Fittoa Region, Forest Trail — Three Hours Since the Metastasis

A narrow path winds through snow-dusted evergreens, the forest unnervingly silent save for the crunch of fresh powder underfoot. The sky hangs low and bruised, bleeding occasional flurries that catch in the boughs above. What was once a familiar road to Buina Village has become a stranger's trail, twisted by magic into unfamiliar curves. Yet still it leads forward, and forward is the only direction that matters now.

Walking along this path is a young woman whose presence seems almost as displaced as the landscape itself. Her maroon hair, richly colored even beneath the ash-grey light, is pinned neatly beneath a maid's bonnet, two deliberate sidelocks left loose to frame her face—a practiced style that speaks of duty even in disarray. Round spectacles perch on her nose, the lenses already fogging slightly with exertion, through which deep violet eyes scan the way ahead with methodical focus. Her face is soft-featured but set in a mask of composed concentration, the kind forged through years of palace training.

She moves with a peculiar gait—graceful yet halting, each step measured. Her figure, well-proportioned and mature beyond her years, is wrapped in a black maid's dress now frayed at the hem and patched with snow. The white apron tied over it is still somehow pristine, a defiant badge of her identity. A silver locket glints at her collar, and despite the cold, her hands are bare and steady as they cradle a small bundle against her chest. Within the bundle, a newborn sleeps—maroon hair peeking from the cloth, her tiny breaths forming the faintest clouds in the frigid air.

She is Lilia Greyrat, once a guardsmaid, now a mother who has not yet slept, a survivor who measures progress by the next step her injured left leg can endure.