CHAPTER 6

Amara

My heart was still thumping like a trapped bird. Corvus was ahead. That thought was big... making it hard to breathe, hard to even pretend to sleep. Everyone was asleep. Everyone but me.

How could I sleep?

I lay there for a long time. Too long. My eyes were open, staring at the dark trees against the even darker sky. I needed to move. I needed to think with my feet.

I pushed myself up. My boots were already on, I never took them off all the way. My small pack, the one with my knife and my water skin, was right beside me. I picked it up. It felt light. Good.

Then a voice came from right behind me. "Where are you planning to go?"

It wasn't loud. It wasn't angry. It was just... there. My stomach dropped. I spun around, fast. He was four feet away. Aldric. He just stood there. Like he had been there the whole time. But he hadn't. I hadn't heard him move.

I didn't have a good answer. And I hated that. I really, really hated it.

"I... I needed to..." I trailed off. It sounded stupid. Even to me.

He just looked at me. His face was a shadow in the dark, but I could feel his eyes. They were on me. Really on me. This was bad. I didn't like being seen. Not like this.

"Needed to what?" he asked. Still quiet. Still not aggressive. Just waiting.

I sighed. A little huff of air. No point lying. I didn't like lying unless it was really, really needed. And he seemed like the kind of person who would just... know. And that was even worse.

"The bounty," I said. My voice was a whisper. "From Corvus. It's wrong."

He didn't say anything. He just waited.

"It came too fast," I told him. "Too fast for word to travel all the way to Corvus's town and then for him to send out the bounty and for Bram to have already gotten hold of it." I paused, thinking about all the steps. All the time it would take. "It's not possible. Not if they found out when we left."

He kept looking at me. Not a blink. Not a nod. No little twitch of his mouth like most people do. He just absorbed it.

I kept going. "It means someone told Corvus before we even left. Before we reached the edge of the territory. Someone from my pack." I swallowed. That was the hard part. Saying it out loud. "Someone knew the moment you were taking me. Or knew you were coming. And told him."

Silence. The kind of silence that feels heavy. Between us.

"And if someone told him before we left," I continued, my voice getting stronger now, surer, because this part I knew, "then he's not behind us. He's ahead. He knows where we're going. Or he knows where we might go. And he's already there. Or he will be."

I finished. I had nothing else to say. I had laid it all out. What I knew. What I figured out last night, twisting and turning while Zane joked about bounties. My heart started beating hard again, just thinking about it.

He said one thing. Just one question. "What were you going to do?"

No "how do you know that?" No "who do you think it was?" Just that. What was I going to do now?

"I was going to try to find out where," I said. "Where he might be. Or where not to go instead." It wasn't a great plan. But it was a plan. Better than waiting to be caught.

He asked nothing else.

We stood there in the dark. Not quite close enough for it to be awkward. But close enough that I could feel the space between us. I knew I should go back. Back to the camp. To the others who were asleep. But I didn't. I didn't go back yet.

He wasn't making me stay. He had already taken a step back. A small step. But it was enough. It made it clear that the choice was mine. I could walk away. Walk into the trees. Try to find out things. Or I could go back.

I stayed anyway. For three more minutes. Maybe four. Time felt funny then. Neither of us said anything at all. No more questions. No more answers. It wasn't uncomfortable. It really wasn't. And that was the problem.

Finally, I moved. I turned around. I started walking back to the camp. To the dying fire. To the sleeping shapes. He followed me. At a distance. Not too close. Not too far. Precisely respectful. But still present. I could feel him there. He was just... there.

I settled back on the ground, pulling my blanket up. Zane snorted in his sleep. Bram was still a still lump. I closed my eyes. But sleep wouldn't come. My mind was racing.

We are in a bad kind of trouble. The kind that ends with blades and blood. I knew that kind of trouble. I'd lived through it too many times. That was the kind of trouble I knew how to outrun. Or outlast.