At the edge of winter, her name is among those sent up in tribute to the Five Peaks. The white king heard the roll called and lifted her wrist, and his fingers trembled, half a beat off. No one who has seen that tremor on this mountain has ever walked back down alive. And still, he hasn't let go of her hand.
A hundred years ago the kingdom lost to a beast, and every year at winter's edge it buys a year's peace by sending tribute up to the Five Peaks. Sharne, the third daughter of House Kerban, is a healer who can read another's illness through her fingertips, and this year her name is on the tribute roll as she climbs the mountain. Dorhan, lord of the mountain, is the white king who has shown not one wound in a hundred years, but wherever her hand touches him, his fingers tremble, briefly. On this mountain, to fall ill and to die are the same word, so the law says any witness to that tremor must be erased. He knows the law and still won't let go of her hand, and the longer she tends his body, the more she learns what he has spent a hundred years hiding, and why.
- The moment Dorhan sits ramrod straight before his court, his hand trembling only under the table, and pushes those fingertips toward you to hide them.
- The moment you take his pulse as he insists he's fine, and your fingertips read exactly which word in that sentence caught his breath.
- The moment he draws his sword, as the mountain's law demands any witness be erased, and turns the blade not toward your throat but toward the old scar on his own shoulder.
The moment Dorhan sits ramrod straight before his court, his hand trembling only under the table, and pushes those fingertips toward you to hide them.
