They moved forward, careful.
And then the stream appeared: a narrow ribbon of water cutting through snow, steam rising faint, pressed low by wind. Moss clung green to the banks like something refusing to die.
Lannick stared as if he'd been shown gold. "Warm," he whispered.
Toren's mouth tightened. "A gift," he said.
Lannick glanced at him. "Don't say it like that," he muttered.
Toren didn't answer. He couldn't stop thinking of what warm water meant in winter: a place to live. A place to hold. A place to kill for.
They followed the stream upward.
And then Toren's hand tightened on his sword hilt, slow.
Lannick stopped too, eyes sharp now.
There were marks.
Not tracks.
Lines.
Thin cord half-buried in snow, stretched between two scrubby bushes. And tied to it, small bones that would rattle if disturbed.
Lannick's eyes widened. "That's--"
"A warning," Toren said.
Lannick's voice went quiet. "That's Watch thinking."
Toren didn't like that. "Or a clever raider," he said.
Lannick shook his head slowly. "A clever raider doesn't waste cord on noise. A raider doesn't want warning. A raider wants surprise."
They stood in the trees and looked up-slope.
Through branches and snow, Toren could see a shape half sunk into the hillside.
A cabin.
Logs. Stone. Sod. Smoke venting thin and low.
Not a village.
Not a ruin.
A foothold.
Toren's breath fogged in the cold. He felt his heart beat harder.
"Someone's living here," he whispered.
Lannick's eyes glittered. "Someone's building," he corrected.
They did not move closer.
Not yet.
Toren's gaze scanned the trees around the cabin, the slope above it, the path leading to the door. He saw stakes half-hidden beneath snow. He saw rocks piled in a way that looked natural until you knew men.
A trap made into a home.
A home made into a trap.
He heard Halvern's voice in his head again: eyes only.
But he also heard the other voice that lived in every ranger's bones.
If you leave a problem behind you, it grows.
Lannick shifted closer to him, so close Toren could smell him: old sweat, leather, a faint sourness of nerves.
"What do we do?" Lannick whispered.
Toren stared at the cabin.
He thought of survivors from Hollow, led here, hidden, and now… armed. He thought of raiders using this place as a staging ground. He thought of the Watch being blind and then being blamed when the smoke rose.
He thought of the Wall's weakness.
He thought of Halvern's stones pressing down the map, forcing it flat.
"We watch," Toren said finally.
Lannick's mouth tightened. "That's it?"
"That's it," Toren said.
Lannick looked like he wanted to argue. Then he nodded once, grudging.
They backed away a few paces, careful not to trip the cord.
They found a place where the trees gave a view of the cabin without exposing them too much, and they settled into stillness the way only cold men could: stiff, quiet, mean with patience.
Minutes stretched.
Then movement.
A figure stepped out of the cabin.
Small.
Not a grown man.
A boy, maybe sixteen.
He moved like someone who'd learned to move wrong for his size: too controlled, too aware. He didn't swagger. He didn't rush. He looked out across the trees as if he expected eyes.
Toren felt his throat tighten.
Lannick breathed, almost soundless. "That's him," he whispered.
Toren didn't answer.
He watched the boy's posture. The set of shoulders. The way his head turned, not random, but methodical, scanning windward first, then leeward.
Like a ranger.
Like a wolf.
The boy lifted a hand and made a small gesture toward the tree line. Another shape moved; someone else, older, a girl perhaps, slipping between trunks with a bow.
A scout.
Toren felt cold settle deeper.
Not a single survivor hiding in fear.
A small unit.
A small unit with discipline.
Lannick's voice was barely air. "Halvern needs to know."
Toren's jaw tightened. "He will," he said.
The boy turned back toward the cabin.
And for a heartbeat, Toren felt the boy's eyes sweep over the exact patch of trees where Toren and Lannick crouched.
Toren went still as stone.
The boy's gaze lingered.
Then moved on.
Maybe he hadn't seen.
Or maybe he had, and he'd decided not to show it.
That was worse.
Toren let out a breath that felt like pain.
Lannick swallowed. "We should go."
"Yes," Toren said.
They did not run. Running made noise. Running left sign.
They retreated slow, careful, stepping where snow was hard and wind-scoured, moving down-slope until the cabin was hidden again.
Only then did Toren speak.
"Two men," he said quietly, as if testing the words. "A liar and an honest man."
Lannick snorted softly. "That's us."
Toren didn't smile. "No," he said. "That's what Halvern did. He sent us together because he expected one of us to want to steal this for himself."
Lannick's eyes flicked, sharp. "And do you?"
Toren thought of warm water. Of hungry brothers. Of Castle Black's cold rooms and thin stew. Of men coughing themselves to death in the night.
He thought of how a foothold in the Gift could feed the Watch.
He thought of how it could also kill it, if it became a wildling stronghold or a nest of raiders that knew Watch tricks.
"I want it understood," Toren said.
Lannick's grin was thin. "That's a prettier word for wanting it."
Toren didn't answer.
They started back toward the Wall with the cabin's image lodged behind their eyes like a thorn.
Behind them, the warm stream ran on, indifferent.
And somewhere in the trees above it, a boy who moved like a ranger and thought like a knife kept building a life in a place that was not supposed to hold life at all.