Prologue
In my old home in the north, winter was not a season. It was a sovereign recall to the things that mattered most. It arrived early, and stayed late like an old friend forgetting time or an unwelcomed guest. Really it depended on who you asked.
The snow settled, layer upon layer, until the earth forgot its own color. Ice formed, not just on lakes, but in the breath between words, between heartbeats. The wind whispered in ancient tongues only our kin could understand, carrying stories of packs long vanished and spirits still watching.
Mountain peaks were veiled in mist and memory. The trees were gnarled, frostbitten, and half-buried. More like silent guardians rather than flora. They creaked with the weight of time, with each breath of wind. Their branches etched with the claw marks of wolves who once ran beneath the auroras, some skeletal limbs standing tall and exposed in the unforgiving tundra. Others were laden with Evergreen needles, branches blanketed in frost and snow, swaying gently in the ever-present breezes.
The sky in the true north was a paradox made real. Endless and intimate, especially during long polar nights, stars crowded the heavens like ancestral eyes. Watching over those left behind as we made the most of our harsh homeland. The aurora danced, not for beauty, but for bonding. A pulse of the Celestial realm, visible to all, but only heard by those who listened with their whole being to the calls and cries of the wild.
Sunrise and sunset were always brief, sacred events. The light revealing as it warmed. It struck the ice crystals at angles that fractured color into rainbow shards, casting fleeting halos across the snow.
I marked those moments as truths untold, felt by the soul, and remembered by the heart. The land spoke in color, movement, and grace even when the world was bleached white, often taken over by sudden, violent storms that left most scrambling to find a hand in front of their face.
The cold was never discomfort. Not to those who were born and raised within it’s hold. Cradled by the snow and kissed by frost. Wolves born in the Shield do not flinch. We adapted according to out surroundings. Our coats were thicker, paws wider, and our hearts beat as strong as the earth itself. Every breath was earned, and every step was a legacy in the making. To survive in the True North in the blistering cold was to be chosen by the land itself.
After the attack on my people, the people my little sister was born to lead, twilight only reminded me of death and destruction. Yet, every tale has its beginning, middle, and its ending, though not all endings are happy.
My name is Jasper Sylas Stone, and this is my story.
