Appledale
A quiet orchard town in the south, and the place where everything begins.
Appledale is a small town of orchards and ovens in the southern reaches — the kind of place where the seasons are measured in blossom and harvest, and where most people live and die within sight of where they were born. Its bread is good, its lanes are narrow, and its surface is gentle.
That gentleness is part of the deception. Behind Appledale’s ordinary days runs a quieter cruelty: families slowly hollowed out by debts they did not understand they were taking on, their ruin dressed up as misfortune. The town that raised Estaria is also the town that taught him, too late, how much harm can hide inside respectability.
Beyond the orchards lies Willow Lake, and a cabin among the trees that two children once made into a world of their own.