Four weeks passed, and Grimridge learned a new rhythm.
Winter did not arrive all at once. It crept down from the higher ridge in pale mornings and harder ground, in breath turning white in the training yard and the first thin ice gathering at the edges of water barrels before sunrise. The pack house smelled different too. Less rain. More smoke, wool, leather, and the rich, practical scents of stored food and bodies living closer to warmth.
Sable changed with it.
