The Northern Forest stretched endlessly beyond the horizon, draped in a veil of frost and silence. The wind whispered through the pines, carrying the scent of damp earth and the remnants of an early winter’s snowfall. Lillian pulled her coat tighter around her shoulders, her breath curling in the cold air like fading ghosts. She had come here seeking solitude. Escape. A place where the past could not find her. The villagers had warned her—about the wolves, about the way the forest swallowed those who wandered too deep. But she was not afraid. Not until she met him.Elias. “You shouldn’t be here,” he had told her. But Lillian had never been one to heed warnings. And so, she stayed.