We tried to step over a section of the forest, but my feet got tangled.
When I got back up , I looked around. The glowing was even brighter than it had been before. Strangely, I began to feel the drawing sensation again. Maybe that had been working on me the entire time. It was possible that, regardless of where I thought I was leading Alison,we were instead heading directly toward the dragon. If so, it meant that the pull of the dragon was far more compelling than I had known. Either that, or something else pulled us. I shivered at the thought.
Alison watched me, saying nothing. I forced a smile. There wasn’t anything else I could do at this point.
We reached a small stream. I crouched down, cupping my hands to the water and taking a quick drink. It had been a while since I’d had anything to eat or drink. My stomach rumbled, the water not quenching my hunger and barely satiatingmy thirst. “Which way do you think this goes? We might be able to follow the stream out of the forest?” I got up, wiping my hands on my pants as I studied the flow of the stream. “If this heads through the forest, then it’s possible we could use it to guide our way.”
“Or, it’s possible the stream runs north and south through the forest,” Alison said.
“Which means that we would have to find south.” If we reached the southern edge of the forest, it would take us to the King’s Road. If nothing else, that would lead us out of here.
Alison frowned as she studied the water. “It seems to be flowing this way,” she said, pointing off to our left. “It reminds me of where Dad told me he’d been injured.”
I stopped, looking over to her. “Dad never remembered where he’d been injured.”
Alison shrugged and looked around the forest. “I don’t know how much he really remembered and how much was just a story. With him, it was difficult to know. He once told me that he came through a place that looks like this. Thenis was with him. They were hit from behind…”
“By the darkness,” I said. “The monsters he’d always talked about.”
“You know we can’t trust anything he said after that point. He wasn’t in his right mind, Ashan.”
Other than when he’d described the burning feeling from the dragons.
How many other things had been real?
“What did he say?”
“He said he was following a fire.” She sighed. “I know it doesn’t make much sense, and with our father, especially lately, it was hard to know. There were so many stories.”
I had heard them, too, so knew what she meant. The problem was that we didn’t know what had happened to our dad and Thenis, only that they’d been strangely injured. An injury that didn’t heal with traditional attempts. Maybe even a magical injury.
Fire.
Like with the dragon.
What if Dad had chased a monster into the forest?
I couldn’t think like that. Get out of here, return home, mourn my father.
That was it.
I could forget about the way I’d felt the dragon pulling on me.
I had to.
“We should follow the stream,” she said softly.
I just nodded.
After she took a drink, we picked our way along the stream, making our way through the forest. It seemed as if our steps were a little bit easier. It certainly wasn’t nearly as difficult as it had been when we had been trying to meander through the trees. By following the stream, we had purpose.
We had been going for a while when the glowing seemed to get brighter. Once again, I noticed the rumbling sound behind us, of what I presumed to be the mesahn. There had been no shouts, not for a while, but I still worried that Elaine and her people were chasing us somehow.
I glanced over to Alison.
“I hear it,” she whispered.
“It’s more than just the mesahn. That glowing seems to be getting brighter again.”
“Are we heading to the dragon?”
I shook my head. “I don’t really know. I didn’t think so, but…”
We had gone another dozen or so steps, when a cracking of branches behind me caught my attention.
I spun, grabbing Alison, pushing up near the trunk of one of the trees.
We waited, listening for anything else that might emerge out of the forest, but didn’t see anything. Alison watched me, panic still in her eyes.
I leaned close to her. “We need to sneak around here,” I whispered.
“What if we get caught?” she asked.
“We aren’t going to get caught,” I said. “I won’t let them do anything to you.”
I tried to sound as confident as possible, though I knew that there really wasn’t anything I could do to stop them if the others came for us.
If Elaine reached us again…
There would be even less I would be able to do to help her. She knew it. I knew it. It was a lie we agreed to share without saying anything.
We crept around the tree, moving quietly.
A branch cracked again and I tensed, freezing as I looked behind me.
Raising a finger to my lips, I continued to move forward, trying to stay as quiet as I could. Then I saw a shape. The figure was right in front of us, and all I would have to do would be to tackle them.
Glancing over to Alison, she nodded to me, as if she understood what I needed to do.
I darted forward, catching the figure in the back. They grunted. We tumbled to the ground and I rolled, bringing back my fist to strike them.
Then I hesitated.
“Joran?”
He looked up at me, one arm trying to cover his face, as if to block my blow.
“There you are,” Joran whispered. “I’ve been following you for what feels like hours.”
“How have you been following us?”
Joran got to his feet, and he motioned to the ground.
I looked down and realized that our boots had left deep footprints in the forest. I hadn’t even considered hiding them.
“I figured it was the two
