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Onja dreamed of hot breath and huge, careful teeth on the scruff of her neck, of snow gliding past beneath her. Her psychopomp limped on three legs, a frostbit stub pulled up to his chest. There were hands under her back, along her face, something hot forced down her throat. Muffled voices, shifting silhouettes. Blackness. Starless night.

"Skylark."

A padded hand stroked her forehead, and she stirred. Her lids opened like iron doors. She lay buried under furs, naked from the waist up, in a blue stone room lit by a single crackling hearth. Eli sat next to her, relief writ on her face, along with a deeper concern.

"Where...?" her voice rasped from her throat.

"Sjarkivsk. It's been a day and half. The village Astor did what he could, and we rode home as quickly as our hounds would carry us."

Hounds. "Luto." She tried to bolt up, but a trellis of pain along her shoulders chained her to her place. Elitsja guided her back down, shushing her.

"Luto is here. He won't ride again, not on the hunt. But he will live."

As her eye adjusted, she took in the room. Her gambeson slumped in a corner, a ladder of gashes soaked through with dried blood. To her surprise, her longsword propped up next to it; Eli must have gone back out for it. A table by the bedside sported a scalpel and a shallow dish filled with scraps of fur and peels of frostbit skin. Elitsja followed her gaze.

"The hoarfrost bit deep." Her thumb moved to Onja's cheek. "The surgeon saved your eye, but... it won't see again, Onja. I'm sorry."

Her throat dropped to her stomach. "Eli, tell me they'll let me hunt again." Her friend withdrew her hand, folding both in her lap. "Eli, please. I slew it alone. I can still hunt."

"The trine needs to be able to rely on each other." Her voice came as whisper. "To trust they have each other's backs. Even if it weren't for your injury..."

"Vitak reported it, didn't he?" she sat up, defying the screaming pain flaring along her back. "Did he tell them his part? Did he tell them I fucking did it?"

"I gave the report, Onja. And I told the Zkietsiy everything. How you let pride get in the way of your comrades. How you risked your life and ours to fuel your ego." Her grim eyes floated back up to Onja's face. "After you recover, I recommended you be released. That you not be made Zkietsa."

The room shrank. A dagger shot through her heart as the weight of Elitsja's words hit her.

"No." She shook her head, tears brimming. The brine stung her wound. Six years training side-by-side. Two hunting the same snows. "You were my kin. We swore."

"You'll keep your blade. And Luto." Elitsja plowed on, her own voice trembling. "I did what I'm meant to, skylark."

"Don't you ever fucking call me that again." She found her growl buried in her chest and glowered into Elitsja's distant green eyes. "Don't dare speak to me again about what you're meant to do. Go crawl back into Vitak's lap and choke your traitor mouth on his cock."

"He went back for your sword!" Elitsja rose, fists trembling. "He carried you in. He knew what he did!"

"And will he hunt?"

The silence answered for her.

"Stars burn him." She growled. "Stars burn you both."

Elitsja turned away, ears back, tail low. Her hand lingered for but a moment on the door. "I'm sorry, sister."

Onja held the sob in her chest until the footsteps tapered off. It racked her like a volley. She buried her face in her hands, flinching at the sting of paw pads on tender flesh. Bare, raw up to the ear. Out of the narrow lattice window, the cloaked figure of her former friend galloped down the warm, narrow streets of the capitol. She damned Elitsja anew with each heaving breath as she disappeared into the night.

She should have died in the woods, next to her prey, under the stars. She should have died Ser Onja. Now there was no end of which she was worthy.

Now she was no-one.