A cold, quiet chill.

Song for the Page: Carol of the Bells - John Tesh

TRANSCRIPT

All in all, they created a good seven songs before the game had wound to a natural close. Of course, by that time, the snow had gotten thicker, piling up beneath their feet and threatening to weigh down the branches of nearby trees. Now, a good quarter hour after games’ end, it was a veritable blanket over everything, white stretching out before them, the sky gray and heavy with clouds, the faint crunch of their footsteps muted by winter’s silence.

Merlow shivered and drew his cloak tighter around himself.

“Merlow?” Nocturne’s quiet, gentle baritone asked, concern evident in his tone. “Are you all right?”

He peeked up at the black rose of their court over the thick wrap of his scarf. “Oh, aye,” he said amiably, dredging up a smile of fragile glass. “F-fine!”

Nocturne’s brows drew together, unconvinced and worried. “Your teeth are chattering.”

“Only a little!”

“That isn’t terribly reassuring.”

“It c-could be if ye let it,” Merlow reasoned before his toe caught the edge of something hidden underneath the snow...

...and he quite reasonably pinwheeled into the snowbank at the side of the road. Snow shoved itself down the hood of his cloak and into his boots, the fluff giving way to nasty, slushy ooze that soaked clean through his clothes and summoned a rash of goosebumps all over his body.