She didn’t move.

  For a long while, I just stood there, staring at the figure lying on the ice. The moonlight caught on her hair—it was almost white, but not in an old way. More like frost. Like starlight. Her cloak had come loose at one shoulder, revealing strange patterns woven into the fabric, some lines and runes I didn’t recognize. And a crest that didn’t belong to any kingdom I’d ever heard of.

  She was older than me, but not by much. Maybe fifteen, maybe a little more. Her cheeks were pale, lips slightly parted. One hand lay palm-up beside her head, fingers curled as if she’d tried to hold onto something.

  I didn’t know what to do.

  The lake around us was frozen solid, but not slick. It felt... sacred somehow. Like walking on it was allowed, but only just.

  I approached slowly, each step measured, the soft creak of my boots on the ice the only sound. The world had gone quiet again. Completely still.

  When I reached her side, I knelt down. The ice wasn’t cold anymore. Neither was she.

  Her chest rose and fell barely, but it did. She was alive.

  And somehow, I already knew: she was important.

  Not because of her strange, rich-looking clothes, or the way she had fallen through that mirror like a comet. But because something had changed the moment she arrived. The runes on my hand had vanished. The cold in the air had softened. The silence didn’t feel empty anymore. Only the blue snowflake stayed on my hand. It felt like waiting.

  I reached out, hesitating, then gently touched her shoulder. Slowly… then she moved.

  Just the faintest movement. A twitch of her fingers. Then her lashes fluttered, and slowly—so slowly—her eyes opened. They were the color of ice under moonlight. Not quite blue. Not quite silver. They looked through me at first, unfocused, lost.

  Then they fixed on mine.

  We stared at each other. For a moment, neither of us spoke. I was frozen in place. Heart pounding, breath caught between questions I didn’t know how to ask.

  Her lips parted. She blinked, slow and dazed.

  Then, in a voice warm but distant, with a little trembling and confusion in it, she said:

  “Where... am I?”

  For a short moment, I hesitated. But then I answered, quietly:

  “We’re in the dark forest… near the Emberfang Peaks.”

  She blinked slowly, as if trying to hold onto my words. Her gaze drifted past me, toward the lake’s edge, the trees, the sky, like she was searching for something familiar and finding nothing.

  Then she tried to sit up.

  I moved without thinking.

  “Wait! Careful,” I said, reaching for her arm just as she winced and slumped back down, breath hitching through her teeth. Her cloak had slipped further now, and I could see faint bruises along her collarbone. Whatever that fall was, it hadn’t been gentle.

  She turned her head slightly, looking at me again. Closer, now. Those pale eyes—still clouded, still distant—narrowed just a little.

  “You’re... a little girl…” she murmured.

  I froze, unsure if I should be offended or afraid.

  She blinked again, slower this time. “The dark forest near the Emberfang Peaks? Never heard of this… Where are we located on Pangaya?”

  I stared at her. “Pan... what?”

  She looked at me then, like she was trying to solve a riddle by staring it into submission. Her brows pulled together slowly, like frost forming across a windowpane. I could see her lips moving, silently mouthing the word again.

  “Pangaya”

  It meant nothing to me. I’d never heard it. Not in the village. Not in my mother’s stories. Not even in the old books she kept high on the shelves, the ones I wasn’t supposed to touch without asking.

  “I don’t know that word,” I said softly. “This is Aelthorn Kingdom. The forest outside Bluecreek.”

  She didn’t react at first. Just kept staring. Then slowly, she tilted her head back, her eyes searching the sky. The clouds had parted more now, revealing a patchwork of stars scattered across the night. She studied them in silence. Her lips moved slightly, counting, maybe. Tracing unseen patterns. Then her breath hitched, just the smallest sound.

  “Show me the three Ice Stars in the Filament,” she said, voice hushed. “I can’t see them from here. Are we in the south?”

  I blinked.

  “I don’t know those stars,” I admitted. “But we are far north. The Emberfang Peaks are just west of here.”

  She lowered her gaze slowly, and for the first time since she’d fallen through that frozen mirror, she looked afraid. Not frightened of me. Not of the forest. But of something much farther away. Something she had left behind.

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  “Then the gate sent me too far,” she whispered. “Farther than I thought possible.”

  She closed her eyes, exhaling a slow, trembling breath. “This... this isn’t just another country. This isn’t even the same sky.”

  Before she could say anything more, I heard it. A sound. Soft at first. Like a sigh. Then a slow crackling, like frost peeling away from stone. I looked down. The ice beneath us was melting.

  Not all at once. Not in a rush. It was gentle, almost graceful—the way frost might dissolve under morning light. The mirror-lake began to return to water, the silver sheen fading, the reflection of the stars breaking apart into ripples. I gasped and scrambled to my feet, still clutching her arm. “We have to move!”

  She tried to rise, but her legs shook. I wrapped one of her arms over my shoulder and braced us both, boots slipping slightly on the wet surface.

  The ice wasn’t cracking, it was just leaving. Like it had done what it came for. Like it had been a door, and now it was closing. The center gave way first, water lapping gently up from beneath. We were maybe ten paces from the edge.

  “Hold on,” I whispered, more to myself than to her, and we half-ran, half-stumbled toward the shoreline. The blue-night-flowers still glowed faintly there, as if waiting.

  Just before we stepped onto solid ground, I glanced back. The last of the ice shimmered once under the moonlight… then sank.

  The lake was just a lake again. And the world, somehow, felt more real than it had a moment ago.

  We collapsed onto the mossy bank just as the last ripple faded behind us. The grass was damp, the air sharp with the scent of wet earth and herbs, but it didn’t matter. We were out. We were safe. For now.

  She leaned against me, her breathing ragged but steady, eyes half-lidded. I could feel her weight, her warmth, or the strange lack of it. Even close, she felt... not cold, exactly. Just other.

  I didn’t speak. Neither did she.

  The lake behind us lay still, dark, and dreamless. The blue-night-flowers shimmered faintly in clusters, like little stars that had fallen and decided to bloom instead.

  For a few minutes, we just sat there. Listening. Breathing. Existing.

  Then I reached into my satchel and pulled out what little I had left—a scrap of cheese, the heel of the bread, the flask of water. I set it between us without a word.

  She looked at it, then at me, her expression unreadable. After a long pause, she reached out and took the flask, sipping slowly.

  “Thank you,” She accepted that with a nod and leaned back, watching the moon through the canopy. The wind stirred the trees again, but this time, it didn’t feel like a warning.

  It felt like a lullaby.

  We sat in silence, the kind that grows thick in the woods after a storm. I wanted to believe we were safe now. That nothing else would come clawing out of the dark. But the truth sat heavy in my chest.

  We were in the dark forest, populated with monsters and other creatures, not the ones from bedtime stories, but the kind my mother had warned me about in whispers. The kind people didn’t name unless they had to.

  I pulled the cloak tighter around my shoulders and stared at the edge of the trees.

  After she drank, her eyes sharpened, the daze lifting like mist. She turned to me, more focused now, more present and broke the silence.

  “Why is a little girl like you in this ‘dark forest’ alone?” she asked softly. “I can feel the mana density is high here. You shouldn’t go alone here.”

  I looked at her, unsure how to explain something that felt too big, too painful for words.

  “My mother didn’t come back,” I said. “She left two days ago to gather herbs. But… she never came home.”

  I swallowed, fingers tightening in the fabric of her cloak.

  “I waited. I hoped. But something’s wrong. She wouldn’t stay away this long. Not unless she had to.”

  The girl—who still hadn’t told me her name—was silent. Her expression didn’t change, but I saw the way her hand curled slightly over her knee. Thoughtful. Maybe even protective.

  “I found a map,” I went on. “One she drew. It should lead me to her. To Moon Hollow. But it led me here.”

  I paused.

  “And then... to you.”

  I stopped, the weight of the words still settling between us, like I’d stumbled into something I wasn’t supposed to find, but somehow needed to.

  Then her earlier sentence caught up with me, slipping through the cracks in my thoughts.

  I looked at her, eyes wide. “Wait—you can feel the mana density here?”

  She blinked, surprised by the question. Then gave a slow nod.

  “Yes. It’s... dense. Wild. Untamed. Like veins of raw power running beneath the soil. It indicates a high beast population.” Her voice dropped slightly. “Maybe even an Overlord.”

  The word sounded heavy. Important. Dangerous.

  She tilted her head, frowning at the trees. Then, after a beat, she pointed toward the white mist curling low across the ground, around the lake’s edge, so faint I hadn’t really noticed it until now.

  “How did you find this lake, anyways?” she asked. “See the mist? It’s full of illusion mana. This place is shielded. Hidden. You shouldn’t be able to randomly walk into a barrier like this.”

  I looked around, suddenly aware of how quiet the forest had become again. How soft the light looked through the haze. It wasn’t just fog. It shimmered at the edges, like moonlight caught in a dream.

  “I didn’t know,” I admitted. “I just… followed a scent. My mother’s scent. Blue-night-flower.”

  I looked down at my hand, the snowflake still faint on my skin.

  “It led me here. Through the trees. Past the green stones and the fallen tree. I followed the stream until the birch bent backwards. Just like the map said.”

  She stared at me, unreadable again, and was quiet for a moment.

  Then she asked, slowly, carefully, like trying not to spook something fragile:

  “Do you know where we are? Or where your village is? Or this Moonlight Hollow, where your mom’s supposed to be?”

  I hesitated. The words caught in my throat. “I… did.”

  The girl blinked. I looked down, fingers tightening on the satchel strap.

  “I followed her trail. Past the fallen tree, to the bent birch. That was the last landmark on the map. But then I heard something. A howl. Not a wolf. Not a bear. Something worse.”

  I swallowed.

  “I panicked. I ran. For hours. I think I ran until the sun went down. I didn’t even know I was still moving in the right direction.”

  She was quiet, her face unreadable again.

  “I only found this place because I caught the scent of blue-night-flower,” I added, softer now. “My Mother used it in everything. I thought… maybe she had passed this way. Maybe…”

  I didn’t finish. I didn’t need to.

  Her expression didn’t change, but her voice did, just a little.

  “You were lost,” she said.

  I nodded. “I still am.”

  She looked up at the stars again, then back toward the woods.

  “…Then we find our way forward. Together.”

  Her words settled between us like a promise. Not loud. Not dramatic. Just quiet and real. The kind that matters most.

  I nodded, slowly.

  She leaned back again, clearly still exhausted, and closed her eyes just for a moment—but not in sleep. Just breathing. Gathering strength.

  Then I turned slightly toward her.

  “My name is Lina,” I said softly. “How should I call you?”

  Her eyes opened again, slow and steady. She looked at me—not startled, not guarded anymore. Just quiet. Thoughtful.

  There was a long pause. Long enough that I wasn’t sure she’d answer at all.

  Then, almost like it hurt to say, she murmured:

  “…Mia.”