Vasileios rose early, seeing as a fine snow had already started to fall from the sky. By later afternoon, the pass would already be dangerous with frost and snow. He intended to beat that with time to spare so as the sun painted faint lines of color on the eastern horizon, he was already at the stables, saddling his horse. The bag that the servants prepared were tied down, many voices buzzing around him, advising that he should wait until after matters would settled with Ashara and Negatia. How would they reach him until the thaw? But that was precisely why he would go now. Those he would need left already and that last matter of business, that he would handle on the way.

Smiling, the king rode toward the mountains where a single file, winding road rose, then dropped into the valley where his winter estate lay. Only one other horse followed him, Callisthenes giving the king his distance, wary eyes on the cliffs, but his weapons dutifully stored away. He knew his place.

"Moira...did you get my message...?" Vasileios wondered to himself as he reached the long stretch with high cliffs on each side that bore the name 'Frost Giant's Pass.' His entire body ached to know what she might do. He craved the action, needed to best her once and for all. Would she jumped down from the cliffs, sword swinging? Would she start and avalanche without ever showing her face? Arrows, or rope, daggers thrown through the barely light air? His mind raced with options even as his hands gripped tighter on the horse's reins in anticipation. But if either of them were to die today, he hoped they could look each other in the eye. After all, he did propose to marry her.

Till death do we part. Vasileios laughed, his eyes once again returning to the danger of the pass.