Darkness was already creeping over the craggy peaks. Magdala’s carriage, escorted with four horsemen, rattled along the mountain road back towards home. Its old wooden frame creaked and groaned with every bump and turn, as if the very earth beneath them was restless, eager to shrug off their trespass. Magdala's fingers danced upon the velvet upholstery, tracing the tremors as though divining secrets from the land itself. The relentless clatter of hooves and the coarse swearing of the guards completed the soundscape of this peculiar ritual that she never got tired of.

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  Through the small side window, the landscape was a moving tapestry of shadows, the silhouettes of steep mountainsides looming like silent sentinels against the encroaching dark. The narrow road wound precariously along the cliff's edge. Far below, jagged rocks sticked out like giant teeth of the ravines that yawned wide, their depths swallowing the waning light, promising a descent into oblivion for any unfortunate soul who slipped from the path.

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