The wind cut sharply through the mountainside, biting at my exposed skin as I blinked against the blinding morning light. My wrists still throbbed where the coarse ropes had bound me, though now they had been replaced by something gentler—or perhaps I simply no longer felt the immediate sting of the pain. I didn't have time to dwell on it. The cheers of the villagers still echoed faintly in my mind, a distant, cruel chorus that seemed to mock the very idea of my freedom. My chest ached with exhaustion, terror, and a helpless longing for my mother, who had remained behind, powerless and trapped by the same cruel rituals that had ensnared me.
I didn’t know how long I had been wandering—or being guided—but the forest around me had grown dense, shadowed, and strangely alive. Every rustle of l
