The snow-laden landscape hasn't changed much since the last time Mersem was here.

The thin line of what's supposed to be the civilized part of the town, Falkmena, crept into the horizon, shaded by a row of sarfire trees. Snow coated the trees' dark green leaves. It's a miracle they could still splay out the way they did. Their dark trunks were darker than ever.

Mersem sniffed against the cloth tied behind his head, covering his nose. The musty smell of his own cooped-up breath and the musk of wet leather assaulted his senses that he had to stop and hunker down to cough and gag, almost dropping his stack of premi branches.

"Seriously, you're gross," Silke, his sister and greatest bully, said from somewhere behind him. He straightened and turned just as when she caught up to him.

"Say that to me again when you can match my stride without me having to stop and wait for you," Mersem rolled his eyes, his voice muffled by the cloth coming out less stingier than he intended. Damn these mask-cloths. If his nose and lips could endure the cold without melting off, he would've opted without it a long time ago. "Seriously, I could get mauled over by a cossum by waiting for you so much."

Silke clicked her tongue, annoyance flickering in her expression. "Seriously, I would let you, given how annoying you are," she said. "Hurry up. The village is nearby."

Mersem resisted the urge to roll his eyes considering his sister was known to tackle him to the ground if he pushed her too much. It wasn't a pleasant experience but it sure was formative.

She passed him by as she trudged against the ankle-length layer of snow which had fallen the night before. He picked his stack of firewood bound by twine woven by Silke, herself, and propped it back against his shoulder. His boots had long ago absorbed the water from the snow so it's going to take a long, long time before they dry out. Father's going to scold him again for spending too much time in the wild.

And for what? Collecting timber? A mock rendition of his father's voice played in his head. You know better than that. What did I say? Step back out and step back in, quickly.

Mersem snorted, which earned him a disgruntled look from Silke along with a muttered, "you're so weird". He tucked his timber stack closer to his neck, hoping the damp wood could provide his skin some warmth. The red-and-brown patterned scarf slung around his neck was barely doing him any good.

Well, whatever, Father, he thought back to his intrusive thoughts taking the form of his father's voice. Premi trees aren't by the forest's lip but in the freaking heart of it.

It was a big deal among timber-gatherers—premi trees. With the only species of tree whose wood could burn the entire night and still have enough left for morning tea, it has become a blockbuster in the Capital cities. Demand rose and along with it, the price for one stack of these bad boys. The Wess family, who owned one of the largest timber shops in Falkmena, needed to get there first to secure some sort of monopoly over Premi trees.

That's what got Mersem and Silke out in the woods, amidst a light snowfall earlier in the morning, and now trudging on the snow-crusted plain with damp feet.

"Ugh. This damned snow," Silke groaned and pulled the hood of her fur clock lower as some bits of snow attempted to poke her in the eyes. "I'm so sick of this cold."

Mersem whistled to the twittering birds flitting from tree to tree, shaking the snow and some icicles bunching on leaves and branches off. "Well, joke's on you. It's here to stay," he said.

"Don't remind me," she snapped. "Stop being a butt and walk faster. Father doesn't want us out for too long."

You don't have to tell me twice, little sister. Mersem thought. He swallowed it as a loud reply considering Silke abhors being called "little sister". In fact, now that he thought about it, Silke hated a lot of things he had been losing count of.

After meters of slogging through snow and cursing the cold, they reached the rim of the town. Houses made from wooden planks nailed together to form some kind of cubical room rose from the ground and towered over Mersem as he passed by them. People dressed in an all-too-familiar fur cloak with gods-knew how many layers underneath zipped here and there, each lost to their own business. Horrida, a species of moose native to the North where Falkmena was, brayed and groaned as their owners made them pull sleds and carts full of either more stacks of timber or folds upon folds of raw hide or spun textile.

Mersem swerved out of the way when two men carrying a fallen log on their shoulders met them head-on. Judging from the direction they came from, they were perhaps from the Northern port of the Capital city, Karith. That log looked like it had been used as a mast for one of the fishing vessels.

Fendugin, with flippers tucked so close to their oval-shaped, stout bodies, shuffled about, honking at random people they passed by. Gray-feathered chicks who still have yet to molt, followed in tidy lines behind their larger and more brightly-colored parents.

Silke's face scrunched in obvious disgust on the passing birds. Their onyx beaks and dark, beady eyes had been the bane of her existence since she was six. Oh, the memory engraved in Mersem's mind of his sister falling to her face on the snow after pissing a bunch of fendugin would be something he'd go back to every time he felt terrible. What a model brother he was.

After a bunch of houses and familiar roads later, the sign spelling Vordan's Timber Shop in the Amfari script flashed into Mersem's periphery. Ah, finally—home.

Silke must have thought the same since she shifted her stack of branches against her shoulder and her steps gained more bounce. Once they reached the rotting fence guarding the entrance to the back where their cabin started and the shop ended, Mersem dumped the stack near the hearth where Father sat, stoking the bright flames with a metal prod.

"You're out long enough," he didn't even turn to them and just continued stoking the fire. "The morning customers wiped everything out."

Mersem blew a breath, removing the cloth covering the lower half of his face. He tucked it into the inside of his second coat. Silke groaned as she stretched and moved her hips here and there, trying to dislodge the cold gripping her joints. He would have done the same if not for the thick cloak bearing down his shoulders.

"Don't venture out deep into the woods, you two," their father added from the hearth just as Mersem was about to enter the cabin and hopefully dry his feet. He looked back just in time to see his father thumbing the branches they collected. "You don't need to bring back premi every time. Even sarfire could do. Or just about any wood. These fools wouldn't be able to tell the difference anyway."

Mersem snorted. "Father, if we're to do business, integrity is essential!" he said. "Is cheating what you want Silke to learn growing up? She's still a baby so she's still easily influenced."

"I can't believe you just managed to insult both me and Father with that mouth of yours," Silke massaged her temples and pushed past Mersem, disappearing inside the house first.

For an answer to Mersem's sentiment, Father just grunted and soon, only the sounds of metal hitting firewood and the crackle of flames devouring them rang in calming waves.

Well, that's it, then. With Father not much of a talker, it seemed like Mersem and Silke found a way to develop tongues faster than a stampeding porae. Mersem wasn't about to complain about that, either. His mouth was what got him out of a lot of trouble even if it's the same one that threw him in them in the first place.

Silke beat him to the cushioned chair decorated with cossum hide and claws reportedly killed by their father for one of the richer nobles in Tiorsia. As children, Mersem had made it a contest between him and Silke to beat each other in sitting in the comfy chair and Silke gobbled it up and actually believed sitting in it was comfortable.

Joke's on her, though. Mersem could never stand more than one hour in that hideous chair. Besides, if he imagined cossum guts sinking into his butt, it's usually enough to turn his desire to even attempt to sit in it. Silke could have the proof of animal violence to herself. No, thank you.

Mersem stalked towards what's supposed to be the kitchen but was actually an extension shed hammered against the side of their cabin, giving it a disproportional look and probably angered the neighbor for coming so close to their property. The strips of meat hung out to dry waved at him as he stalked towards the shelves where they keep the spice jars. Now's a good time for some warm qiorfe chocolate drink.

"Yo, Mers!" a familiar voice rang from behind Mersem. He turned to come face-to-face with Haeral Tora with Chenric Vaxor a few steps behind him.

"Stop calling me that," Mersem replied, fanning the flames in the metal stove fed with coal just to heat the water placed in a kettle.

Haeral snorted and drove his blond hair off his forehead. "What? Silke said you love it."

Mersem blew a short gust of breath from his nose. It came out frosty. "Don't ever believe anything out of Silke's mouth pertaining to the things I love."

"Oh, like Leara Madris?" Chenric propped himself against the rickety fence Father put a long time ago.

Mersem paused, his fingers hovering over the porcelain mug he had scooped three teaspoons of ground qiorfe seeds into. Heat flooded his face and even burned his ears. "T-that...that's true, at the very least."

Haeral and Chenric ooooh-ed and slapped each other's palms in a conspiratorial gesture. "You sure aim high, man," Haeral said, jumping over the fence in one fluid motion. His orange hair flopped against his unusually large head as he did. "Not a lot of us could even look at the Lady Knight in the eye much less idolize a life with her. You really are something."

"If you're talking about my brother's hopeless romantic fantasy with Miss Madris the Great, then you're right in that regard," Silke strode out into the kitchen with a manic grin on her face. "He's really something."

Mersem rubbed his reddening ears to at least mask it and maintain what's left of his dignity around his sister and his friends. "What are you doing here, Silke? Go and enjoy the cossum chair like you wanted."

A loud snort erupted from Chenric's nose. "You have a cossum chair?"

Mersem jerked his chin in the vague direction inside the cabin. "Yeah. Silke loved sitting in its guts," he said, pouring the newly-heated water into his mug before stirring his drink with a wooden spoon.

"Shut up, Wuss," Silke snapped, bringing out the well-known insult to the Wess family. A half-witted wordplay—from Wess to Wuss—but that's all there was to it.

Mermsem snickered at the irony of Silke saying it to him. "You're a Wuss too," he said. "Don't you forget that."

Silke stuck out her tongue to which Mersem stuck the lukewarm spoon from his drink. The girl sputtered while spouting a string of muffled curses as she swiped at her scalded tongue. "Gross! What the heck?!" she yelled at exactly no one.

Mersem turned to his two friends and raised his eyebrows. "So? What brings you here?"

Haeral elbowed Chenric who leaped over the fence to join them. "We've got a crazy plan," the dark-haired boy grinned and rubbed his gloved hands. "Something that could get us a lifetime of burams."

Mersem sipped from his drink, his tongue bathing in the warm and savory taste of the chocolate. "Go on," he said. "Although, from the way you worded it, it might just be a bag of kari. Coin burams."

Haeral gasped, imitating taking offense by putting a hand to his chest. "This is the heist of a lifetime, young Mersem!" he said a little too loudly. Mersem rolled his eyes. Why not announce it to the whole Falkmena, then? "We can give you the dream of your dreams by this plan alone!"

Silke leaned against the door post with her arms crossed. "Well? Stop beating around the bush and tell us what it is."

Chenric drew closer as if it's meant to be grand and mysterious. "Raiding the Palace armory."

A peal of laughter bubbled up from Mersem's throat before ripping out of his mouth. His drink almost spilled as he doubled over in amusement. "Oh, that's hilarious," he wiped the sides of his eyes as he straightened. "Raiding the armory. You guys are even more 'somethings' than me pining over Leara Madris."

Mersem laughed some more, ignoring the look of annoyance creeping into his friends' faces. When he had finally calmed down, Haeral crossed his arms and leaned his weight on one foot. "Finished?" he asked in a clipped tone.

"Yeah, yeah," Mersem dried the rest of the tears in his eyes and wiped his nose against his sleeve. That was a good laugh, indeed. "Wait...you're serious?"

Chenric rolled his eyes. "Took you long enough, Mers."

Mersem shook his head and sipped his drink again. Lukewarm liquid touched his tongue which sent him scrunching his nose up. Damn, these things get cold really quickly. "Well, thanks for updating me with your plans to die," he turned towards the cabin and moved to duck inside.

"Great, let's do it," Silke pushed past him and approached Haeral and Chenric.

Mersem bit back a very, very bad curse word and faced his sister. "Silke, stay out of this."

Haeral jerked his chin at the near-empty stall at the front of their cabin. "Wait a few years more and timber-gathering as a job would fade," he said. "With Lotherne having the monopoly over the trade of coal and lumber, Solon has little to nothing left to export to the other kingdoms. Sooner or later, people are going to switch their interest in the products from Lotherne and forget local timberers like us. What will you do then, Mersem?"

"You talk too much," Silke cracked her knuckles and grinned. "I just want for myself some palace gold."

"Silke," Mersem set his mug down on a nearby drying table and gripped his sister's shoulder as if that would calm her reckless spirit down. "We're not going anywhere. Father wouldn't want something bad to happen to us."

His sister scoffed. "Come on, Mersem," she slapped his hands off her body. "I'm going whether you like it or not. It sounds fun."

"Not everything that 'sounds fun' is safe, Silke," he crossed his arms. "You're staying here."

"No," Silke matched his stance. "I'll sneak out at night if I have to. You and Father won't stop me."

Mersem wished with all his might the defiance in his sister's eyes would just fizzle out. Instead, with each passing minute of silence and stares between them, it only burned brighter. A huge sigh tore off Mersem's lips. "I'm coming with you," he said, giving Silke a withering glare when she tried to interject something. "Don't you dare call me an old man."

He turned to his two friends, a thousand curses already combing through his mind. "I'll be there to keep her safe and not join you in your pilfering."

Haeral and Chenric gave him grave nods. Silke, in her unperturbed innocence, looked up at Mersem's friends having standing only to their chins. A stupid grin painted her face, showing her yellowing teeth. "So," she said. "What's the plan?"

Haeral and Chenric's eyes brightened and Mersem's qiorfe drink sat forgotten on the drying table as it cooled completely.