The Verdant Veil was endless. Every step forward felt some resistance, yet not to any form, but to the air itself. The mist was alive, active, and searched our will with every breath. It rang our limbs, whispered in our ears, seeped into the cracks of thought-anything that would dissolve the will pressing upon us onward.
Ember was walking beside me, her hairs on end. "This place is made to hurt us," she whispered. "Not with strength, but with… something else. It is in the air.
She wasn't wrong. The air was thick with an unnatural sweetness, some sort of cloying fragrance that risked soporific effects on the mind. My grip tightened on the fragment, its light our only beacon in the oppressive haze. The wolves clung close, their movements uncertain, ears flat against their skulls.
"Ignore the whispers," I said, my voice firm. "Focus on the light and stay together. The mist wants us to stray ,it thrives on isolation."
