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Chapter One

Tamsyn

Frost crunched under her feet as she staggered through the forest toward the lights she’d been following for the past four nights. It was so cold, her breath streamed out in plumes, billowing around her on air brittle enough to shatter.

There hadn’t been a lot of time to prepare for running away in the middle of January before she’d actually done the running—she’d dressed in clothes she’d stolen from the shed, shoved her feet in boots two sizes too big, and bundled herself up in an old jacket that had seen better days.

She’d taken nothing else, because she owned nothing else.

She was numb from the top of her head to her painfully cold toes. Honestly, she was surprised she’d made it four nights out in the wild with the temperatures dropping to below freezing every time the sun went down, and barely warming up enough to melt the frost during the day.

She didn’t dare stop moving for long; not just because she might curl up in the roots of one of these massive trees and succumb to the cold, but because if she stopped for any length of time, her father and his friends would find her and drag her home.

For all twenty-six years she’d been alive, the mountains had been her home. Conceived, born, and raised in a remote community miles away from the hustle and bustle—and sins—of the general population.

Her father called her a dreamer, always thinking of things she shouldn’t instead of focusing on the matter at hand. Dreamers weren’t valued; neither were women in general.

Tamsyn tripped over her own feet as her vision wavered, hunger threatening to shut her body down if she didn’t find something to eat. The thought of food, however, ignited an urge to throw up when she remembered how close she’d come to missing the signs of her father’s betrayal.

She found her balance, catching herself on the thick trunk of a tree, then went flying as she took another step forward and slid on an exposed root slippery with frost. This time, there was no chance of recovery—she fell hard, her body rolling down the steep gradient, picking up momentum until the world became a nauseous whirlwind of revolutions and pain.

Something ripped. Something popped.

Her wrist struck a hard object, the bone crunching.

She rolled through piles of decaying leaves, slowing her down enough that when the inevitable happened, the impact of hitting a tree didn’t snap her in two. It did, however, jar her to an agonizing stop, stealing what little breath was left in her lungs, showering her with pain.

Groaning, she lay there in the dark for several minutes, trying to gather her bearings. Come morning, she was gonna be bruised to high hell—worse than the time Elder Richard caught her playing tag with his sons in the orchard. The beating he’d given her hadn’t just brought blood to the surface of her skin, but sent the message deep into her muscles.

She hadn’t been able to sit down for a week without crying.

Whimpering under her breath, Tamsyn untangled herself slowly, torn between throwing up and passing out when her left arm throbbed in time with her heartbeat. Maybe the freezing conditions would prove to be a blessing rather than a curse.

When she sat up, she realized the next few days were going to be hell. She knew from experience the worst pain wasn’t when trauma happened, but the time after, and she hurtnow. Luckily, nothing seemed to be broken but her wrist, and maybe it wasn’t actually broken. A fracture would be easier to deal with, but when she tentatively tried to rotate the joint, she bit back a scream as the bones ground together.

No, definitely broken.

She dropped her head onto her knees, wincing when her muscles protested and her battered body wept. There was no choice but to move; if she stayed here, she was going to seize up, then the cold would eat into her bones, leech into her veins and heart until her blood froze.

Maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing—when her father found her, she’d rather be dead than let him take her back to what waited for her.

She’d been in worse situations than this, she told herself, rolling carefully onto her knees. God knew she’d been in a hell of a lot more pain. This is a cakewalk compared to some of her father’s torture.

Pushing to her feet, she swayed in place. Tiny dots of white flashed through her vision, dancing merrily in the dark. After a few seconds, it dawned on her that they weren’t dots.

It was snowing.

Oh, wonderful.Inching her way out from behind the tree, she was relieved to find the ground wasn’t as steep. It was more of a surprise to find the lights she’d been heading for were literally under her nose.

The gentle flurry of snow was quickly gaining strength. More and more flakes were tumbling from the sky, growing larger by the minute. It was settling, melding with the frozen ground until a thin layer of white blanketed everything.

Tamsyn tilted her head back, letting it kiss her face. There was something soothing about snow. Peaceful. Beautiful. Quiet. She loved how some flakes fell straight down while others twirled. The straight shooters and the dreamers.

Tentatively, her body turning into one massive pulse of pain, she headed toward the clusters of buildings in the near distance before they were lost in the snowstorm. It was stupidly easy to get turned around in a snowstorm, and if nature decided to be a bitch and elevate things to blizzard level, she didn’t want to miss her chance at salvation.

She was more careful with where she set her feet this time, padding through the snow and the dark as she cradled her broken wrist. She tried not to make a sound whenever it jostled; she didn’t want to wake anyone, after all. All she wanted was warmth and safety, for however long it lasted.

The locals couldn’t be any more hostile than her own community.