Olivia’s POV
The forest was different this far north.
The trees grew taller, denser, their roots clutching the earth like claws unwilling to release the past. The air smelled of pine and frost, sharper than the damp woods around our own compound. Each gust of wind carried a chorus of whispers—the kind that made you feel as though the forest remembered things it had no business remembering.
I tugged my cloak tighter around me, though the chill that had settled into my bones wasn’t just from the cold. It was from the weight of where we were headed.
The northern villages. My mother’s “before.”
Lucas rode beside me, his horse black as the night sky, his presence steady and grounding. His eyes scanned the woods constantly, sharp and unyielding, as though danger might step out from behind e
