It was still early in the morning when Ivan and Nikolai left the inn. The sky was just beginning to turn from black to grey, and the air was so cold that their breath turned into mist with every word they spoke. A bitter wind howled through the empty streets like a warning, rattling loose shutters and whistling through cracks in the stone walls. Snowflakes danced in the air, soft but relentless, clinging to their coats and eyebrows.
The silence between them was thick, but it wasn't peaceful. It was heavy, almost suffocating, like the air before a storm. The kind of silence that meant something was breaking inside someone, even if they didn't say a word.
Ivan barely said a word, though. He mounted his horse without looking back, his jaw tight, his eyes empty. His gloves creaked as he gripped the reins too hard, his knuckles pale beneath the leather. All that mattered was getting to Svetlana.
