"The wind bit cold through Kinlan’s valley as Malak urged Cinder north, its edge sharp against his weathered skin, tugging at his frayed cloak. Behind him, the village faded into duskstone cottages low and solid, thatched roofs pale with frost, chimneys sending thin smoke into a sky turning gray. The air held the faint smell of hay, warm from the day, and damp soil—Kinlan’s quiet, a life he’d dug into with his own hands. But Cinder’s hooves crunched on the frozen path, and those smells slipped away, overtaken by Terindale’s bite—pine sharp in his nose, moss damp and heavy, a faint copper tang like old blood under the earth."

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