The northern timberland was nothing like Romania.
Anca’s territory in the Carpathians was ancient and hostile. This place was just dead quiet. Endless acres of black spruce, frozen lakes, and the kind of aggressive cold that completely bypassed your jacket and settled directly into your bone marrow.
Maren was waiting for us at the tree line.
She looked entirely different. Took me a second to process it. The permanent, defensive hunch she’d carried in her shoulders for three decades was gone. Her eyes were still sharp, still paranoid, but the exhaustion was bleeding out of her.
"You showed," she grunted.
"You called."
We hiked in. The snow was too deep for the rental SUV, and the locals preferred it that way. No paved access. No engine noise. Just the brutal quiet of the woods.
"The
