We rode the tide into Stonepeak with the sails half-furled, the wind gnawing at our bones and the sea snarling beneath us like it had a grudge to settle. The air was sharp—knife-sharp—laced with brine and woodsmoke, thick enough to taste. Snow drifted in slow spirals, a white veil pulled down over the jagged coastline.

  And there it was.

  Stonepeak.

  Crouched like a wounded beast at the foot of the mountain that bore its name. The stone behind it rose high, black-veined and crusted in frost, as if the land itself had reared up to shield the place. Stonepeak wasn’t a city. It didn’t pretend to be. Cities preen. Cities wear towers and silk and gates with lions carved into sandstone.

  Stonepeak?

  Stonepeak had piers.

  Crooked, groaning things stretching out into the black sea like broken fingers. Iron moorings choked in frost. Ships lashed together, hull to hull, like they were huddling for warmth in the chill. Warehouses squatted along the shore, their doors cracked open just enough to reveal barrels sealed in pitch and traders wrapped in wolfskin, haggling in five tongues I didn’t speak.

  It smelled of salt, sweat, and old blood. Of hard work, frozen fish guts, and iron beaten into shape.

  That was enough.

  The town hugged the one narrow cleft where the cliffs dipped low enough to make harbor. Timber buildings clung to stilts driven into permafrost, jutting out over the swells. Their rooftops were buried under snow. Their windows glowed warm—soft gold leaking into the stormlight from hearths and lanterns.

  The docks were a kind of chaos dressed up like order. Longships lined up beside fat-bellied traders from the south, their sails stiff with ice. Harbormasters bellowed through the din, chalking manifests onto oak boards with frozen fingers. Everyone moved with purpose—fishmongers, sealers, smugglers, forge-hands—like the cold couldn’t reach them.

  It could. It always did. You could tell who was local and who wasn’t by the way they shook.

  The market climbed the slope behind the harbor, a snarl of alleys and plankways buried in snow. Furs. Mead. Iron ingots. Whale oil sealed in flasks of waxskin. Every trader from the fjords to the Flame Coast passed through here sooner or later. You could grow old in Stonepeak and never learn half the languages shouted across the square.

  “This town gets uglier every time we visit,” Manach muttered, watching the piers with a squint.

  “I agree,” I said. “But there are more people this time. Feels... bigger.”

  He nodded toward the water.

  “Traders. Hoarding their goods. Probably trying to make it to Lampis.”

  I followed his gaze.

  Ships were pulling out—sleek skimmers, slow haulers, icecutters. All headed in the direction we’d come from. South. Back toward Lampis. But the sea had been quiet for us. No traffic. Not a single vessel had passed us in days. That wasn’t normal.

  “They know something happened,” I said. “News must’ve reached here already.”

  “Probably Laach’s work,” Manach spat.

  That said enough.

  “You have any idea how we’re going to make coin here?” I asked, watching the dockhands unload crates like they were worth their weight in gold.

  “Yes,” Manach said flatly.

  I narrowed my eyes. “How?”

  “Don’t worry about it.” He didn’t look at me. “You just get Leliana to safety.”

  Now I did start to worry.

  We eventually docked. No grand arrival. No fanfare.

  Just the creak of the hull, the slap of water against the pier, and the clatter of boots on timber as dockhands climbed aboard without a word. Northerners—hard faces, harder hands, wrapped in furs and oilskins. They didn’t ask for permission. They saw a job and started doing it.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  They clocked the state of the boat straight off. No cargo. Hull scored and splintered. Rigging torn like it had been gnawed by ghosts. One of the dockmen—older, face half-lost in a wild mess of bearskin—stepped up to me.

  “Pirates?” he asked in rough, clipped Common.

  “No,” I said flatly.

  He nodded once. “Good. I hate pirates.”

  And that was that. He turned and left.

  Another man took his place, just as worn by wind and sea. Beard like a tree root gone wild, thick enough to nest a family of birds. He had the look of someone in charge, or at least someone who thought he was.

  “Thirty gold,” he said, voice deep and scratchy, like boots on gravel. “Per day. Docking fee.”

  Manach didn’t flinch. “We don’t need the dock. You can burn the ship for all we care.”

  “That’s not how it works,” the man growled.

  “We were hitching a ride,” I said, shifting Leliana in my arms. “Talk to the ship’s captain.”

  He looked around the empty deck.

  “Who’s the captain?”

  I met his stare. “I don’t know.”

  And I walked past him.

  He tried again. “You—”

  “One more word,” Manach cut in, voice low and venomous, “and I’ll slit your throat just enough so everyone on this dock hears how you squeal.”

  The man froze. Hesitated. Then backed off with a muttered curse.

  “Fucking coldians.”

  He waved a hand, barking to his men, “Get this wreck fixed up. It’s ours now.”

  “You want to start a fight already?” I muttered to Manach.

  “No,” he said with that grin of his. “But this is the North. These people don’t fear coldians. They respect guts. Power. Ruthless behavior.”

  He wasn’t wrong.

  The northerners were hard folk. They didn’t care who you were—elf, coldian, dwarf, or demonspawn—if you fought, you earned your place. And they fought for sport, for pride, for the hell of it. City by city, town by town, always brawling.

  But I’d always wondered what would happen if they stopped fighting each other and united. A single northern banner? Gods help the world.

  I scanned the dockfront. Found what I needed.

  A squat timber building with a red-streaked cross painted across the door. Weather-worn, but unmistakable. Medical sign. Rough, but promising.

  “I’m taking Leliana there,” I said.

  “Right,” Manach replied. “I’ll check on the money-making opportunities.”

  The grin he gave me was the kind that meant trouble was on its way. Trouble with a sword in one hand and a laugh in the other.

  But that was his lane. Mine was carrying the half-frozen woman in my arms.

  I headed up the slope. Crowds pressed around—traders, haulers, sailors, sellswords—but they parted for me. Outlanders kept their distance. Locals gave me hard nods. Respect, or curiosity. Maybe both.

  I reached the medical house. The smell hit first—burned herbs, sweat, and something bitter. I rapped the door with my boot.

  “Vem fan knackar?” a voice called from inside—thick accent, deep, almost rough enough to be mistaken for a man’s if my ears weren’t tuned sharper than most. Northern dialect. I didn’t catch the full meaning, but tone did the job.

  I knocked again, harder.

  The door snapped open with a jolt.

  She stood in the frame like the war never ended. Mid-forties, maybe older—hard to tell. Long, straw-blond hair hung in ropes, half covering a face scored by too many scars to count. One arm gone below the shoulder. One leg missing from the knee down, replaced by a crude metal brace. Shield-maiden once, no doubt. A northern warrior—what they called Daughters of Iron up here.

  She looked at me like she’d killed better men for blinking.

  “What the fuck do you want?” she rasped, switching to Common now, voice shredded by years of shouting orders and breathing blood.

  “Medical care,” I said flatly.

  “Then fuck off to someone who cares.” She turned her back on me without a blink.

  The door slammed.

  Hard.

  I stood there. Still. Let it hang in the air. That moment.

  Then Dullness hummed in my ear.

  It was faint, like a whisper threading through static, but it was there. The blade wanted blood.

  So did I.

  I lifted my foot and kicked. The door cracked at the hinges, groaned once, then collapsed inward in a hail of splinters. The wood was old, brittle, and I didn’t stop to be impressed.

  She spun, already drawing.

  I beat her to it.

  “You will aid me,” I snarled, voice lower than a growl. “Or I’ll take your remaining limbs and mount you like a banner on the main square.”

  Her blade hissed halfway out of its sheath. Her eyes narrowed. “You can fucking try.”

  We stared at each other—both armed, both worn down to the sinew. I could feel her weighing it, calculating, then... pausing.

  Not fear. Not submission.

  A shift.

  I scanned the room. Rows of cots. Crates of herbs and tattered bandages. No empty beds. Air thick with sweat, rot, and the wet cough of dying lungs. A dozen souls laid out in furs, some moaning. Others silent.

  “What’s wrong with them?” I asked, tone cutting through the tension like a blade through cloth.

  Her eyes flicked to the nearest cot.

  That was the right question.

  She eased back. Just a fraction. Just enough.

  “Sea Cough,” she muttered. “Bad strain. Came in with the traders from the fjords. No room. No hands. No cure.”

  She turned away again.

  “No room,” she repeated, voice like a rusted hinge. “Fuck off.”

  And she was gone. Disappeared into the stink and shadow of the ward like a ghost going back to sleep.

  I stepped out into the street, holding Leliana close. She shivered violently in my arms, face pale, lips split with cold. She barely registered the world around her anymore.

  I watched the passersby—rugged folk in fur and leathers, all of them ignoring me. Everyone moved like they had somewhere better to be. No one slowed. No one asked.

  Then a dwarf sidled up. Short, heavy-set, beard braided with copper rings. Voice high-pitched and raspy.

  “You a coldian?” he asked in Common.

  I looked at him.

  “No.”

  He squinted. Waved dismissively. Wandered off like I was a pothole in his road.

  I gritted my teeth and started walking.

  There had to be another place in this frozen graveyard. A healer. A room. A fire. Something.

  Anything.

  Because Leliana didn’t have much longer.