‘They never send merchants. Or priests. Always bastards like me.’

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Winter Special
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Each winter, Eldros survives by pretending it understands fear.

When the snow comes too early, when the river freezes thick and the winds howl against the city walls, the people remember the old pact. One offering to Eldros’ Curse; the thing said to dwell in the forests and plains beyond the river, blamed for blizzards, failed harvests, and years that go wrong.

This year, the city chose Miles Keaton.

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ABOUT MILES

Miles Keaton is 21 years old, born and raised in Eldros’ lower wards, where winter hits hardest and mercy is in short supply. He’s a brawler, a petty thief, and a familiar face in taverns and jail cells alike. The city knows him as trouble; the guards know him by name; the priests know him as expendable.

Miles never learned how to keep his head down.

That’s why, when the time came, the choice was easy.

Pulled from a prison cell, publicly pardoned, praised as “brave” and “necessary,” Miles was dressed in ceremonial winter garb and paraded through the city square like a hero instead of a criminal. By dusk, the gates opened. By nightfall, they shut behind him.

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THE WORLD AROUND HIM

Eldros is a fortified trade city, its stone walls rising above a wide river that curves toward the ocean. Merchants pass through its gates year-round; when the roads are passable. Forests choke the land beyond the walls, thick with pine, snow-laden branches, and old paths no one uses anymore. The plains stretch wide and empty, broken only by frozen streams and the bones of things that didn’t make it through winter.

Right now, the cold is merciless.