Ravensblood Forest featherlight

Compared to the brightness, the openness, of the coast and its gray-white sand beaches, this forest was dark and foreboding. The tops of the sequoias nestled together to create a canopy blocking the light, letting only a few lucky beams shine through to reach the ground. Her eyes, looking into the dimlit woods, took in all these new sights, hobbling to a halt along beside her newfound friend and potential savior, Thelxiope.

Making the place even spookier were the trees: they were bleeding. (In another life--in her other life--she would have deduced, correctly, that it was merely sap, not anything sanguine, dripping from the wide round trunks. Unfortunately, an amnesiac hasn't the luxury of pulling things learned from that other life.) She shivered as she saw one specimen near the edge, a ragged old sequoia, liberally coated with the stuff. . .as if it were bleeding to death.

Thelxiope howled, calling for a rendezvous at the border. With whom, Snowe didn't yet know. She hoped that Thelxiope was on good terms with these wolves and was not seeking an audience with ones she did not know well; Snowe would feel more comfortable knowing that she--that both of them--were wanted there.

"We wait," she echoed, giving her companion a smile that was mostly bravado on her part. The subtle shivers that ran beneath her pelt, across her skin, belied her nervousness.