C178 THE LINE SHE WAS NEVER MEANT TO CROSS

Aria did not mean to leave the village.

That was the truth of it.

She had told herself she was just going as far as the eastern path—the one that curved toward the old birch trees and stopped just before the land lost its traces. She had walked it dozens of times before, barefoot in summer, clothed in shawls during cold nights, never feeling as though the ground under her might resist her