Queen Arabella stood by the grand windows of the Autumnlands' palace, her eyes fixed on the snow that gently fell over the barren trees below. It was an eerie sight, one that would have once filled her heart with dread, but now it was a silent symbol of change.
The cold, gray sky mirrored the landscape below, where the once vibrant red and gold of the autumn leaves had long since withered, leaving only brittle branches and the remnants of a long-dead season.
Snowfall in the Autumnlands had never been a thing of beauty; it was always a harsh, unforgiving force, one that cut into the land and left the people cold and hungry.
Now, though, the snow seemed different. As if the land was beginning to remember what it had lost its cycle of life, the promise of renewal. T
he curse that had plagued them for so long was lifting, and in its place, there was the barest hint of something new, something fragile.
