Aria’s POV
The road stretched endlessly before me, a ribbon of mud and frost under a sky the colour of ash. My boots were soaked through, my feet numb. I kept walking because stopping meant thinking, and thinking meant breaking again.
The air was sharp enough to sting my lungs, the kind that made your breath visible, like proof you were still alive even when you wished you weren’t. The northern wind carried the scent of pine and iron, and sometimes...just sometimes...I swore I caught his scent, too. Damon’s. It wasn’t real. It couldn’t be. But the thought alone made my chest twist.
The forest around me was silent, far too silent. No birds. No wolves. Just me and the sound of my heartbeat, faint beneath the layers of clothes that barely kept out the cold. My hand found its way to my stom
