When consciousness slowly returned to Erin Volter, the suffocating, bone-chilling blizzard was gone.
Instead, a gentle, surprisingly warm breeze rustled against her skin, carrying a faint, metallic scent that smelled faintly of crushed pine needles. She groaned softly, her eyelids fluttering as she shifted her position. The ground beneath her back was no longer a frozen bed of soft snow, but a carpet of dark, damp moss.
Erin blinked her eyes open, her vision swimming in hazy circles before slowly adjusting to the dim, twilight environment. High above her, a colossal canopy of twisted, obsidian-barked trees blocked out the sky, their leaves glowing with a soft, ethereal violet hue. She was lying in the deep shadow of an ancient, massive trunk.
She pushed herself up on her elbows, her head throbbing with a dull, persistent ache. "Where...?"
