The town did not look like a place that remembered war.
Evershade rested in a shallow valley, where fog lingered long after morning and the seasons never seemed to fully decide themselves. Autumn clung stubbornly to the air even as winter threatened—leaves rotted beneath frost, and the trees stood tall and narrow, their pale bark threaded together overhead like clasped fingers. Even in daylight, the forest that bordered the town felt dim, not menacing, but alert. As though it noticed things before people did.
The sign at the edge of the road read EVERSHADE, its paint cracked and peeling. Beneath the name, faint scratches marred the wood—thin lines carved long ago and never erased.
It was not the kind of town people chose.
It was the kind they arrived in without knowing why.
The moving truck groaned as it rolled down the main road, its engine too loud against the hush of shuttered storefronts. A few townspeople looked up as it passed. Not out of curiosity, but recognition—an instinctive awareness that something had shifted.
Rowan Hale watched the trees from the passenger seat.
Seventeen years old, adopted at two, he had lived in enough places to know when somewhere felt wrong. Or right in a way that unsettled him. The moment they crossed into Evershade, a tightness settled in his chest—not fear, not excitement, but something closer to recognition.
He lowered the window slightly. Cold air rushed in, sharp with the scent of damp soil and crushed leaves. Beneath it lingered something faintly metallic, like rain on stone.
His fingers curled against the door handle.
For a moment—only a flicker—he thought he heard a sound beneath the hum of the engine. Not words. Just a whisper of movement, like breath passing through too many mouths at once.
He blinked, and it vanished.
"You okay?" his mother asked from the driver's seat.
Rowan nodded. "Yeah."
It wasn't a lie. He just didn't know how to explain the rest.
Their house stood at the edge of town, closer to the forest than the others. Two stories, slate roof, tall windows darkened by the overcast sky. Ivy climbed one side as if it had been there longer than the foundation itself.
Rowan stepped out first.
The cold filled his lungs, and instead of recoiling, his body relaxed. The forest stretched endlessly behind the house, trees packed so densely the shadows between them seemed almost solid. Wind moved through the branches in slow waves, leaves rustling with a strange, deliberate rhythm.
For a moment, everything else fell away.
The sound of his parents unloading boxes dulled. The creak of the truck faded. There was only the forest—and the sense that something within it had drawn a breath when he did.
He stepped forward without realizing it.
The ground beneath his shoe was softer than it should have been, unfrozen despite the chill. A vine brushed against his ankle.
Then tightened.
Not painfully. Just enough to make him look down.
The vine loosened immediately, curling back into stillness.
Rowan stared.
His pulse quickened, not with fear, but awareness. He crouched and pressed his palm to the soil. Cold met his skin, yet beneath it, warmth bloomed—faint but unmistakable.
Leaves trembled. The air shifted.
"Rowan."
His mother's voice cut through the moment, sharp with concern. He stood too quickly. The vine lay motionless. The forest stilled.
Whatever had stirred inside him settled back into quiet.
For now.