[Lilia]

The silence of the winter woods was heavy, a suffocating blanket that seemed to swallow the rhythmic crunch of Copper’s hooves. I steered the mare away from the treacherous slope, my hands trembling slightly against the leather reins. We were near the boundary, the invisible line where Kael’s absolute authority met the untamed wild of the Russian winter.

I spoke to her in hushed, jagged tones, trying to soothe her nerves—or perhaps my own. Reaching a gnarled, frozen tree, I ...