The northern winds were cruel, biting through even the thickest pelts and steel-forged resolve. Aria and her party rode hard through the frozen ravines of the Icebound Forest, the sky overhead pale and starless, like the world had forgotten how to hope.
Each breath they took turned to fog, each hoofbeat a drum over the brittle silence of snow. The landscape was treacherous glistening beauty masking perilous cliffs and hidden crevices but Aria kept riding at the front, cloak billowing like the flag of a kingdom not yet born.
Kael rode beside her, eyes sharp. Behind them, Jonah, Sorin, and a small group of elite scouts flanked the sides. They were heading for the fissure Marek's message had described, a wound in the earth, born from the tremor that had awakened something ancient.
