North of Pine Needle Forest, the world was steeped in gray and white.
Crunch.
An enormous wolf muzzle plunged into the snow. Its nose twitched a few times before it pulled a frozen frost crow from beneath the drifts.
Its sharp teeth closed as though crunching ice. A few black feathers drifted from the corner of its mouth as it swallowed the broken bones and frozen meat.
This was a Silverback Direwolf. Standing upright, it reached a man's shoulder, and the silver-white fur along its spine stood on end. Two plumes of white breath occasionally burst from its nostrils as its ice-blue eyes scanned its surroundings warily.
General Karl sat upright on its back, wearing his Winter's Embrace coat. His empty left sleeve blew flat against his ribs. His face was copper-colored, his skin rough and cracked, his eyes deeply sunken. The thick knuckles of his remaining right hand clenched around the reins.
He turned his head and swept his gaze through the woods.
A brown bear lay curled inside the hollow of a nearby oak. Thick white frost coated its body. It looked asleep, but its chest no longer rose or fell. In the branches overhead, several sparrows remained poised to take flight, their claws hooked into the bark, ice crystals packed between their feathers. A gust shook the branches violently, yet the birds never moved, as though they had grown from the tree.
Even a hibernating brown bear had been robbed of its warmth. Even birds about to flee had been frozen to death.
The elves had said the Monsoon Edict would consume three years of this land's vitality. Here was a glimpse of what they meant.
Karl looked away.
The gale tugged at his empty left sleeve again, making it snap in the wind.
The wound where