26 Weather

 As the first light of February 25, 2025, crept over Latvia, the country awoke to a scene that was both tender and evocative—a quiet prelude to winter’s enduring symphony. The dawn, tinted with a gentle bluish glow, revealed a landscape draped in frost and mystery, where every breath of chilly air carried the promise of a day steeped in nature’s poetic cadence. In Riga, the capital that gracefully merges history with modernity, early risers were met with a silvery mist swirling around ancient cobblestone streets. The morning temperature hovered around -2°C (28°F), and a delicate frost had laid its crystalline patterns upon windowpanes and statues alike. As the city stirred awake, the persistent overcast sky hinted at a day where the sun would play hide and seek, its rays only occasionally piercing through the thick layer of clouds. By mid-morning, the mercury in Riga nudged upward to a modest 1°C (34°F), offering a fleeting warmth that quickly surrendered to the day’s cool temperam...

 The village of Windmere had always lived under the mercy of the weather. Nestled between the cliffs and the sea, its people relied on fishing and farming to survive. But lately, something had changed. The weather had grown unpredictable—storms came without warning, the sea churned violently, and the air carried an eerie stillness before each tempest. Among the villagers, an old sailor named Rowan had seen enough to know that this was no ordinary shift in nature. There was something deeply wrong, something that whispered through the winds. He had spent years sailing across vast waters, mapping uncharted islands, and listening to the ocean’s voice. And now, the sea was speaking again, though with a warning rather than a song. One evening, as Rowan sat by the shore, a peculiar object washed up—a piece of a compass , rusted and cracked. It bore an insignia he hadn’t seen in decades: the mark of the lost ship Elysian . That vessel had vanished years ago, swallowed by a storm unlike an...