Chapter 54

The night was still. The winds that had been beaten with such violence when the ice-locked mountains to the south had fallen at about sunset to an uneasy murmur in the dark pines that filled the twisting vale of Medieval.

By midnight, even that had ceased.

The green branches hung motionless from one end of the vale to the other, slowly furring with the frost in the deepening cold.

A man's breath, barely visible in the soulless glimmer of the few remote and haughty stars.

It hangs like a diamond cloud over his face or freezes in white hoarfrost on his lips.

In that piercing cold, not even the wolves, or any other snow animal, were abroad.

Silence ran from cliff to lightless cliff, an almost tangible property in that frozen, calm, and peaceful environment.

Nonetheless, beneath the dark knight, under the moon and glittering stars, stood Rey.

His head hung down, while there was a little fire burning in his hand.

Without being to