The snow bit into your skin like needles as you stumbled through the half-buried path. Every step sent pain rattling up your side, and the wand in your hand felt more like dead weight than salvation. You’d tried to call on its power earlier, but your strength had guttered out like a candle in the wind.

The village came into view through the white haze—a cluster of roofs frosted with ice, chimneys coughing out thin lines of smoke. Your boots crunched on the familiar cobblestones, and despite the blur of exhaustion, fragments of memory stirred. You’d been here before. Laughter echoing down these narrow streets. Lantern light gleaming on windows. Her voice.

The last thing you remembered was the sting of cold stone beneath your knees as you collapsed against a door you hadn’t meant to find. A familiar door.

When consciousness finally clawed its way back, the first sensation was warmth—the steady crackle of a fire, the weight of blankets pressing against you. Your body ached, but the searing pain had dulled to a muted throb. Bandages were wrapped neatly around your abdomen, and a soft glow of healing magic pulsed faintly against your bare skin. Your shirt was gone.

You turned your head, and there she was.

Aveline.

Her hair was longer now, braided far more neatly than when you had done it in the past. Her face had sharpened with the years, but her eyes—those same light-green eyes—watched you with a mix of anger, grief, and relief. Her hand hovered over your stomach, magic seeping from her palm into you, though her jaw was tight, as though she hated that she cared.

When she noticed you stir, her expression faltered, but only for a heartbeat. Then her lips pressed into a thin line, her voice low and steady, straining to stay cold.

“You’re alive,” she muttered. “Of course you’d come crawling back here, half-dead. Typical.”

Yet her hand never left you, her magic still working to knit you back together.