Tales of Veldrith
Book 7: Beneath the Winter Veil
Episode 67: Accusation and Escape
Branded guilty before the truth can be spoken, Vestinus becomes the hunted. With Jorvik’s horns calling for blood and Sigvard’s men scouring the forests, he and Eira must vanish into the snow or die branded as traitors. But a single shard of poisoned resin—black as the blood that stained the Jarl’s body—offers the first fragile hint of a larger conspiracy. Survival is no longer enough. To clear Vestinus’s name, they must uncover the assassin’s trail before the hunters close in.
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Episode 67/Book 7, Chapter 2: Accusation and Escape
Snow whipped across the yard as the alarm spread through Jorvik. Horns blew from the watchtowers, their harsh calls echoing into the forest. The sound was not only a warning—it was a hunt beginning.
Vestinus and Eira ran through drifts knee-deep, the side gate snapping shut behind them. Torches bobbed back at the palisade as warriors fanned out, Sigvard’s voice booming orders over the din.
“Search the woods! Bring me the Fallen alive!”
Eira’s breath tore in her chest, each inhale burning from the cold. “He’s calling for you by name,” she said, forcing the words out.
“No surprise,” Vestinus answered. His long strides chewed through the snow, horns catching the moonlight like twin blades. “A horned shadow kills the Jarl, and I’m the only one here who fits the story.”
“They’ll never listen,” Eira said. She cast a glance back—the flicker of torches already spilling into the trees. “Prejudice runs deeper than proof.”
“Which is why we stay ahead.”
They cut across a frozen stream, ice groaning beneath their boots. The forest swallowed them, tall pines draped in white, shadows long and silent. Only their breathing and the distant horns broke the stillness.
By the time they slowed, the lights of Jorvik were gone, hidden behind the rise of the land and the thick press of trees. Eira bent, hands on her knees, fighting to steady her breath. Vestinus scanned the forest, every muscle taut.
“There’s a cabin,” he said at last, nodding west. “Old forester’s hut. I passed it last autumn. Half-collapsed, but dry enough.”
“Good,” Eira said. “We’ll need more than trees between us and Sigvard’s trackers.”
The walk was hard, snow catching at their legs, wind slicing through cloaks and armor. The forest seemed too quiet, as if even the night itself held its breath. Finally, through a gap in the trees, the shape of a sagging roof came into view.
The cabin leaned on one side, its logs dark with age. The door hung loose on leather hinges. Vestinus pushed inside first, checking the shadows, then waved Eira through. The air was stale but still. A broken hearth squatted in one corner, a scattering of straw on the floor.
Eira pulled her cloak tighter and sat near the wall. “We can’t stay long. Once Sigvard knows the forest hasn’t given you up, he’ll press harder.”
Vestinus crouched by the hearth, pulling a strip of resin from the pouch she had tucked away earlier. He held it up between his fingers. “Night-ink binder. You were right to pocket it. Ethon’s toolmakers use this poison in war assassinations. It turns the blood black so the target’s death frightens everyone who sees it.”
Eira frowned. “So whoever killed the Jarl wanted a spectacle. They wanted witnesses.”
“And they wanted me blamed for it,” Vestinus said, voice flat. He turned the shard over once before setting it down carefully. His golden eyes met hers. “That means this wasn’t just a killing. It was a message.”
Back in Jorvik, Sigvard’s men were already marching in pairs into the woods, spears tipped with iron and torches high. Sigvard walked at their head, face hard, grief buried under the weight of command.
“We track until dawn,” he told them. “He doesn’t leave these woods. Not alive.”
But even as he said it, a doubt flickered in his chest. He had known Vestinus in battle, had seen him bleed for Jorvik. And yet—the image of the Jarl’s body, blackened blood on snow, and the sight of horns in the dark—it was too much to ignore.
Duty demanded vengeance. But in the hollow of his chest, doubt whispered.
In the cabin, Vestinus and Eira listened to the distant horns echo through the trees. Between them sat the poisoned shard, a clue pointing toward Ethon, and perhaps toward something far larger.
“They’ll be on us soon,” Eira said quietly.
“Let them come,” Vestinus answered. “If we survive tonight, we start hunting the real killer.”
The wind howled outside, carrying the sound of pursuit. The hunt had begun in earnest.