Yuna held the flame in her palm for twenty-eight seconds before it flickered out. She counted each one. The cold pressed in immediately, sharp enough to sting her exposed skin. Thirty seconds was her limit, and thirty seconds wouldn't save anyone when the real cold came. She found the fire source an hour before dawn, in a clearing she'd never seen marked on any map. A stone altar sat at the center, flames dancing across its surface without fuel or ash. The heat reached her from ten paces away. Real heat. The kind that could push back the cold long enough to matter. But standing before the altar was a wolf, blue-furred and hooded, with glowing eyes that tracked her approach. Vine tendrils coiled at its feet, each one tipped with a small flame. Symbols marked its chest, deliberate and precise. This wasn't a guardian placed by accident. Someone—or something—wanted payment for what burned here. Yuna stepped closer anyway. The wolf didn't move, but the vines began to writhe. She didn't know the price yet, but she knew three families in the lower quarter wouldn't last another week. She reached toward the flames.