Chapter 32: The Winter Walk

We left Greyhaven's gate on foot at first light, and the whole market came out to watch.

The law says the winter walk is made on foot.

Two hundred Hollin voices saw us off from the flat below the walls, and Nessa shouted something about the pepper pie that I chose not to hear.

The road to the Hall climbed a ridge and ran along the top of it, white and hard under our boots.

Joss walked on my left with his hands in his coat, and he had not said anything for a mile.

"You're quiet," I said.

"I'm afraid you'll change your mind."

"I wrote my name on the board."

"You wrote your name, and you left the line beside it empty."

"That was for you to fill."

"I know that now," he said. "I didn't know it at dinner. I spent a whole sleepless night believing I'd read it wrong."

I laughed, and my breath went up in a cloud.

The ice had hidden a rut under the snow.

My boot went into it, and my ankle turned, and I stumbled hard against his arm.

I made a small noise, and I did not mean to.

Joss stopped.

"Are you hurt?" he said.

"It's nothing."

He did not take that for an answer.

"Is it nothing?"

I looked at him.

He stood with his hand on my elbow and his blue eyes steady, and he waited.

He did not look ahead at the road, or behind at the market, or off at the hills.

He looked at me, and he waited for the answer.

"No," I said, and my voice shook a little. "It's my ankle. It hurts."

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