"The captain," Cinder said softly, breaking a four-hour silence. "His name is Miller. Captain John Miller."
Noah stopped honing his blade. He didn't look up, but his posture stiffened. "Why are you telling me this?"
"Because you want to kill him," Cinder said, her voice remarkably steady. "And because I want you to."
Noah slowly raised his head, his dark eyes locking onto hers. He saw a hardness in her that hadn't been there before. The girl who had cried under the tree was gone; the winter had frozen something soft inside her and left iron behind.
"He was the one who promised me no one would be hurt," Cinder continued, her hands balled into fists on her lap. "He was the one who tied the knot around my neck. He told me that loving an Indian was a sin against God, and that the cold would purify me."
Noah set his knife down. "Miller is stationed at the fort, three days ride from here. He has sixty men."
"He doesn't have them all," Cinder said. She moved to the window, rubbing a small circle of frost away to look out at the moonlit snow. "When they left me at the tree, they said they were going to hunt the remaining camps in the ridge. They are out here, Noah. And when the snow stops... they will come back to check my body."
Noah stood up, walking to the window to stand beside her. He looked out at the pristine, untouched white wilderness. "When they find the ropes cut, they will know you didn't escape alone. They will track us."
"Can they find this place?"
Noah looked down at her. "There is a tracker with them. A man named Silas. He knows these woods almost as well as I do. If the snow stops masking our tracks... yes. They will find us."
The cabin, once a sanctuary, suddenly felt like a trap. Noah moved to the heavy wooden chest at the foot of his bed. He opened it, pulling out a heavy, lever-action repeater rifle and a bandolier of thick brass cartridges.
He threw a smaller, bolt-action rifle onto the cot next to Cinder.
"Do you know how to fire?" he asked.
Cinder looked at the weapon, then at Noah. "Elias taught me."
Noah flinched slightly at the name, but he nodded. "Good. Because tomorrow, the storm breaks. And when it does, the hunt begins."
Dawn broke with a terrifying, crystal-clear blue sky. The wind had vanished, leaving a dead, echoing silence over the mountain. The air was so cold it burned the lungs, but the sun shone brightly off the unbroken powder.
Noah and Cinder were ready. They hadn't slept. Noah had positioned Cinder inside the cabin, near the slightly cracked window, giving her a clear line of sight down the narrow ravine that served as the only approach to the hideout. Noah himself was outside, camouflaged entirely in white furs, buried in a snowbank fifty yards down the trail.
They waited for three agonizing hours. The only sound was the drip of melting ice near the chimney.
Then, Cinder saw it.
A flash of dark blue fabric against the white. Soldiers. There were five of them, moving slowly, cautiously trudging through the deep snow. At their lead was Silas, the tracker, reading the faint disturbances in the snow that Noah had purposely left to draw them into the kill zone. And behind Silas, wearing a heavy officer's coat, was Captain Miller.
Cinder’s heart hammered against her ribs. She gripped the wooden stock of the rifle, her palms sweating despite the freezing temperature. She lined up the iron sights, her finger resting gently on the trigger, breathing exactly as Elias had taught her.