Terrin and Elurra scampered over the rocks and logs littering the forest floor. Both were tired and sweaty. They were searching for herbs Terrin's father had sent them to acquire. It’d been weeks since Ramer agreed to take her in, and she’d been regularly helping Terrin with his chores.

The cuts on her feet were mostly healed, although her soles were covered in scars. Elurra was able to stand soon after she woke up, but Ramer had deemed it best for her to rest and recover. Staying in bed all day while Terrin worked was awful. All she could do was stare at the ceiling and think about the loss of her family, Nitiri, and how to keep her secrets from the only people willing to protect her. After weeks of wallowing in her own misery, she was more than willing to help the peasant boy with his work, even if it meant scrounging around in the dirt and sweating in the humid outdoors.

Ramer was a kind man, but Terrin had warned her he didn't like educated folks. She decided it would be best to speak to Ramer as little as possible. Although she was grateful for the warning, it worried her. She tried her best to sound like someone of a lower class, but it was pointless around Terrin. He’d figured out she was someone of a higher class as soon as she’d asked him to help change her clothes. Since then, Terrin patiently taught her whatever she needed to know to get by, and he did so without telling his father. Terrin was smart and curious, which was a dangerous combination, but he appeared to be on her side.

For now.

“How about we rest?” Terrin asked, breaking the silence between them. Elurra agreed and slumped to the ground, panting hard.

“Snow," Terrin started after a brief silence. “Where do you come from?”

He asked the question nonchalantly, but she could tell he was dying to know the answer. He’d been asking her about her past every time he got the chance, and she was starting to feel uncomfortable. She wasn't used to people demanding anything of her so persistently, but there was no way to make him stop. She sighed wearily. She’d made a game out of brushing him off, but she was tired of giving him nothing when he had done so much for her.

“Well, where I come from, we do not have trees like these."

It had been months since she left her homeland, and the snow stop would be coming soon. When she arrived in Amora, the trees had been barren and leafless. Now everything was blooming, and the weather was warming, causing new plants to sprout. When she first asked about the strange changes, Terrin called it “spring”. It seemed the frigid weather she was used to was bottled up in Lur Alava, along with the sheets of snow and daunting north wind. The Land of Snow’s version of spring was the few months where the regular snowfall ceased, and it sometimes melted enough to reveal the barren earth underneath.

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Terrin scrunched up his eyebrows in confusion. “What do you mean? What else could trees look like?”

“Well, our trees are shaped more like triangles, and they do not have leaves like these," she added, plucking a teardrop-shaped example from a nearby branch. “The trees I am used to look like this.”

She took the leaf and rolled it between her palms, creating the desired tubular shape. Terrin's eyes sparked with understanding.

“I see what you mean. Once I did wander closer to the border, even though nothing useful grows farther north. I remember seeing strange trees on the mountains that looked like what you're describing.”

She nodded thoughtfully and fell silent again.

“You're from the Land of Snow, aren't you? You have a Lur Alavian accent.”

Elurra knew denying it was pointless. No one could look and talk like she did without living their whole life in a field of ice. She nodded silently, avoiding his eyes.

“You’re a noble of some kind or a higher servant to someone. No one else talks like them.”

“You do," she pointed out, wishing he would stop prying.

“That's different. Ramer insisted I speak well. He says it will help me get a job in a governor's home or maybe even the castle."

Elurra saw a way to change the topic and went for it.

“Why do you always call your father Ramer?”

He gaped at her, dumbfounded.

“I-I don’t know. I always have. Why? Is there something wrong with that?”

“Most people use “father” or a similar endearment.”

“Really?”

“Yes really, so why not you?”

He shrugged.

“He has always preferred I call him “Ramer”. What do you call your father?”

Her expression betrayed that the question hit a sensitive topic. She felt like she was going to be sick. Terrin's face clouded.

“Did I say something wrong?”

Images of her father’s head falling from his body and rolling through the snow plagued Elurra, and she tried not to gag. She stood without a word and picked up her basket.

“We've been here too long. We should get back to picking herbs."

Without waiting for a reply, she turned on her heel and headed off into the forest, leaving Terrin to scramble after her. He quickly caught up, as she had abruptly stopped a few meters away.

“Listen Snow, I didn’t mean to upset you, I was simply trying to—”

She cut him off with a wave of her hand, her expression showing she had found something else to distract her.

“What happened here?” she whispered softly as she examined the landscape before her. The trees in front of them had been torn apart. There was a large circle of empty forest, where everything was either missing, broken, or leaning toward whatever mysterious force had caused the damage. Terrin noticed what she was staring at and took a step back.

“You found a doom circle. No one knows where they come from, but Ramer says it’s best to stay away from them. They just appear in the woods sometimes.”

He took her hand and gently led her away from the destroyed area. Elurra peppered him with more questions, but she eventually gave up and they lapsed back into silence when it became clear he knew as little as she did.