It took Kiernan longer than he’d expected to set all the snares. He was conscientious about it, reviewing all the tips Grif had given him about finding places animals were likely to be, camouflaging the traps, and making sure he took note of landmarks he’d still be able to find even if snow covered his footsteps. It was a lot of work, but by the time he made his way back to the fire, he was satisfied he’d done a creditable job. If there were no animals in the snares the next morning, it would be because they’d picked a bad area, not because Kiernan hadn’t set them well. He’d earned the use of Grif’s coat, and hadn’t disgraced the skills of its rightful owner.

So he was exhausted but happy as he flopped down by the fire Grif had blazing outside the burrow, and the warm rabbit meat Grif passed to him made everything that much better. Kiernan took a savage bite, barely chewed before swallowing, then tore off another chunk. He was a mighty hunter, and though this meat wasn’t the exact rabbit he was going to catch in his snares, it was a reasonable substitute and he’d earned its flesh with his labors. It was delicious. Another bite, and he was half done with his portion. But there would be more—Grif understood how much a working man needed to eat, and he wasn’t stingy.

When Kiernan looked over, though, Grif wasn’t warming another chunk of meat for him. He was just sitting quietly, staring into the flames.

“What?” Kiernan demanded. “Is something wrong?”

Grif let out a deep breath. “What does ‘recompense’ mean?” He pronounced the word as if it were made up of its individual parts, as if he’d sounded it out—as if he’d read it.

“It means compensation,” Kiernan said. “What you give to someone who performs a service or provides goods for you.”

Grif nodded. “That’s what I thought.” He held up a pouch then, made of rich red velvet, the color of—

“Where did you get that?” Kiernan demanded.

“You know where I got it.” Grif frowned at him. “The message was still sealed when I found it—you didn’t read it beforehand? No, you couldn’t have. You wouldn’t have been so stupid about this if you knew what it said.”

“You read—” The betrayal rendered Kiernan temporarily speechless. He was outraged, he was angry, he was . . . hurt? “That’s a confidential document! You have no business reading that. It’s secret! It’s vital to the security of—”

“It’s an order for some jewelry,” Grif said flatly. “A custom design. A nice piece, I suppose, although a bit flowery for my taste. And a pouch full of gems to be set in the gold. The jeweler’s to take half the gems to ‘recompense’ him for the gold and for his time.” He paused for a moment, then lifted his gaze from the fire. “Your princeling—your friend—sent you into the mountains, into almost certain death, because he wanted a nice necklace made. For a woman, unless I’m misjudging the fashions in your world. Is there a woman he’d want to gift with custom-made jewelry?”

Kiernan sat, rabbit forgotten, and stared at Grif.

And Grif, having begun, didn’t seem inclined to stop talking. “At first I thought the gems were a sign that he didn’t want you dead. He could have sent a blank note and a handful of rocks, if he’d wanted, and you’d have been none the wiser. So I decided that he’d believed that you’d make it through the mountains. I decided he was a fool, but not a killer.”

Grif nudged at the fire with his boot. “But then I thought of how spoiled you are. How protected you’ve clearly been. Your parents might be dead, but you have powerful friends, no? And you might have told some of them you were going on a mission from the prince? He couldn’t be sure you wouldn’t, and if your body turned up in the spring, they might come to him for answers. It might be worth the cost of a few middling gems for him to be able to ‘prove’ that he’d believed you’d succeed.” Grif frowned. “He could have not sent the gems and then said he had sent them and they’d been stolen by whoever found your body, but what if your body was found by someone beyond reproach?”

He shrugged. “I guess it comes down to how wealthy your princeling is, how much he can afford to spend on getting rid of an awkward—”

“Tsarn,” Kiernan said, his voice sounding alien to his own ears. “We don’t have a king or a prince. We have a tsarn, and the tsarn’s son.”

“Is that the part of this you want to focus on?”

Yes, damn it, that was the only part Kiernan wanted to consider. How could he think about any of the other things Grif was saying? They were treasonous, but worse, they were disloyal on a personal level. To suggest that Vin would betray Kiernan like that, would plot against him, would sink to such a low, ugly, dishonorable act . . .

“Let me see the letter,” he demanded, and Grif handed it over without comment.

Kiernan didn’t read the words, not right away. He stared at the sheet of vellum, holding it carefully by its edges as if that mattered somehow, as if all of this would get better if he avoided creases or smudge marks. And he looked at the sketch. Clearly Vin’s work, with the rough, hurried lines he used whenever he was required to represent something visually. The design itself was unremarkable, although perhaps Grif was right that it was a little too flowery.

Nothing special, though. Not flashy enough to be an engagement token, not for the sort of woman Vin was likely to marry. Simply a necklace.

Or maybe there was some sort of code! Could that line of the necklace, there, represent the coast? And maybe the other side was the mountains? And the words themselves . . .

Kiernan read them feverishly. They certainly seemed to be an order for jewelry. But could there be a hidden meaning?

“If you hold it over the flames, secret writing might appear,” Grif suggested. He sounded gentle, sympathetic, and Kiernan wanted to punch him in the face. Grif had been the one to cause all this confusion and misery, and now he wanted to pretend he was sorry about it?

“There’s no secret writing,” Kiernan snapped.

Grif nodded. “Aye. I know. I wanted to be sure you did too.”

“You know? How could you possibly know that? You don’t know anything about this!”

“I know your princeling—your tsarn’s son—must have real messengers at his disposal. Men who know the mountains, know how to travel. So if he’d had a serious message, he’d have sent one of them, wouldn’t he?”

It hit Kiernan like a blow.

Of course Vin would have sent a real messenger if he’d meant to send a real message. He’d said nothing about suspecting traitors, nothing about not being able to trust his men. He’d said he had an important job for Kiernan, and like a fool—like a love-struck idiot—Kiernan had jumped at the chance to serve. He hadn’t asked a single question. Not because he was too respectful, or because he was afraid, but because he was stupid.

He pushed himself to his feet, still holding the parchment, meat falling to the snowy ground. “You swapped jackets because you wanted to spy! You didn’t care about me staying warm, didn’t care that I was learning! You don’t even know that I set good snares!” He stopped talking and then a short, ugly laugh barked out of his throat. “But you set a better snare, didn’t you? You trapped me. Made me think I could trust you, and then you betrayed me and read—”

“A jewelry order.” Grif still sounded calm, but his voice was a little louder, now. “That’s all I read. No state secrets, no great mission.”

“You didn’t know that before you started!”

Grif shrugged.

Kiernan wanted to storm off into the woods. He wanted to start walking and not stop, not ever, not until he got home and found Vin and got an explanation, some story that would allow Kiernan to make sense of it. Because surely there was a reason for it all, and Grif had twisted something innocent into something ugly. If Kiernan could get back to Vin, or at least away from Grif, he’d be able to understand.

But there was nowhere to go, nowhere that wasn’t endless snow and trees and rocks. And Kiernan wasn’t a child.

That was the thought that allowed him to regain a little control. He wouldn’t have a tantrum, wouldn’t storm off into danger. He might be spoiled and protected, and he might have been naïve to trust—naïve to trust Grif. That had been his mistake. But he wasn’t completely stupid.

“You’re an honorless brute,” he told Grif.

Grif didn’t respond. He didn’t even look at Kiernan.

Kiernan struggled out of the heavy, warm coat that had meant so much to him earlier. It wasn’t a symbol of Grif’s respect; it was part of the trap. “I will never forgive you for this,” Kiernan said.

And finally Grif turned toward him. “I never expected you to.”

Then he went back to staring at the fire.

Grif thought about making his own burrow for the rest of the night. Kiernan had crawled inside the one they’d built together soon after they’d stopped talking, and he clearly didn’t want company.

But the night was cold, and Kiernan was too damn skinny. He didn’t hold heat the way he should, the way a larger man would. So Grif lit a candle, then crawled inside and found Kiernan lying on his side, facing the wall, blankets over his head.

Grif carefully set the candle down, then pulled off his coat and tunic and washed with the water he’d heated over the fire. The same routine as every night. Nothing different, here. No betrayals, no anger, no pain. Everything was completely ordinary.

He dragged his tunic and coat back on, then stripped off his pants and finished his washing. He briefly considered going out and melting more snow, turning it into water so he could . . . what? Shave? Do laundry? Maybe start a pot of soup?

No. There was no point in delaying any further, and no point being shy. Nights were cold, and bodies were warm.

So Grif nudged the Kiernan-shaped ball of blankets in the middle of where its back would probably be. “Move over.”

There was no response.

Grif sighed, then braced himself and pushed with two hands. Kiernan slid, body too stiff to be asleep, but didn’t make a sound or shift a muscle. Well, fine. Grif wasn’t looking for a conversation, he just wanted some warmth.

He wasn’t brave enough to snuggle in as he usually did, though, couldn’t bring himself to spoon up behind Kiernan and wrap an arm around his chest. That was a warm way to sleep, but it would be too easy for Kiernan to pull away, and Grif didn’t want that to happen. Stupid, of course. Kiernan had already made his feelings clear, and they’d been exactly what Grif had expected, had known they would be. It was weak, trying to avoid that one final gesture of rejection.

So Grif was weak. He’d lived with worse realizations than that.

He lifted the covers and slid in so they were lying back-to-back. With two thick coats between them, little sense of Kiernan came through, but it was better than no contact at all.

Grif lay there for quite a while before falling asleep, thinking it all through, but he couldn’t come up with a better way to have handled his discovery. Maybe someone smart, smooth, like the people Kiernan must be used to dealing with in his regular life, could have been gentler about it. But Grif had done the best he could.

And hopefully it would work in the end. Kiernan would be mad at Grif because Grif was there, but surely he’d be mad at the Vin bastard as well? Mad enough to give up on any plans for winter travel?

If not? Grif could always tie him up, but that should probably be kept as a last resort.

He slept restlessly, so aware of the need to not turn around and spoon that he could never truly relax, and he gave up the effort before dawn. He slipped outside, rebuilt the fire and set the pot of water with some spruce needles beside it to warm up for when Kiernan awoke, then found his rough bow and rougher arrows and headed into the forest.

He would hunt. He would find a deer, or more than one, and he’d bring meat back as a peace offering.

It wouldn’t work. Kiernan didn’t really understand gestures like that, not as far as Grif could see. Kiernan seemed to think that sharing food was natural, that of course he’d get a portion even though he hadn’t been the one to hunt for it. He didn’t understand how far generosity was from Grif’s instincts, or what it meant that Grif was sharing. No, Kiernan wouldn’t understand.

So it was a doomed plan, but at least one that would get them meat, and allow Grif to escape from camp for a while.

He had a good day of hunting. Two deer, enough for the sled to be heavy behind him as he dragged the animals back to camp that night. Still a lot of work to do, and he’d have to do it before he went to sleep—he wouldn’t leave his treasures outside the burrow to be defiled by scavengers, and he wouldn’t bring them inside to spoil in the too-warm air. It didn’t matter that he was exhausted, that he was heart-sick about killing the animals and about the tension with Kiernan. He couldn’t give in to that, because there was work to be done.

It had been snowing all day, and when he got back to camp there were no footprints visible—his own from that morning had been covered, and he had to assume Kiernan’s had been too. Except . . . the fire was dead as well.

Was the selfish little bastard in such a sulk that he wouldn’t do basic chores? Wouldn’t keep the fire going even when he’d have benefited from its warmth?

“Kiernan,” Grif bellowed. There was a limit to his patience, and he had reached it. “There’s work to be done. Get out here!”

There was no response. Ignoring the twist of unease starting in his gut, Grif yelled again, then dropped to his knees and crawled into the burrow.

It was dark inside, the moonlight not enough to send the faintest glow through the snow walls, but Grif could tell without seeing that Kiernan wasn’t inside. The air was too cold, too still, too empty.

He fumbled forward all the same and his hands found the blankets, neatly folded just as Kiernan liked to leave them, and underneath them the canvas of the tent. Kiernan had left, but he hadn’t taken his precious gear with him.

What in all the hells was going on?

To be double sure, Grif completed his fumbling inspection of the burrow, then crawled back outside.

“Kiernan!” he yelled again.

Had he overlooked tracks? Maybe Kiernan had— What, had gone for a nice moonlight stroll in the deep, freezing snow?

But there were no tracks, and the wind was picking up.

The snares.

Kiernan had set the snares. He’d have gone out to check on them that morning. And judging by the lack of tracks and the cold, dead ash in the fire pit, he hadn’t made it back.

“Kiernan!”

Grif tried to fight off the panic. Kiernan couldn’t be that far away. He’d only been gone for a couple of hours the night before, and most of that time would have been spent on actually setting the snares, not in tramping cross-country.

He wasn’t within earshot—or isn’t able to respond—but with the wind, that didn’t mean too much.

Damn it, Grif should have tied the bastard up. He could have retrieved whatever was caught in the snares, and he could have stopped after one deer and come back to camp before it was full dark and everything would have been fine. But he hadn’t done any of that. He’d snuck off like the cowardly thief he was, left Kiernan behind with no instructions, no restrictions, and now—

Damn it. No time for all that—he could hate himself later. First, he needed to find Kiernan. Who would still be alive. Who’d be just fine. Maybe playing a trick. Oh, gods, please let him be playing a trick.

Deer forgotten, Grif started out into the darkness.

He made it about ten strides from camp and then caught himself. He couldn’t afford to charge recklessly into the forest; there wasn’t much use in finding Kiernan if they were both left lost in the woods. So he made himself turn around and shove the deer off the sled. He might need it to haul Kiernan back to camp. He picked up his walking stick—the terrain was still unfamiliar, and he couldn’t afford to get stuck anywhere.

Then, most painfully of all, he put the stick back down and turned to the fire. He needed to build it up; he needed to be able to keep track of where camp was, and the fire was the best beacon he could manage.

Five painful minutes, messing with flint and tinder and then kindling, fighting back his impatient need to pile on bigger logs than the flames were ready to handle. Another five minutes—five minutes that Kiernan was spending alone in the forest, lost or injured or both—or worse—adding wood.

“Burn, damn you,” he muttered, and the fire seemed to hear him, leaping higher with satisfying sparks and crackles.

It still wasn’t big enough, but Grif’s patience was exhausted. He started for the forest edge, cursing the fire for ruining his night vision, consoling himself that he could see reasonably well in the moonlight.

He yelled Kiernan’s name as he moved and stopped every ten strides or so to listen, and to reorient himself. Shuffle forward, poking into the snow with each step, then yell, stop, listen, look for the fire, remember the path. Shuffle, poke, yell, stop, listen, look for the fire, remember the path.

And try to think like Kiernan. That was the hardest part. How well had he actually been listening to Grif’s advice about setting snares? Would he have been hunting for dense undergrowth, trying to find banks that might contain warrens, keeping his eye out for the favorite foods of different animals? Or had he ignored all that and set the traps wherever was easiest?

Grif spotted the first marker, a tree branch broken and twisted around itself, clearly by a human hand, after only a few minutes. He found the snare almost directly beneath the branch, nestled in on the edge of some brambles. A good spot; Kiernan had been listening.

Which made everything much easier. Because if Kiernan had been paying attention to Grif, then Grif simply had to look around and decide what direction he’d have headed after setting this snare, and then hope Kiernan had chosen the same.

Another ten minutes passed before he found another marker and another snare. Empty, but with the tracks of other animals around it. Grif brushed some snow away and found a dark patch—blood, and the remains of entrails that Kiernan had left as he’d been taught. Even angry, even feeling betrayed, he hadn’t disrespected the animals. Hadn’t disrespected the teachings of Grif’s mother’s people.

“Kiernan!” he roared.

And then . . . did he hear a response? Was that wishful thinking, or . . .

“Kiernan!” again.

This time, nothing but the wind.

But Grif knew the direction the sound had come from. Maybe it had been Kiernan, or maybe it had been the gods, trying to help Grif out. Not for Grif’s sake, obviously, but they seemed to favor Kiernan and probably didn’t like the idea of him out in the cold alone any more than Grif did. After all, they’d brought Grif to Kiernan in the first place, had found a protector for the innocent young man. Perhaps they were kind enough to help Grif find him again, after losing him so carelessly.

“I’m coming,” he called, and he plunged through the snowbanks.