- Elara Voss:
The road is quiet. Too quiet.
I tug my cloak tighter around me, the threadbare fabric doing little against the evening chill.
The air is damp with the promise of rain and thick with the scent of earth and woodsmoke.
Gravel crunches under my boots as I move carefully along the narrow dirt path, my senses tuned to every shift in the wind, every rustle in the underbrush.
Villages aren't safe. Not for people like me.
Not for witches.
But I don't have a choice. My supplies are running low, and I haven't eaten a proper meal in days. I can survive on what little I scavenge from the land, but hunger makes a person reckless. Desperate. And desperation is dangerous.
I round the bend in the road, and the village comes into view. A small, crumbling place, more a collection of homes huddled together against the looming treeline than a true settlement.
