1
SAELA
The bramble tears at my sleeves as I duck under another branch, my breath coming in sharp puffs that disappear into the gray afternoon air. Winter's grip holds on later each year, and the skeletal trees offer little shelter from the biting wind that cuts through my patched wool layers.
"Found anything worth keeping?" Ressa's voice carries from somewhere to my left, muffled by the thick stand of pine between us.
I straighten, brushing snow from the handful of wrinkled roots I've managed to dig from the frozen ground. "Define 'worth keeping.'"
"Edible without immediate death?"
"Then yes, barely." I stuff the meager collection into my satchel and push through the underbrush toward her voice. The snow crunches under my worn boots, each step a small betrayal of our presence.
Ressa emerges from behind a cluster of birch trees, her red hair escaping from beneath her knit cap in wild curls that catch the weak sunlight. Freckles stand out stark against her wind-burned cheeks, and she's grinning despite the pathetic bundle of frozen berries clutched in her mittened hands.
"Look at this bounty." She holds up the berries with mock ceremony. "We'll feast like queens tonight."
"Queens who enjoy stomach cramps and the taste of bitter disappointment."
"The finest delicacies." She falls into step beside me as we pick our way through the trees, avoiding the deeper drifts. "Remember when we used to complain about turnip stew?"
"I still complain about turnip stew."
"Yes, but now we'd kill for turnip stew."
The familiar rhythm of our banter settles something restless in my chest. Ressa's always been able to do that—find the humor in the sharp edges of survival. When we were children, she'd make games out of rationing, competitions out of mending clothes. Now she makes jokes about near-starvation.
"Where's Nia gotten to?" I scan the treeline ahead, looking for movement that isn't wind-blown branches.
"Last I saw, she was following that deer path toward the ridge." Ressa points northeast with one mittened hand. "Said she spotted some oak trees that might still have acorns."
"In this weather?"
"Desperate times."
We trudge through the snow, our breaths forming small clouds that dissipate quickly in the cold air. The light's changing, that subtle shift from afternoon to evening that means we need to start thinking about the trek back. The settlement expects us before full dark, and the temperature drops fast once the sun disappears.
"Think she found anything?" Ressa adjusts her satchel strap and glances toward the ridge.
"Nia's got good eyes. If there's anything left out here, she'll spot it."
But even as I say it, unease prickles between my shoulder blades. The kind of tension that's kept me alive this long—the awareness that something isn't quite right. The forest is too quiet, the usual sounds of small animals and settling branches muffled by more than just snow.
We reach a small clearing where three paths diverge, and I pause, studying the tracks in the snow. Nia's footprints lead toward the ridge, just as Ressa said, but there are other marks too. Deeper impressions, wider spacing.
"Ressa."
Something in my tone makes her stop mid-sentence about the questionable nutritional value of tree bark. She follows my gaze to the ground.
"Those aren't Nia's."
"No." The tracks are too large, too heavy. My pulse quickens, that familiar spike of adrenaline that comes with recognizing danger. "We need to find her."
We follow the trail through the trees, moving carefully now, each step deliberate and quiet. The unease in my chest grows with every yard, feeding on the silence and the way the shadows seem to stretch longer than they should.
Then we hear voices.
Ressa grabs my arm, fingers digging through the wool of my sleeve. We freeze, listening to the low murmur of conversation that drifts through the trees ahead. The sound is wrong—harsh consonants and guttural sounds that make my stomach clench with recognition.
