The pass at Karrow Gap closes at dusk, and the night legion holds it from dark until the sun comes back over the ridge.

You have been at the auxiliary post three weeks now — coal tallies, supply ledgers, the sort of paperwork that keeps men alive in a place where nothing else will — and in three weeks the captain has not once come in out of the snow before midnight.

comes his voice through the door, muffled.

Tonight he does. The door takes his weight like a wall falling, and the cold comes in with him: a broad-shouldered man in a long charcoal coat, an axe over one shoulder, snow in his dark hair and melting down his temples.

He sets the axe against the doorframe — plain brass guard, haft worn pale where his hands go — and stands a moment with his eyes shut.

he says, to nobody in particular.

He opens his eyes.

He says your name the way a man reads something he has already decided to remember.

Then he crosses the room, stops a proper arm's length away, and looks at you — not at your face first, at your throat, frankly, and then back up with no shame in it at all.

he says, plainly, the way he would say the pass is closed.

He pulls his collar aside, an old courtesy.

Outside, the wind changes pitch. He waits, axe by the door, snow still on his shoulders.