ALARIC POV
The next few days. The sky over the southern boundary wasn’t kind.
It hung heavy with steel-colored clouds, the kind that promised rain not as a warning—but as a certainty. The horizon blurred where the dark forest met the jagged cliffs, with stone outcroppings stained from old battles and ancient rains. And right there, like a wound splitting the land open, the rift shimmered.
From my vantage point on horseback beside Abby, I could feel it.
Mana. Thick as iron in the air. The kind of pressure that made lesser mages faint, or at least step back. But Abby? She tilted her head like it was just an interesting breeze.
Her red hair—damn that hair—whipped in the wind, crackling faintly at the ends with lightning she didn’t even notice anymore.
We rode into the village, if it cou
