Chapter 12
Hemlock's Wisdom
Seeking answers, James consults the enigmatic Old Man Hemlock. The recluse offers cryptic guidance, hinting at deeper secrets surrounding Anya's disappearance.
The biting wind whipped at James’s coat, a familiar sting that did little to cool the fire in his gut. He’d followed the thread, thin as a spider’s silk, to this desolate corner of the world, a place where the mountains gnawed at the sky and the snow lay thick and undisturbed, a pristine shroud over forgotten secrets. Old Man Hemlock’s cabin was a wisp of smoke against the vast, indifferent white, a solitary beacon in a sea of frozen silence.
He’d been warned. Hemlock was a creature of the shadows, a keeper of whispers, a man who dealt in truths that could break a soul. But James was beyond breaking. Twenty-four years of an ache that had hollowed him out, of a ghost that walked beside him in every transaction, every negotiation, every kill. Anya. Her name was a prayer and a curse on his lips.
The door creaked open before he even knocked, revealing a figure hunched against the meager light spilling from within. Hemlock was ancient, his face a roadmap of wrinkles etched by time and something far deeper, far colder. His eyes, though, were sharp, like chips of obsidian, missing nothing.
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