Prologue
Year: 1498 A.D. Somewhere west,
They say the forest catches the night faster, so don't linger too long.
But he didn't listen.
By the time he dragged himself onto the beach, the fog had already swallowed everything — the trees behind him, the horizon ahead, even his own footprints shrinking into nothing.
Snow fell like it had all the time in the world, soft and patient and cruel. Winter wasn't just in the air. It was in his bones, his teeth, the spaces where his palms used to be.
He stumbled. Caught himself on a knee that nearly gave. One leg trailed behind like dead weight, scraping a dark line through the snow and wet sand. Blood kept coming — from his arms, his chest, the raw stumps where his hands had been. He could see bone when he looked down. White against red. Almost pretty. Almost like the snow.
He found a cave. Dragged himself inside. The dark ate him whole.
He collapsed. Curled into himself like a child. His breath came shallow, ragged, the only warm thing left in a body that was already starting to forget what heat felt like.
Silence. Then—
"God."
His voice cracked on the syllable.
"I hope you exist".
He pressed his face into the ruin of his arms. The salt from his tears hit the raw flesh and he didn't even flinch anymore.
WINTER HAD JUST BEGUN.
***
Chapter 1: Dispersed From The Origin
Yanaha, Village Woodmen
There are places where the world forgets to be alive.
The Lady forest of Yanaha is one of them.
A man in his early twenties awakens, at the first stiffened edge of Yanaha. Pushing aside the banana leaves that were covering him he stretched and yawned, his body heavy, as if roused from a deep, unnatural slumber.
Four months had passed since the Feast of Cold began, and the forest of Yanaha had covered herself in a beautiful snow white.
The young man's first sight was the snow-capped trees and the corpse of a black bear hanging upside down.
For some blinks he wondered —about absolutely nothing. At least he tried.
Then the cold hit him with a merciless realisation.
Shivering uncontrollably, he realised, with a jolt, that he was completely naked. Instinctively he curled into a tight ball, hastily dragging the rigid banana leaves around his skin.
A thick, suffocating fog had swallowed the world, while the dark, massive trunks of ancient oaks and pines pierced the white gloom like the bars of a cage.
For some moments he sat there trying to warm himself from those banana leaves.
But the wet dew on the leaves only worsened the biting frost. Realising he would freeze if he stayed still, he forced himself up.
Using the frozen leaves as a makeshift shawl, he began to walk, shivering and chattering his teeth.
The forest was entirely bleached by winter; direction had no meaning. Every step forward pushed him into a new, blind world of white, while the fog immediately erased the path behind him.
He wandered disoriented in search of something warm until his foot brushed against something solid: a pile of discarded garments.
He rushed to them, desperately pulling on every layer he could find.
He ended up in five layers of mismatched, oversized garments, topping it off with a stained green shawl to cover his head.
The fabrics were uncomfortably damp, holding the biting chill of the forest floor, but within moments, his trapped body heat fought back, and a stubborn, desperate warmth began to emerge.
Refuelled by the heat, he began walking cautiously within the fog as if blind until the faint, crisp sound of moving water broke the silence.
A small spring glinted between frosted banks, thin wisps of steam curling off its surface. He dropped to his knees, submerging his face in the warm water, drinking desperately until his lungs burned.
When he finally pulled back, hot tears filled his eyes. His breathing sharpened, then slowly steadied. Sinking onto the bank where the water breathed a faint warmth into the air, he pressed his forehead to his knee, letting the gentle rush of spring and the soft hiss of settling snow wash over him.
A low, guttural growl twisted through his stomach, hollow and insistent, a reminder that water alone wouldn't save him.
After a long while, he forced his stiff legs to stand.
He walked one step at a time until the morning fog began to thin.
Then, something forced him to stop.
A corpse lay before him. It was a thing of three absences: sight, footing, and its own skin, replaced by a ghastly crimson shroud.
The sight horrified him.
His body froze,
His eyes widened,
His breath hitched.
A single tear cut a clean path through the grime on his cheeks. As his gaze drifted upward, he realised it wasn't alone. Five shapes hung like rotten fruit from the low, skeletal branches of the surrounding pines. A man. A woman. And three small, terrible silhouettes—children.
All naked and violated in the same way: sightless, soleless, painted in that same grotesque rust-red hue.
Something dark and overwhelming cracked inside him. And the world blurred into a smear of white fog and dark tree trunks as he bolted.
His legs carried him away, but his thoughts remained rooted among the pines, where the hollow-eyed dead still watched in silence.
And when he finally stopped, as if by a miracle, there was an old-looking bamboo chair for him to rest.
Drenched in sweat and horror he rested himself in the chair.
He didn't want to, but he turned around to see if that sight was still visible from there. Fortunately for his own sanity, the sight was gone.
Around him, the forest fell silent, as if eavesdropping on his every heartbeat.
He looked around and found an old and mossy wooden signpost.
'Igora'
He read it like a whisper.
Just then, whispers rose from every direction.
All chanting the same word.
'Igora'.
The whispers burrowed beneath his skin. His pulse quickened as his eyes searched the empty forest.
Nobody.
The horror of those whispers scratched at the deepest corners of his mind until a sharp pain bloomed behind his eyes. Outside, he kept clutching his head, struggling against it.
Inside, he was somewhere else.
'A child lay silent on the floor, blindfolded and bound with ropes, a strip of cloth gagging his mouth.
A man knelt beside him. An eerie smile spread across his face as he leaned closer, speaking in a whisper that carried the softness of a woman's voice.
Nothing happens… and nothing will happen forever'.
A heartbeat later, a harsh voice cut through the fog, shattering the memory.
"Hey! You! Hey, green man ".
The words reached him, but they didn't land, his mind was still tangled somewhere inside.
His legs tried to carry him forward again, but four fully armoured horsemen of the village of Woodmen burst through the mist, cutting off his escape.
They asked no question. They seized him instantly, binding him to a saddle, and dragged him into the grey dawn.