Early at the next morning, I awoke to the sound of wind clawing at the shutters and a hollow ache behind my eyes. It was still dark outside, and sleep had barely touched me. What little rest I had stolen from the long, silent night felt more like falling than dreaming. Three hours at most, maybe less. I wasn’t sure anymore.

  The last two days were a blur, more dream than reality. Everything felt distant, unreal. Part of me still believed that any moment now, my mother would walk through the door and ask where her cloak had gone.

  The same cloak I was curled up in, clutching tightly as if it could hold the world together—still holding a faint trace of her scent: blue-night-flower, smoke, dried herbs. I pulled it tighter to my chest for a moment and breathed in deep, hoping it would fill the space she left behind.

  But it didn’t.

  And I had never felt so alone in my life.

  The sky outside the window was the same dull grey it had been for days. The kind that pressed down on everything like a weight. The kind that made the world feel small. Rain tapped against the glass, soft and steady. Not heavy, but relentless.

  I rose slowly, legs stiff, shoulders sore. I moved like someone six times my age; slow, hollowed out, my bones heavy with sleep I hadn’t gotten. Every part of me wanted to turn back. To crawl into bed. To pretend.

  Instead, I dressed.

  I chose my thickest socks, my sturdiest boots. A wool tunic, two layers beneath it, and my mother’s cloak wrapped tight around my shoulders. I tied the drawstrings with shaking fingers. It still smelled like her. It made me feel braver than I was.

  I packed slowly. A flask of water. Dried bread and a bit of cheese. A small knife my mother had given me last winter for cutting herbs, the handle worn smooth from use. A pouch of salt. Her satchel, half-filled with empty jars.

  I wasn’t sure what I was looking for. I only knew I couldn’t wait any longer.

  The envelope sat on the counter, untouched. I thought about opening it again. Thought about the man’s words—"Give it to her. If she doesn’t return in a week...”—but I couldn’t bear to read what might already be true.

  Instead, I slipped it into the satchel with everything else.

  Just in case.

  The map was still burned into my memory. Moon Hollow.

  I’d never heard the name spoken in the village, but it sounded old. Like something whispered in stories told by firelight. Like something that wasn’t meant to be real. A name straight out a folk’s tale.

  But Mama had written it, and she was out there.

  Luckily, I was a bright kid and could remember things pretty well. I had been in the woods with my mother before—more than once—and I had a slight idea where to go.

  I blew out the lanterns, checked the fire, and locked the door behind me.

  Then, with the satchel on my back and my heart too full to name, I stepped out into the grey morning.

  The woods weren’t far. In fact, they began just past the back field, where the wildflowers used to grow taller than I was in summer. I crossed the narrow path behind our house, boots sinking slightly into the wet earth, and stepped beneath the first branches. The trees closed around me like a slow breath, tall and still, their bark dark with rain.

  Everything was damp. Quiet. Not the quiet of peace, but the kind that made you feel like something was listening. Watching.

  I had walked here with my mother so many times before. We used to laugh about how the forest always looked different depending on the season, how it could change its face overnight.

  But now it felt like it had changed for me.

  And not in a way I liked.

  The path was narrow, and in some places nearly swallowed by undergrowth. I followed it with care, trying to recall the landmarks Mama had once shown me. The crooked birch with the split trunk. The stump shaped like a seat. The flat stone where mushrooms grew in a perfect ring every autumn. Or how my mother called it: The old fairy ring.

  I passed them one by one, feeling both comforted and unsettled. They were still here. Familiar. But they felt... distant. Like they belonged to another life.

  Somewhere deeper in the woods, a raven cried. Sharp and sudden. I froze, my breath catching.

  Then nothing.

  I kept walking.

  The deeper I went, the more the trees seemed to lean in, their branches arching like ribs above me. The rain was lighter under the canopy, but the cold had sunk into my fingers, into my chest.

  I wasn’t far from the point where my mother always told me to stop. “Beyond here, it gets wild,” she used to say. “Stay near the green stones, and don’t cross the fallen tree unless I’m with you.”

  I spotted the green stones now—slick with moss, barely visible beneath the ferns. The fallen tree lay just ahead, its bark silvered with age and rain. It was the marker. The edge.

  I hesitated.

  Then I stepped over.

  And just like that, I was somewhere I had never been before.

  I stopped a few paces beyond the tree, standing still beneath a cluster of dark-leafed branches. The silence here was heavier, older. The kind that presses behind your ears. I closed my eyes and tried to picture the map again—the one in Mama’s ledger. She hadn’t drawn it to scale, but I remembered the line, the shape of the hills, the curve of the creek bed we’d passed once, long ago.

  There had been a note beside the star.

  “Follow the water’s curve until the birch bends backward.”

  That’s what it had said. I was sure of it now. I repeated it under my breath like a charm. My feet turned slightly, adjusting to the memory, and I began to move again. Not with certainty, but something close enough.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  It was still raining. The wind had grown stronger now, slipping through the trees like something alive. Branches creaked and leaves shivered overhead. I pulled the cloak tighter around myself and kept walking.

  I walked for hours, following the faint line of the creek through thick undergrowth and mud-slick roots. My legs ached, and my boots were soaked through, but I didn’t stop. The woods changed as I went—thinner in places, then dense again. Darker. Wilder.

  By midday, just as the light was beginning to shift behind the clouds, I saw it.

  The birch.

  It arched backwards like it had once reached for the sky and then changed its mind. Its trunk was pale, almost silver, and its roots clung to a slope above the creek’s bend like long, bony fingers.

  The backward birch— I had found it.

  I let out a slow breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. My legs were sore, my back stiff, and my fingers cold to the bone. I decided to rest, just for a little while.

  I slid down the slope and settled at the base of the tree, where its thick roots curled like old arms into the earth. It was hard to stay dry, but I managed to find a patch of moss-covered ground that wasn’t completely soaked. I pulled my satchel into my lap and dug out the small piece of cheese and the heel of bread. Eating in the rain wasn’t easy. Everything felt damp, even the food, but I forced myself to chew slowly. I needed the strength. I had a long way yet to go—though how far, I didn’t know.

  I leaned back against the birch and closed my eyes for a moment, listening to the wind push through the trees like it was searching for something. Then, as I tilted my head upward, my hand brushed against the bark behind me. It was rough—then suddenly, smooth.

  I turned, curious.

  There, just above where the root split, was a carving. A snowflake, etched deep into the white bark. Perfectly symmetrical. Delicate, but purposeful.

  And below it, a line of strange symbols—letters I didn’t recognize. Not the writing my mother used. Not village runes. Something different. Sharper.

  I reached out and traced them lightly with my fingertips.

  They were cold. Colder than the rain. It was almost like they froze my fingers.

  Then, from somewhere far off—deep in the woods—I heard it.

  A howl.

  Not a wolf’s cry. Not entirely. It was longer, deeper, and layered with something else beneath it. Something that made my blood turn cold.

  I snapped my hand back from the runes and scrambled to my feet, heart thudding in my ears.

  I had gone deeper than I realized. Past the green stones. Past the fallen tree. Past the line my mother had warned me never to cross.

  Somewhere beyond here, the land began to rise—toward the lower edges of the Emberfang Peaks. And beyond that, the wild lands the beastkin tribes called home. Few from our village ever went there. And fewer returned.

  My mother used to say that the woods weren’t just full of foxes and deer. There were things older, wilder—creatures that didn’t belong to any world we knew. The Fae, Demi-Humans and Monsters.

  And even though most villagers rarely saw one, everyone knew monsters were real. Some said they were just animals—twisted by magic, by time, or by something else we couldn’t name. Others claimed they were something more: clever, cunning. Some could even speak. Some could use magic.

  That was what made them monsters. Not their claws. Not their teeth. Their minds.

  At the time, I didn’t realize it. But now, looking back, I would say this: anything unfamiliar to us humans—anything that doesn’t fit into our narrow idea of what is natural—we call a monster. We name it danger. We name it wrong. We demonize what we don’t understand.

  I was beginning to understand the line my mother had drawn. And just how far I had stepped beyond it.

  Too far.

  I swallowed hard, eyes scanning the trees. The wind had picked up, bending the branches and stirring the mist between the trunks. My fingers still tingled where they’d touched the symbols.

  I didn’t know what the howl meant. But I knew what it felt like.

  A warning.

  I backed away from the birch slowly, never taking my eyes off the trees.

  And then, I ran.

  I ran for hours and I didn’t look back. It was too much for my eight-year-old mind. Everything felt threatening and I was unbelievable lost without my mother, her warmth, her strength.

  With tears in eyes, I came to a stop after a long-pained run. Heavy breathing and lost.

  And then I smelled it.

  Faint, but unmistakable. A soft, cool scent like night air and blooming petals. Blue-night-flower.

  My breath caught.

  My mother always used it in her remedies. For sleep, for calming the nerves, for pain. Everything she touched carried its scent. Our shop, her hands, even the letters she left on the counter.

  She once told me it only bloomed at night, close to water. Hidden, shy. A flower that never liked the sun. "You have to listen to the water to find it," she used to whisper with a smile. "It always grows where it can hear the stream dreaming."

  I closed my eyes and let the scent guide me. It felt like she was near. Like she had passed this way.

  Or maybe it was just memory, clinging to the wind.

  But I followed it. Step by step, drawn forward like the scent was a thread and I was unraveling. I didn’t know where I was going—only that the flower always grew near water.

  The woods were darker now, shadows long and trembling, the canopy so thick that I didn’t even notice how the last light had vanished. It must have been night. Somehow, without realizing it, I had wandered into the dark.

  And then the trees parted.

  I stood at the edge of a lake.

  The surface was still as glass, black and wide, rimmed with tall reeds and pale stones. Mist drifted low across it, clinging to the water’s edge like breath held too long.

  Blue-night-flowers bloomed in clusters near the shore, glowing faintly in the dark.

  And for the first time since I’d left home, I felt something close to calm.

  I sat down at the edge of the lake, drawing my knees to my chest. The ground was cool and damp, but no longer soaked through. The storm had finally passed.

  The air felt lighter now, washed clean. The last wisps of mist curled away, and slowly—almost shyly—the clouds began to part. One by one, the stars blinked into view above the treetops, until finally the moon appeared. Pale and full, it rose over the still water, casting a silver path across the lake’s surface.

  The flowers shimmered under its light, like tiny lanterns scattered at my feet.

  I sat there in silence, my heart still bruised but beating slower now, and watched the moon climb into the sky. It was a magical scene. The lake reflected the moon like a perfect mirror, turning silver and endless. The wind had stilled, the forest held its breath, and for a brief moment, the world felt untouched.

  Then I saw it.

  A single snowflake, drifting slowly down through the moonlight. It twirled and shimmered as if it carried its own glow, delicate and precise—identical to the one carved into the birch.

  It hovered for a heartbeat above the water.

  And then it touched the surface.

  A ripple spread outward in silence. And where the ripple passed, the lake began to freeze.

  Slowly, steadily, a sheet of ice crept across the water, catching the moonlight and throwing it back in pale, fractured brilliance.

  I could only stare. Not in fear. But in wonder.

  I will never forget this moment in my life. The memory is still clear—sharp as the frost spreading across that lake. Like it happened only yesterday.

  So, I will try to describe what happened next, but it’s not an easy task.

  As the lake finished freezing, I felt a sudden sting in my right hand—the same one I had used to trace the runes beneath the birch.

  I looked down.

  The same symbols from the tree, and the snowflake, now glowed faintly white on my skin. They pulsed softly, and cold radiated from them—not the biting cold of winter, but something deeper, stranger. The cold spread slowly, wrapping around me, until it enveloped my whole body.

  And then, it didn’t feel cold at all. Just still.

  At the center of the frozen lake, something began to rise.

  A wall of ice, tall and perfectly smooth. So smooth it reflected everything—trees, sky, even me. It wasn’t just a wall. It was a mirror.

  No—not a mirror. A window.

  I stood, drawn forward without thinking, and stepped carefully onto the ice. It didn’t feel slick or dangerous beneath my boots. It wasn’t even cold anymore. The runes on my hand had vanished—only the snowflake remained, now like a small blue tattoo.

  I reached the window, and saw another world.

  A blizzard raged on the other side. A mountain range cloaked in endless snow stretched toward a starless sky. I saw it all from low to the ground, like I was looking up.

  And then—something fell.

  A shadow tumbled down from above, gaining speed, spiraling, then crashing into the snow on the other side with a thunderous silence.

  The window cracked, and shattered.

  A wave of force burst outward—and something flew through.

  A young woman.

  She tumbled onto the ice beside me, unconscious and battered, strands of white hair sticking to her face. Her cloak was torn, her body still.

  This was her.

  This was the beginning.

  The first time I met Mia Freya Frostborn, the future legend of this world.