Hemlock's Wisdom

The biting wind whipped at James’s coat, a familiar sting that did little to cool the fire in his gut. He’d followed the thread, thin as a spider’s silk, to this desolate corner of the world, a place where the mountains gnawed at the sky and the snow lay thick and undisturbed, a pristine shroud over forgotten secrets. Old Man Hemlock’s cabin was a wisp of smoke against the vast, indifferent white, a solitary beacon in a sea of frozen silence.

He’d been warned. Hemlock was a creature of the shadows, a keeper of whispers, a man who dealt in truths that could break a soul. But James was beyond breaking. Twenty-four years of an ache that had hollowed him out, of a ghost that walked beside him in every transaction, every negotiation, every kill. Anya. Her name was a prayer and a curse on his lips.

The door creaked open before he even knocked, revealing a figure hunched against the meager light spilling from within. Hemlock was ancient, his face a roadmap of wrinkles etched by time and something far deeper, far colder. His eyes, though, were sharp, like chips of obsidian, missing nothing.