The girl woke before the first light of dawn. The room, barely warm, was dim, with the scent of damp wood in the air. Her fingers brushed the rough blanket that covered her as she rose, her movements careful and quiet, not to disturb the others. Her mother, curled under the patchwork quilt in the corner, slept deeply, her breath even, the faint scent of iron still lingering in the air.

The fire in the hearth had died to embers, barely a flicker left. In the corner, her father lay curled under a thin woolen sheet, his back turned, body rigid with a kind of exhaustion she had never quite understood. He had worked all his life—worked until his hands had stiffened and his eyes had grown dull.

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She did not wake them. There was little to say.

L. dressed quickly, pulling on a coat too large for her, and tied her boots. Her fingers, though small, had learned to be nimble in the cold, moving swiftly as she tucked the pouch into her belt. It was old, dark leather, worn at the edges, but it had carried her through many mornings like this.

She stepped outside, her breath clouding in the crisp morning air. The village, still sleepy, lay silent under a thin veil of mist. The houses, hunched and dark, seemed to shrink back from the forest that lay just beyond the farthest street. No one ever went into that forest.

No one, that is, except L.