"A spring tease", she called it. These days where the air felt somewhat close to balmy, and the biting sharpness of winter softened into a feeling of promise. The evenings stretched longer and longer now, a few minutes at a time, and the sun sat higher in the sky each afternoon. Birds chirped softly in the ancient trees above, and small creatures moved subtly through the leaf litter beneath the thickets. The world was ready, waiting, holding its breath for the next blush of life that would come over Bree-land.
The girl felt it, too. She felt it in her blood and in her bones, in her mind and her senses. The past year had been so dark. Filled with shadows, doubt, guilt, pain, grief, longing, confusion.
This year would be different. So very different.
A hand rose to her throat, and a slender fingertip ran over the gleaming, silver brooch holding her cloak. She smiled faintly, and her vivid eyes grew soft with visions of something far away.
It was time to go north again.
