Chapter 57: Captured

Mira gently unsheathed her knife and held its blade between her fingers. She felt the smoothness of the cold metal as she raised it a few inches above her shoulder while her eyes remained focused on a small spot several steps away. She drew in her breath and saw the brown and gray bark of the ancient tree. Its surface had spots of lichen and moss and the earth-colored patterns all seemed natural, but right in the middle of it, Mira could see the faint outline of a lizard. It blinked its eyes and a thin pink tongue slipped out of its mouth, but its body remained still in perfect camouflage with the back of the tree.

As Mira prepared to throw the knife, she sensed something else in her peripheral vision. A slight movement, something that was not really part of the environment but trying to blend in. It was more conspicuous than the lizard that she had detected on the tree trunk, but Mira knew that it would remain hidden to the untrained eye. Mira’s eyes rolled to the left and she tried t