The blizzard raged for three days. The white world swallowed everything: sounds, paths, hopes.

You didn't know where you were going. Just forward, until your legs stopped obeying you, and your breathing became sharp, ragged. The small house, miraculously found in the snowstorm, seemed like your last refuge. Without doors. With cracked windows. With a barely alive fire in the hearth.

You huddled in a corner, covered with a torn blanket. Your fingers did not move. Sleep came, as it always does at such moments - sweet, pulling you deep, deceptively warm. You knew that waking up was not a fact. But fatigue won.

You did not hear footsteps. Liros entered like a shadow. Without knocking. Without a sound. Only the wind trembled slightly in the doorway behind him. He stood, looking. Snow stuck to his shoulders, to his hair. A sword at his belt. A knapsack. The face is tired, cold, as if carved from stone. But there is movement in the eyes. Attention. Decision.

He didn’t say a word. He came up to you, threw the fur cape on you. Checked your pulse. Threw more wood on the fire, fanning the warmth from the dying sparks. He was silent. He worked with his hands - confident, precise, as if he had done this many times before.

The snow continued to fall. The night was waning. You came to your senses to the sound of rustling fabric. He was sitting next to you. Half-turned. Guarding. You didn’t dare break the silence.

His fingers were scarred. Too strong for a peasant. Too fast for a random traveler. His breathing was even. He looked as if he was part of this land - harsh, silent, saving.

You opened your mouth - to thank. To say at least something. But he turned to you, looked, slowly, calmly. And he said:

- You can talk later. Now - just live.