The forest shifted when Vaeron reappeared out of the shadows knitting together in the air in a split second, before disappearing without a sound. His expression was a guise of coldness where beneath the whorl mask lay rage blazing inside him.
The silent thud of his footsteps against the snow echoed in the empty forest as those skeptical eyes swept the devastation with a predator's patience. As expected, the forest hadn't healed.
Trees still lay splintered outward in unnatural spirals as their trunks ruptured from within where snow had melted and refrozen in warped glassy sheets, etched with scorched marks long diminished. The air tasted wrong with ozone and ash threaded through lingering magic tangled in the air.
