The Immortal Calls

chapter one✵kapitel eins

He put a gloved hand on her shoulder. "Watch the weave with me." He blinked, and in the next moment, his irises began to glow.

Leonor settled into the snow, breathing in the cold, closing her eyes. Something surged up within her, roaring to the surface, and when she opened her eyes it was all laid out before her: the glittering strings of the weave, strung together with precision, swaying and twitching against the darkness of the void. She'd heard the weave compared to fabric. Textiles. A tapestry. But whatever the weave was, it was something far vaster than any worldly comparison. Whenever she looked at it, it was as if something was digging its claws into her back, something old and malevolent, a thing that should have died a long time ago.

Absently, she rubbed the back of her neck.

"To the west," Heinrik said. "Do you see that?"

Leonor did. She counted off the twitches in her head at the places where the strings intersected. One. Two. Three. Four.

"A patrol," she told him.

She could hear the smile in Heinrik's voice. "I thought so too. And over there, to the north?"

Leonor looked harder. "Looks like another patrol on the edge of town."

He squeezed her shoulder, breaking her focus. The world came rushing back, the white of the snow paining her eyes. Strands of Heinrik's auburn hair hung over his forehead, his eyelashes sprinkled with snowflakes. He crawled out from underneath the bough, taking care not to rustle it in case its heavy coating of snow would come crashing down on his head.

He offered her a hand up. "I'd say we're in the clear. Don't you agree, mäuschen?"

Leonor scowled and took his hand, letting him haul her up. "Of course, Sergeant Griffin."

Heinrik's grin slid off his face, his cheeks going red. "Alright, everyone! Listen up!"

Ahmed and Hassan drew away from each other, huffing. Mun pocketed her pistol.

"We're going to get into one of those barns over there. The patrol just missed us. We're going to make sure Ahmed doesn't die of hypothermia—"

Hassan snickered. Ahmed caught him in the ribs with his elbow.

"—and while the three of you are resting, Leonor and I are going to head into the city. No offense, but small-town Leis aren't going to take too kindly to two Enganans and an Altanese girl. The Solnayans might get suspicious."

"Fine with me," Mun said. "Sleep is much needed."

"And I'm sure Hassan would love to cozy up to a couple of cows," Ahmed pitched in, teeth chattering.

"Then we're all in agreement." Heinrik tugged the furs of his coat closer to his neck. "Perfect. Follow me."

They kept close to the treeline as they made their way across the farmlands, the sun setting to their left, keeping in single file. Leonor stared at Heinrik's broad back while she moved, lifting her feet high out of the snow only to plant them back in again moments later. Her breath came up heavy in her chest. Times like these brought back memories of her time in training. Though she'd been stationed in a military base near Lake Quellfluss in the Arm, it was required that all the good king's troops make the march from the base at Quellfluss to the city of Bürfurt and back again. She could recall boring holes with her eyes into the back of some nameless soldier, clutching her rifle in her hands, knowing nothing but the step ahead of her and the one behind.

She looked further up, watching Heinrik's hair drift in the wind. He kept it longer than most boys his age, though when Leonor had first met him, it'd been shaved down close to his scalp. She suspected he kept it long just to spite his father, the patriarch of the notorious Griffin family.