Matrin didn't sleep that afternoon. He tried—lying on the lodge bed, staring at the wooden ceiling while the fire from the small heater cracked softly—but his mind refused to settle. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw Elara standing on the glacier, unmoving. Watching him. Then vanishing like breath into winter air.
And that voice.
Matrin…
Barely a whisper, yet lodged in him like a hooked thread.
By late afternoon, he couldn't take the stillness anymore. He needed answers—not because he was frightened, though he was, but because he felt pulled. Drawn. As if an invisible current beneath the ice had wrapped around him and begun pulling him toward something ancient.
He left the room and walked down the stairs.
The lobby was nearly empty now. The two locals were gone. The fire had dimmed to soft embers. Through the window, the sun hung low an orange circle half-swallowed by the horizon, casting long shadows across the snow.
Behind the desk stood the tall man from earlier. He was flipping through a large ledger, frowning as if the numbers had wronged him. When Matrin approached, the man looked up.
"You're Black, right?" the man asked. His voice was deep, steady, and blunt. "The photographer."
"Yes," Matrin said.
"Name's Rowan." He extended a hand. "I help around the lodge. Fix things. Drive supplies. That sort of work."
Matrin shook it. Rowan's grip was strong, the kind belonging to someone who had spent half his life wrestling with cold metal tools.
"You were with Elara earlier," Matrin said carefully. "Is she back?"
Rowan's expression tightened barely, but Matrin noticed. "Not yet."
"Does she usually go out alone?"
"Sometimes." Rowan shut the ledger with a firm thump. "She knows these lands better than anyone. But storms are unpredictable this week."
Matrin hesitated. "I thought she was helping with the truck."
"She was," Rowan said. "For a bit. But she wandered off."
"Wandered off?" Matrin echoed.
Rowan's jaw twitched either irritation or worry. It was hard to tell. "She does that sometimes. Goes quiet. Off into the snow. Comes back when she's ready."
Something about his tone made Matrin lean closer.
"Who is she?" he asked softly.
Rowan's eyes flicked sharply toward him. "A woman who likes her privacy."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the only one you're getting."
Rowan's tone wasn't unfriendly. Just final. Like a man closing a door gently but firmly. Yet beneath it, Matrin sensed something else a kind of guardedness. As if Rowan wasn't protecting Elara's story out of loyalty, but out of caution.
As if her truth wasn't safe to touch.
Matrin opened his mouth to press further—but the lodge door swung open, letting in a sharp gust of winter air.
Elara stepped inside.
Snow clung to her coat and hair. Her cheeks were flushed from the cold. And when she saw Matrin, something flickered across her face an emotion he couldn't name. Not surprise. Not annoyance. Something more fragile.
Something she tried to hide.
"You're back," Rowan said, relief softening his tone.
"Yes," Elara answered. She brushed snow from her sleeves. "The storm is forming faster than expected. We need to secure the outer sheds before the wind picks up."
Rowan nodded and hurried outside, leaving the two of them alone in the quiet lodge.
Elara's gaze moved to Matrin. "You've had an… eventful morning."
He straightened. "You knew I'd see something."
She looked at him for a long moment, eyes shadowed.
"The North reveals itself to those who carry burdens," she said softly. "You're not the first traveler to glimpse something they cannot explain."
"That wasn't a glimpse," he said. "I saw you."
Her expression didn't crack, but her breath caught slightly. A tiny, almost imperceptible inhale.
"You were too far away to reach in time," he said. "And then you disappeared."
"Snow and light can play tricks."
"That wasn't a trick."
She tensed but only for a fraction of a second. "You shouldn't go on the glacier alone when the wind begins to change. It confuses sound. Distorts shapes."
"And calls out names?" he asked.
The question stilled her. Completely.
Her eyes lifted to his, and for once, her mask slipped.
"What else did you hear?"
"Matrin," he whispered. "In your voice."
Something inside her cracked open so quietly that he almost didn't notice. But the change was real. The air seemed to thicken around them.
She walked past him, moving toward the fireplace, her fingers brushing the old stones as if grounding herself.
"When you came to the North," she said gently, "what were you hoping to find?"
The question cut through him. Personal. Too direct.
"I didn't come for anything in particular," he lied.
"Elara didn't turn. "That isn't true."
He closed his eyes. He hated how easily she saw through him. How naked her questions made him feel.
"People come here for peace," she continued. "Or escape. Or forgiveness. Or because something inside them is breaking and they don't know how to fix it."
Matrin inhaled slowly. "Which one do you think I am?"
"Maybe all of them."
He swallowed.
"What about you?" he asked. "Why are you here?"
Elara went still again but this time, the stillness wasn't defensive. It was heavy. Laden with something ancient and sorrowful.
She turned to face him.
"I'm here," she said quietly, "because the North hasn't let me leave."
Matrin felt the temperature shift not in the room, but inside himself. A cold realization curled through him.
"What does that mean?" he whispered.
But she didn't answer. Instead, she walked past him toward the staircase.
"I need to change out of these clothes," she murmured. "Dinner is served in an hour. Stay inside until then the wind is rising."
She moved up the steps with an almost ghostly grace. Matrin stared after her, heart pounding.
He knew one thing:
She was lying.
Not out of deceit.
But out of necessity.
Dinner at the lodge was quiet. Rowan returned late, dusted with snow, muttering about broken hinges and drifting ice. Elara sat at the far end of the long wooden table, her posture straight, her expression unreadable. A soft lantern glowed beside her, illuminating her auburn hair.
Matrin sat across from her, aware of her with every breath he took. But neither spoke during the meal. The silence was not awkward; it was charged. Alive. Like two storms circling each other.
Afterward, Rowan excused himself. The locals left too. And soon the lobby emptied again.
Only Elara and Matrin remained.
She stood near the window, gazing out at the deepening storm. The wind howled now, swirling the snow into pale spirals.
"Why do you look at the snow like that?" Matrin asked softly.
She didn't turn. "Because I'm listening."
"To what?"
"To the ice." She paused. "It remembers more than people do."
Matrin moved a step closer. "Elara… what did you mean earlier when you said the North hasn't let you leave?"
She closed her eyes.
A long moment passed.
Then she whispered, "I shouldn't tell you."
"Why?"
"Because the more you know, the harder it becomes to walk away."
He hesitated. "What if I don't want to walk away?"
A sharp breath escaped her quiet but raw. She turned and looked at him, really looked, as if trying to decide whether he was a man or a mistake.
"You don't understand what you're saying."
"Then help me."
Her eyes glistened not with tears, but with emotion she'd kept locked deep. "You felt something on the glacier," she said. "Something that shouldn't exist."
"Yes."
"That voice you heard…" She stopped, bracing herself. "It wasn't mine."
Matrin's chest tightened. "But it sounded"
"Snow echoes," she whispered. "Ice carries memories. Footsteps. Names. Even voices of those who never returned."
His stomach dropped. "Never returned?"
Elara stepped closer until the space between them was only a few inches. He could see the storm reflected in her eyes.
"Matrin," she said, her voice trembling for the first time, "the North doesn't just show visions. It tests the hearts of those who enter it."
"And what is it testing in me?"
She shook her head once, painfully. "Whether you can save someone you were never meant to meet."
The words struck him like cold lightning.
"Save who?" he demanded.
She looked at him and in her eyes, he saw a truth she had been terrified to reveal.
"Me," she whispered.
The storm outside roared like a living thing.
And Matrin understood one thing with absolute clarity:
This woman this impossible, mysterious woman was trapped in something far deeper than winter.
And the North was not finished with either of them.