Snow fell softly over Göttingen, blanketing the narrow streets in a white silence that Francisco had never truly known before.
He walked slowly, his boots crunching against frozen slush, still dazed by the world around him. Earlier that afternoon, he had finished assisting his professor with a set of dense Latin texts—ecclesiastical commentaries whose margins were crowded with arguments older than empires. The professor, noticing Francisco's wandering attention, had dismissed him early with a faint smile and a reminder not to miss curfew.
Francisco had barely heard him.
Until this winter, the only snow he had ever seen rested far away, crowning distant mountains in New Granada like unreachable marble statues. Snow was something admired from afar, something that belonged to painters and travelers' tales.
Here, it lay everywhere.
