The forest around their camp still slumbered under a heavy veil of mist, thick and damp like the breath of something ancient—something that had exhaled its last warmth centuries ago and now lingered only as a ghost of moisture clinging to the air. The trees stood crooked and black against the pale dawn, their gnarled branches weaving an uneven canopy that filtered the weak morning light into fractured beams. The mist coiled around their trunks like serpents, shifting sluggishly with each faint stir of wind.
Bane was already awake.
