous one." A patrol knight said, "Maybe a war is on the edge of Humanity." He added, his dark brown hair fluttering as the strong winds above the wall kissed his stern face.
From the opposite side, another voice answered, "We are once again in perilous times. It seems the peace treaty has been broken. It explains the huge surge in attacks on the wall from the Elven camp." He said. "Say, Ruth? Is it related to the rebellion in the Empire of Sun that formed the Shackled Sun Empire?"
"No," Ruth replied. For a moment, his face darkened, though his face remained unseen by the snow and the wind. "I heard the race that broke the peace treaty was the Angels."
"What?" the knight stammered. "The Angels? What reasons could they have for breaking a treaty that has existed for several millennia?" he asked. "Is Everfrost going to be Okay?"
"From what I have heard, the Angels are fixated on the Kingdom of Oath. But one thing I can say for sure is that every race is preparing for a war," Ruth replied.
After a moment's silence, he exhaled cold air and added. "Elves will try something sooner or later. I just hope we survive the winter."
As soon as he said, a strong gust of wind pushed past the towering wall.
***
The wind that battered the top of the Wall was a scream, but down here, in the basin of Winden, it was merely a whisper.
Isolde pulled the collar of her heavy velvet cloak tighter against her neck as she stepped through the inner gates. It was her first time setting foot in the village that huddled beneath the stone titan, and the sensation was immediate and overwhelming: life.
Despite the frozen hell that lay beyond the ramparts, Winden was not a graveyard. It was a heart.
She moved through the main thoroughfare, her boots crunching softly on the packed snow. To her eyes that could see the heat radiating off a living body like a golden aura, the village was ablaze with warmth. The people here did not scurry like frightened rats; they moved with a communal rhythm. A blacksmith laughed as he tossed a hot horseshoe into a bucket of water, the steam rising to join the breath of a baker calling out to his neighbor. They greeted one another not as strangers, but as kin.
The architecture, she noted, was a clever defiance of the frost. The houses were not built up, but down.
The structures were sunken halfway into the earth, utilizing the ground's natural insulation against the biting chill. Steep, slate-grey roofs sloped sharply to shed the heavy snowfall, often touching the ground on either side like the wings of a brooding bird. Chimneys, thick and sturdy, belched pillars of woodsmoke that formed a grey blanket over the valley, trapping the heat. It was a hive, cozy and interconnected, where the walls were thick and the windows small, glowing with the amber light of whale-oil lamps.
It was charming. It was fragile.
Isolde drifted toward the outskirts, away from the bustling market square where the scent of roasting meat was too strong, too tantalizing. She preferred the quiet edges, where the shadows stretched long and thin.
It was there, huddled in the lee of a dilapidated granary, that she found them.
They were two small heaps of rags, dusted with fresh powder. As Isolde approached, the rags shifted, revealing two faces that were starkly, deathly pale against the grey wood.
Twins.
They couldn't have been more than thirteen winters old. Their eyes were hollow, rimmed with the red of exhaustion and the blue of hypothermia. One of them, the one on the left, was trying to rub warmth into the hands of the other, though her own fingers looked like frozen twigs.
Isolde stopped. The bustling warmth of the village center had not reached this far.
"The cold has a way of finding the cracks in the world," Isolde murmured, her voice a low, melodic hum that seemed to cut through the wind.
The girls jumped, clutching each other. The one on the right looked up, her teeth chattering so hard she could barely speak. "W-we have n-nothing, milady. No c-coin."
Isolde crouched down, her velvet cloak spreading around her like a pool of ink in the snow. She didn't look at them with pity; she looked at them with recognition. She knew what it was to be cold. She knew what it was to be hungry.
"I do not seek coin," Isolde said softly. She tilted her head, observing the sharp angles of their cheekbones. "Where are your kin? The village seems full of them."
"Gone," the girl on the left whispered, her voice brittle. " The fever took Ma. The Wall took Pa. Last week."
Orphans. The debris of a harsh world. To anyone else, they were a burden. To Isolde, they were a blank canvas.
A slow smile spread across Isolde's face.
"What are your names?"
"Erlina," the bolder one said, pointing to herself. Then she pointed to her sister. "Mira."
"Erlina. Mira," Isolde tested the names, tasting them. "Tell me, little ones. How good are your hands with a broom? Can you scrub a floor until it reflects the firelight? Can you carry a tray without spilling a drop?"
The sisters exchanged a confused look.
"We... we can work," Erlina stammered, a spark of desperate hope igniting in her dull eyes. "We work hard. Pa taught us."
Isolde stood up, extending a gloved hand toward them. The leather was black, stark against the white world.
"Then take my hand," Isolde said. "I have purchased the old timber hall near the caves. It will be a tavern, a place of rest for the soldiers. I need hands to work it, and I need life to fill it."
She looked down at them, her dark eyes gleaming.
"Come with me, and you shall have a roof that does not leak, a fire that does not die, and food to fill your bellies. In exchange, you give me your loyalty and your labor. Is that a fair trade?"
Erlina didn't hesitate. She grabbed Mira's hand, and together, they reached out to grasp Isolde's.
"Yes," they breathed in unison.
"Good," Isolde purred, pulling them up from the snow. "Come along then. The sun is setting, and we have much to prepare."