I don’t remember the exact second we crossed the tree line. There was no signpost, no fence, no magical shimmer in the air to mark the boundary. There was only the shift.
One moment, the cold was a dead thing. It was a sterile, numbing vacuum that sucked the heat from my marrow and left nothing in its place. It was the kind of cold that just wanted you to lie down and go to sleep.
The next step, the air bit back.
We stumbled into the shadow of the Ironwood, and the atmosphere changed instantly. It wasn't warmer, if anything, the temperature dropped a few degrees but it was crisp. It had teeth. The air suddenly tasted of ozone, sharp pine resin, and the damp, metallic scent of frozen earth. It was thick with latent magic, a humming, vibrating pressure that pushed against my eardrums.
It
