The snow came wrong.
Sideways first.
Not drifting. Not falling. Just appearing in the air like the sky had decided to shed something it didn't need anymore.
Cole felt it before he saw it. The temperature dropped in a breath. Not gradual. Not honest. One moment the air bit. The next it cut.
He stopped the mule.
Dusty did not like this.
The dog circled once, fast, then pressed close to Cole's leg, hackles half-raised, nose twitching like it couldn't decide which warning mattered most.
Cole scanned the land.
Visibility collapsed fast. The world went short. Fifty yards. Then twenty. Then shapes without edges.
"Alright," he said quietly. Not to Dusty. To the storm. To himself.
The wind picked up like it had been waiting for permission.
Snow scoured the ground. Found every gap in his coat. Every place the healed arm didn't quite move right. Cold slid in there first, curious, testing.
Cole pushed east anyway.
Rustline pulled.
Not warm.
Not helpful.
Just there.
By nightfall the ground disappeared under white that didn't belong to this season. The mule struggled. Slipped once. Cole steadied it and felt the effort burn through him faster than it should have.
He looked for shelter.
There wasn't any.
No rock deep enough. No cut that didn't funnel wind. The land had decided to stay flat and cruel.
He made a shallow break with what stone he could find. Not a wall. Just a suggestion. Huddled behind it with Dusty pressed tight, the mule turned broadside to take the worst of it.
Cole wrapped himself as best he could.
It wasn't enough.
The cold worked patiently. Took fingers first. Then toes. Sensation dulled, came back sharp, dulled again.
The House did not speak.
That was the worst part.
Hours passed. Or minutes. Time folded the way it did when a man got small.
Cole focused on breathing. On counting. On keeping his thoughts narrow so they didn't wander into places that made his chest hurt.
Then it slipped out.
Not spoken.
Not formed.
Just a thought that surfaced between breaths.
I should've kept the hide.
The wind didn't stop.
The snow didn't pause.
But something shifted.
Not in the storm.
In him.
Cole felt it like a pressure change. A subtle click. Like a latch somewhere had acknowledged being tested.
Still no text.
Still no offer.
That meant it counted.
He pulled Dusty closer. The dog whined once, then settled, sharing what warmth he had left without complaint.
Cole stayed awake as long as he could.
When he slept, it was shallow and mean.
He dreamed of fur.
Thick. Heavy. Warm against his hands. Smelled of iron and smoke and something older. He pulled it around his shoulders and the cold backed off like it respected ownership.
Then the dream tore.
He woke choking on air that burned his lungs.
Dawn came gray and brittle.
The storm broke as suddenly as it had arrived. Snow lay wrong across the land—too even, too quiet. The sky cleared to a hard blue that didn't care what it had done.
Cole pushed himself upright.
His fingers worked.
Slow.
Clumsy.
But they worked.
The healed arm throbbed deep, cold set into the scar like it had found a home there.
He stood.
The mule breathed. Shivering but alive.
Dusty shook snow from his coat and sneezed hard, then pressed against Cole again, checking.
They'd survived.
Barely.
Cole scanned the ground.
Tracks cut through the fresh snow.
Not his.
Not the mule's.
Not Dusty's.
Something big had moved through during the storm. Used it. Followed its cover. The prints were deep and wide and headed east.
Toward Rustline.
Cole stared at them a long time.
The Ace of Spades lay cold against his ribs, colder than it had ever been.
Text finally bled into the edge of his sight.
CLEARANCE: EXPIREDUNREGISTERED WISH NOTEDACCOUNT STATUS: OPEN
Cole laughed once. No humor in it.
"Figures," he said.
He mounted up.
The eastward pull sharpened until it hurt.
Behind him, the storm's smooth white field held its silence.
Ahead, the tracks led on.
And somewhere far off, something that should've been his was being worn by someone else—or remembered by the House as leverage.
Cole rode.
The cold stayed with him.
Not on his skin.
Deeper than that.