Forged Destiny [Book 2: Ch. 6]

The village was, as Kaedin said, really little more than fifteen or twenty dwellings. It might have been more, but several were destroyed and half-buried under a swathe of snow that seemed to cut the community in two.

[...]

An elderly villager there, tired and wary, didn't offer so much as a protest as I took the spade from his hand and dug it into the snow. With a great heave, I dragged back and pulled some away, before digging it in again.

[...]

My eyes remained locked on the snow as I grunted and drove the shovel back down into it. The wooden handle creaked but held, disgorging snow onto the ground and away from what once had been a front door.

[...]

The work continued for hours.

[...]

"Here," Ruby whispered some time later. She pulled the shovel out of my shaking fingers and pushed a warm bowl in instead. Steam rose from it, and from my hands – as ice melted from them. "You need to take a break," she urged. "You're going to wear yourself out."

Her words distracted me, and that proved fatal. The exhaustion I'd been able to ignore through dogged determination crashed into me, and if it wasn't for her arms catching me, I'd have fallen face-first into the snow.

"He's finally run out of steam?" Yang panted from beside her, catching the bowl before it could spill onto the snow. The blonde's face was red, her breath coming out in sharp blasts of frozen air. "Damn it, about time… I thought I could keep going but that's ridiculous."

"No," I growled. "There are still people in this one…" I struggled to reach for the shovel, but Ruby firmly grabbed my hands and pulled them away.

—Forged Destiny [Book 2: Ch. 6]