Thorns in the Market Snow
Thorns in the Market Snow Snow fell the way it did in Deepwinter: not in fat, cheerful clumps, but in thin, patient flakes that sifted down and found every seam in a cloak. Cobblecrest’s market square should have been loud with Midwinter preparations, with vendors shouting over one another and children daring each other to lick ice off the frozen well stones. Instead, the square breathed like someone trying not to wake a sleeping beast. Brazier fires glowed like small, stubborn suns. Their heat didn’t travel far, but it was enough to thaw the air into the smell of smoke and roasting nuts, enough to turn breath into ghosts that drifted away between canvas-roofed stalls. A cart of turnips sat half-buried in snow. A fishmonger had his hands tucked into his armpits, staring at his own stall as if it belonged to someone else. Kemi Olatunji moved through it all like she belonged to the cracks and corners of the village. Her patched clothes, dyed bright indigo and orange, were the only ...