(Sanya's POV)
One day, as I'm kneeling in the garden pulling weeds from around the tomato plants, I hear footsteps on the path that leads to my cottage, slow and deliberate, and my heart jumps into my throat because no one comes here, no one knows I'm here except the humans in town who think I'm just another woman trying to make a living selling vegetables.
I stand quickly, brushing the dirt from my hands, my mind already reaching for the water in the well, ready to defend myself if Tyron somehow found me, if my brothers tracked me down, if the world I escaped has come to drag me back.
But when I turn, the figure walking toward me isn't a man.
She's old, her face a map of deep wrinkles, her hair white as snow and pulled back in a braid that hangs over her shoulder, and she moves with t
