Sleep had been a shallow, drowning thing. When Antana woke before dawn, she was shivering under three wool blankets, her breath pluming in the stagnant air of her rented room. This was the tax for what she had done on the road; the ice didn't simply leave her veins once the fight was over. Instead, it left a void behind—a deep, marrow-sucking cold that took days to thaw.
She sat up, her joints popping, and looked out the narrow window to see Ela Meda waking up ugly. The city was a sprawling knot of slate roofs and chimneys, huddled against the base of the Iron Cliffs like lichen clinging to rock. Smoke from the foundries was already painting the sky a bruised purple, smelling of sulfur and wet coal. It wasn't a beautiful city, but it was solid—a place of walls, gates, and contracts designed to keep the wild chaos of the east at bay.
Antana swung her legs out of bed onto freezing floorboards and began to dress mechanically. She donned heavy linen tunics, padded trousers, and a leather brigandine she had oiled herself. She strapped her bracers on last; they were scuffed, the silver inlay dull from use, but she didn't bother to polish them. In Ela Meda, shiny armor meant you were either rich or dead.
After grabbing a piece of hard bread from the table and eating it unsoaked, she walked out the door. The streets were already crowded with the morning shift—miners, smiths, and tanners who moved with their heads down and eyes fixed on the cobblestones. Antana moved through them like a ghost. People stepped out of her path, and while they didn't know her name, they recognized her gait—the look of someone who went outside the walls and actually came back.
By the time the heavy oak doors of the Guildhall loomed ahead, the bread was gone, but the cold inside her hadn't budged.
The Guildhall smelled of wet stone, oil, and old steel—a scent Antana welcomed. After the smoke and blood of the road, the heavy familiarity of the place settled her nerves in a way warmth never could. Beneath her boots, the floor was scuffed from decades of blades dragged carelessly, armor dropped after long contracts, and the heavy footfalls of those who had returned breathing when no one expected them to.
She rolled her shoulder as she stepped inside, but the stiffness remained; ice never left a body easily once it had been called in earnest. It lingered in the joints and marrow, a cold reminder of what must be taken from the world to make it obey.
Voices echoed through the hall in a grounded, lively cacophony. Arguments flared near the contract board, laughter rippled from the hearth, and someone swore loudly as a healer reset a dislocated thumb. It was normal. It was good.
Antana crossed the floor toward the counter, her eyes scanning the room with effortless habit. Threat assessment didn't turn off just because the walls were thick stone and the doors reinforced iron. Then, she saw him.
Reinhardt stood near the Tin board—not lingering or lost, but simply present.
He looked different now. The cloak was still there, but it was a dark wool lighter than the travel-stained canvas she'd seen in the firelight. With his hood down, he revealed dark, unkempt hair and a face that looked carved rather than groomed. He appeared to be in his late thirties or early forties, handsome in a way that didn't ask for approval: hard lines, a broken nose that had healed poorly, and faint scars tracing the edges of his jaw and brow.
He was tall—at least a head above the adventurers surrounding him—with broad shoulders draped in layered leather. His was a body built for labor or violence, possessing a certain density that lacked the lean muscle of a duelist or the exaggerated bulk of a show fighter. This was weight earned the long way.
A tin-ranked medallion hung freshly at his collar, and the sight of it made Antana's jaw tighten. Tin.
She moved to the counter where Thesk was sorting parchment with the air of a man trying not to enjoy himself.
"You assigned him?" she asked quietly.
Thesk didn't look up. "I registered him."
"That's not an answer."
He slid a stamped contract aside. "You don't get veto power over new blood."
"I do when new blood vanishes in fire," she countered.
That earned her his attention. Thesk looked at her carefully. "You followed him?"
"I watched him," she corrected. "He killed one of the slavers. Clean. Too clean."
Thesk's mouth twitched. "That's called competence."
"That's called experience."
"Same thing, depending on how poetic you're feeling."
Antana leaned on the counter, her gaze flicking back to Reinhardt. "He says he's a farmer."
Thesk snorted. "They always do."
Across the room, Reinhardt was speaking to a pair of tin-ranked adventurers. Both were younger and armed more for confidence than necessity, gesturing animatedly as they recounted a past contract. Reinhardt listened without interrupting, his arms folded loosely and his expression caught somewhere between polite and entertained. He didn't look like someone trying to belong; he looked like someone waiting.
"What did he test at?" Antana asked.
Thesk sighed. "He didn't. He declined the elemental aptitude test—no affinity, no projection, no resonance. So, he defaults to Tin."
"That's not how it works."
"It is if he doesn't light anything on fire or freeze the floor," Thesk replied mildly. "You want me to invent a rank for 'vaguely unsettling'?"
Antana said nothing. She watched as Reinhardt laughed at something one of the Tins said, a sound that was low, brief, and genuine enough to be disarming. When he shifted his weight, she noticed how balanced he remained—always centered, never sloppy. A sword rested across his back, though not the massive one from the road. This was a simpler blade: long, but not ornate, carried like a tool rather than a symbol.
She didn't like that either.
"Pair him with someone else," she said.
Thesk raised an eyebrow. "Why?"
"Because he's a question."
"Then he's exactly your problem," Thesk said, his tone sharpening. "You don't like unanswered questions, and you don't let them wander."
Antana exhaled through her nose. "He's not my responsibility."
"He is if I say he is. I'm assigning him to your next sweep," Thesk corrected as she began to protest. "You're the only Silver available who won't kill him if he does something stupid."
"That's not reassuring."
"It is for him."
Antana glanced back at Reinhardt, and this time, he noticed. Their eyes met across the hall. She expected curiosity, wariness, or even guilt, but what she saw instead was recognition—not of her face, but of her presence. He acknowledged the way the cold sat around her like an invisible mantle and inclined his head slightly. It wasn't a bow; it was an acknowledgment.
Her fingers twitched. "Fine," she said. "One sweep."
Thesk smiled. "You'll like him."
"I already don't."
She met him near the doors. Reinhardt turned as she approached, his posture relaxed but alert. Up close, the wear in him was more apparent: the way his eyes tracked movement automatically and the way his breathing stayed measured even at rest. He was dangerous, not because he radiated power, but because he didn't.
"You're Antana," he said. "Ice Maiden."
She stopped short. "Don't call me that."
A corner of his mouth lifted. "Not a fan of titles?"
"I earn them," she said. "I don't wear them."
"Fair. I try to avoid them altogether."
She studied him openly. "You're Tin."
"For now."
"That doesn't bother you?"
"No," he replied. "Because ranks measure expectation, and I prefer when people underestimate me."
That was the wrong answer. Antana stepped closer, lowering her voice. "I saw you fight."
Reinhardt didn't flinch. "I saw you freeze a road."
"That cost me," she said.
His gaze sharpened. "I noticed."
"You shouldn't have."
He shrugged. "Hard to miss someone forcing winter to kneel."
A silence stretched between them until she finally broke it. "You're partnered with me. You follow my lead."
"Usually," he said.
Her eyes narrowed. "That's not optional."
Reinhardt considered her for a moment, then nodded. "Understood."
She didn't believe him. "Pack light. We leave at dawn."
"I don't carry much."
"I noticed," she replied.
As she turned toward the stairs, she felt a faint pressure in her chest. It wasn't ice or magic, but something else—the sensation of something watching the world through him. Antana didn't look back, but she knew with the certainty of frost creeping across still water that pairing with Reinhardt was not a coincidence. It was a mistake.