Kael’s POV
The road to Ravaryn was half snow, half memory.
For two days we’d ridden through the silent pass, the narrowest trail in the northern range. The storm had stripped the world of color; everything was shades of gray and white, like the ghosts of the men who had once died here.
Each step of my horse felt like moving through a dream that refused to end. My body ached from the cold, but my mind stayed sharp—too sharp. When the wind tore past, it carried not just snow but whispers from the past: my father’s commands, my mother’s quiet warnings, the faint sound of Selene’s voice the last time I heard it.
Don’t die before I finish what I started.
The storm had changed since then. It wasn’t just weather anymore. It felt like a barrier—like the land itself was testing me before I rea
