The northern border did not welcome the noon light as the southern lands did, for here the sky seemed dimmer, the air colder, the wind carrying with it a quiet that felt less like peace and more like something withheld, something watching from beneath the surface.
Snow lay in thin, uneven patches across the darkened earth, not fresh, not pure, but disturbed, as though the ground itself had been restless long before any footsteps crossed it.
At the edge of that silent expanse stood a figure unmoving, his presence blending into the stillness in a way that made him seem less like a man and more like something carved into the world itself.
Lord Kael Draven did not shift with the wind, nor did his breath fog the air as one might expect, his gaze fixed upon the horizon far beyond what mortal sight could reach, his posture relaxed though held with a precision that spoke of control refined over centuries.
