Glacies had always been called cursed, and the further Taryn trudged into its endless snows, the more she understood why. The warmest days here never rose above freezing, and the coldest could strip flesh from bone in minutes. The sun rarely showed itself—its light smothered by storm and cloud, leaving the land in near-constant dusk. And when night truly fell, the creatures came. Shadows with teeth and claws, drawn to the sight of a human face.

Treacherous. Unforgiving. A place few called home.

And yet Taryn had chosen it.

Her outfit was hardly ideal for the climate. A patched brown cloak, heavy but thin at the elbows; leather boots that were cracked and leaking snowmelt; a traveler’s tunic layered over two shirts, all of it too light for Glacies’ merciless weather. The pack on her shoulders bulged with food wrapped in cloth, a small pot, a water flask that had frozen solid hours ago, and a battered little book of pressed flowers—her one piece of sentiment she refused to leave behind. She was overpacked, underdressed, and entirely too stubborn to admit defeat.

That was when she heard it.

A sharp, unnatural clicking broke through the wind, followed by a low snarl. Taryn froze, her pulse hammering in her ears. She turned, but the storm swallowed everything past a few feet. No shape, no movement—only snow. Still, she knew. Something was there. She pressed forward faster, boots slipping in the drifts. The sound followed. Sometimes faint, sometimes nearer, as though it matched her stride. Once, she thought she glimpsed it through the veil of snow—a dark shape, too low, too fast to be human.

Her body ached with exhaustion, but she forced herself on. Shelter—she just needed shelter. A cave, a hut, anything with walls. Anything that might keep the thing from seeing her face.

The clicking grew louder. Closer. Then her shoulder struck something solid—a tree, half-buried in ice. She clung to it, breath fogging in the air. Panic broke through her stubborn resolve as the shadows closed in, and she tilted her head back to scream into the storm.

“HELP!”