The Forbidden Forest on the southern border lived up to its name, a place where the sunlight struggled to penetrate a canopy of interlocking branches that resembled the ribcage of a dead titan. The air here was heavy and humid, smelling of damp moss, rotting bark, and the sharp, coppery scent of hidden predators. Mist clung to the ankles of the horses as Constantine and Isabella rode deeper into the gloom, away from the established merchant roads and into the lawless thickets that separated Astraia from the Kingdom of Orestes. The silence was absolute, broken only by the occasional snap of a twig or the distant, mournful cry of a bird that sounded more like a human scream.
"We are close," Isabella whispered, her hand resting on the hilt of the smoke-patterned blade Constantine had forged
