It took them nineteen days to reach the snow.Ethan spent the first two of them staring at a window. Twelve unspent points hovered in the corner of his sight, patient as a dog at a door, and he turned each one over in his mind like a coin he was afraid to lose. On the third night, with the cart rattling over a frozen road and Bram snoring against a sack of oats, he finally sat up and did what Rhea had taught him.Not what do you want. What do you want to be.He put five into Agility. Three into Perception. Two into Strength. Two into Endurance.[STRENGTH 13. AGILITY 20. PERCEPTION 18. ENDURANCE 18.]The numbers settled. He felt them, as he always did, a quiet shift in the way the world moved around him. His hands closed on the reins with less effort. The wind moved against his face in distinct, readable currents. When he looked at a bird a hundred paces off, he could see the pale line of each feather."Better?" Rhea asked from the dark."Yes.""Good." She yawned. "Try not to cut yours

The invitation arrived the next morning on cream paper, sealed in silver wax.The House of Ward requests the pleasure of the company of Lord Edric Thornwick and his entrant at the Welcome of the Trials, in the Great Hall of the Citadel, at the seventh bell."Pleasure," said Edric, reading it aloud from his chair. He dropped the paper on the rug. "A pleasure is what they call a trap when the trap has a good cook.""We could decline," said Ethan."We could not. The Welcome is the one night all the Houses sit under the same roof. If we don't come, it says we're afraid. If we do, it says nothing at all." He grinned, showing three missing teeth. "I enjoy saying nothing. It annoys people."So at the seventh bell Ethan climbed the long stone stair to the Ward Citadel in a coat he'd never worn and a collar that scratched his neck. Edric leaned on his cane beside him, wheezing with each step. Bram followed three paces behind in a clean tunic, shield left at the inn, his battered face set in th

The Lake of Ward was a quarter mile of black ice under a white sky, and twenty thousand people had come to watch it kill someone.They lined the shore in banks of fur and wool, shoulder to shoulder, stamping their boots against the cold. Vendors sold hot cider from copper urns. Children sat on their fathers' shoulders. At the north end, a stand of blue-and-silver pavilions held the great Houses, their banners snapping in the wind. And in the middle of the lake, on a low rock island rising out of the ice, stood a single tall pole with a white flag on top. The Ward Standard."The rules are simple," said the Marshal, a heavy man in a fur cloak, from a wooden platform at the shore. His voice was big enough to carry. "Twenty-two entrants. One standard. The first to lay a hand on it wins the round and the purse. Any who fall through the ice are out. Any who are struck down are out. The host House's champion is seeded to the second round by ancient right." He raised his hand. "Let the ice be