The carriage door creaked open, and Wooyun stepped onto the frozen earth.
The cold bit into him instantly, now that he wasn't sheltered. His breath fogged the air in front of him, and the soft crunch of snow beneath his boots echoed faintly across the vast clearing.
Yeah..the North is colder than I expected.
He barely had time to steady himself before he felt it. Eyes. Dozens of them. No—hundreds.
From the raised platforms to the stairways of the towering black citadel ahead, figures in black, red, and fur-lined garments stood in perfect, motionless poses. The four factions of the North were all staring at him.
He could tell without being told that he was an outsider. Everything about him stood out. His light-colored robes, his shivering figure, and the innocence in his eyes screamed, "You don't belong here."
The weight of their collective gaze was crushing. Disbelief, confusion, alarm, and the most glaring of all—wariness.
