Ilya Cuervanegra

In the frozen lands of the north the rivers do not run. They stay still and white, waiting for a spring that never comes.

Ilya was born there, in a cabin buried in snow up to the roof.

Her mother put a bow in her hands before she learned to talk. In the north there is not much else to do. You hunt, or you are hunted.

Ilya never knew what cold was. She walked barefoot on the ice. She slept with the window open. The village elders said she had been born with winter inside her.

They were right.

Her arrows leave the string warm and arrive frozen. Where they strike, the frost spreads like a white spider web. The bears of the north learned to fear her. So did the wolves.

One day a black bird landed on her window, small and very bad-tempered.

It was Morrigan.

She told her that in the south there was a Flock. That they fought things far worse than wolves. And that a certain Mara was taking all the glory.

Morrigan had no intention of allowing it.

Ilya asked whether it was cold in the south.

Morrigan said no.

Ilya took the bow anyway.

Now she hunts for the Flock. She talks little, aims a lot and almost never misses.

And when someone asks her if she is not cold, she smiles.

She carries the cold herself.