Freya

A familiar sense of adrenaline pulses through my veins as we sneak through the shrub. The winter has thinned out the vegetation, giving a severe lack of cover. But Lei keeps her distance anyway, never getting close enough that the small lantern moving through the trees grows larger than a bulb.

I follow her lead.

The farther we travel from the village the tighter my chest feels. There's an innate sense of panic, of protection of the cave and the Lumin bugs. The idea of Hanna finding that place, speaking to them, sets me on edge and I can't understand why.

There are some things only Kinjri can understand, Alaric had told me when I'd asked why he'd waited for Lei to leave to show me that place.

I shake the thought from my head. The early hours of the morning are bitterly cold, undisturbed as the night hands over to day.

Finally, the light stops moving. Lei pauses several seconds, as if waiting for it to start again. When it doesn't, she indicates with two fingers to follow after her. I do so, mimicking every step that she takes for fear of blowing our cover with one crunch of a leaf or crush of a stick.

We keep our distance, far enough that I can't hear their conversation. If we're too close, they'll hear us. I know that. And yet the frustration of my regular senses doesn't escape me. But Lei leans in closer, narrowing her eyes as if it will heighten her sense of hearing.

"Can you hear?" I whisper. She nods, eyebrows furrowing. "What're they talking about?"

She holds up a hand, urges me to wait. I roll impatiently onto my heels, wrapping my coat tighter around me and glancing over my shoulder. The thrill of sneaking through the dark has worn off, overshadowed by the bitter cold.

Lei nudges me to get my attention. "I can only just hear them. I'm going to get a little closer. Watch my back." Before I can open my mouth in protest, she cuts me off. "No offense, but they'll hear you if you move any closer."

I shut my mouth as she slinks forward into the dark. I hate that she's right, that no matter how hard I try, I will never move with the same grace and silence as her. It's more than just her species; it's her upbringing. Before my father died, my life was incredibly sheltered. I never had to worry about how to move through the forest quietly.

The forest settles around me as the lantern bobs in the distance. Lei is nowhere to be seen, but I imagine her anyway, slinking through the trees like a shadow.

Snap.

Darting my head over my shoulder to the direction of the sound, my heart picks up. The trees stand stoic, guarding where I perch. In the distance, an owl calls through the night. I lean my back against the trunk of a tree, its presence comforting, before turning back around.

Within seconds, a hand closes down on my shoulder. I bite down my squeal of surprise, freezing instead as my captor forces me to turn.

My guard, Harris, stares down at me with disapproving eyes.

"Spying, are we?"

I clench my teeth. "I was going for a walk."

"In the middle of the night?"

I glance at the ground as, in the distance, the lantern grows closer. His disapproving stare is eerily familiar; it's an active effort to fight my natural reaction to cower.

"What's going on?"

I force myself to look up, meeting the gaze of Hana watching me suspiciously. She holds the lantern up, the glow warming her face. Alaric stands an inch behind.

"Found this one loitering in the shadows," Harris says.

"Alice." Hana stares at me, her expression unreadable. "What were you doing?"

I bite my tongue at the fake name. "I couldn't sleep. I had a dream. About the cloud and Lei was asleep so..."

"So you followed us?"

"No, I... I went looking for Alaric, to tell him," I say, "but he didn't answer his door so when I saw the lantern in the trees I thought maybe it was him."

Hana raises an eyebrow as she glances at Alaric. I avoid his gaze as it burns my face. Hana gives no indication of whether or not she believes me, but if anything, at least she thinks it was just me. Something tells me she sees me as far less of a threat than Lei.

"I'll walk you back," Alaric says, stepping in front of Hana.

"Harris, with me." She nods, looking back at Alaric. "We'll continue this later."

Hana hands Alaric the lantern before marching off, Harris on her tail. I imagine, with a thrill, Lei creeping after them, completely invisible as they divulge their secrets.

"After you."

Alaric is staring at me, the warmth from the lantern catching the edges of his hair and staining them red.

I turn, starting back the way we came, the small light from the lantern my guide.

"Tell me about this dream," Alaric says.

"Huh?"

"You said you had a dream."

Right. "Oh... yeah. I can't really remember it anymore. It feels blurry."

He doesn't say anything as we come to the edge of the forest. The lanterns from the village bring warmth to the air that the forest lacked.

"And did you find what you were looking for? Spying on us?"

"I didn't follow you. I told you, I had a dream that I thought you might be interested in."

"A dream that you can't remember."

I cast a sideways glance at him to gauge his mood. There's slight amusement in his expression. But when I look at him, in those blue eyes, all I can see is the cave. The lumin bugs glowing around his head, the warmth travelling up from the ground, the feel of him, his energy, thick in the air.

I force a smile. "I think I can find my way from here."

Turning away from him, I start forward. Alaric catches my wrist. I flinch as a burst of energy shoots up my arm. His eyes flash as they meet mine. "That feeling you just got," he says, "that pulse of energy. You're not the only one who feels it, Freya. Hana may not be able to sense you, but I knew the second you were within one hundred feet of us. It doesn't matter how quiet you try to be."

I take a shaky breath. "Are you threatening me?"

He seems offended at the suggestion. "Why do you take everything so negatively?"

"Maybe because you're trapping me here."

With a sigh, he drops my hand. "You could sense me too, you know, or any kinjri in the vicinity. You just have to listen."

He turns back to the forest, disappearing from view. I grip my wrist to my chest, rubbing the spot his hand held. It tingles in his absence, the remnants of his energy dancing across my skin.

_

Casimir

Flames flicker against the wall. Despite the winter bite outside, the walls of the cave trap the heat, only the smoke escaping through its cracks. Trina sits atop a rolled over tree stump, her expression stoic as she takes in everything we said.

As promised, Sanaa and Killian let me lead the way. I explained why the King wants Freya, who her mother was, what everybody thinks she can do. I tell her all about Torinne and what we faced. She's heard most of it before, of course. I was there, after we rescued Freya from the shifters and brought her back safely.

Freya tried to warn Trina about the cloud, about all of it. But Trina didn't listen. She didn't care.

So, sitting in silence as she takes it all in, I feel a flicker of hope. This time, she listened.

It's just the two of us in this small corner of the cave. Sanaa and Killian waited outside with three guards. Neither of them seemed the least bit intimidated. But they were the least of my concern. As long as they could play nice for however long it took for Trina to get on board.

"You want to kill Ereon," I say. "Ever since I was a child, that was your goal. But we never did, we never could. Now, there's a chance. But if he finds Freya before we do, we lose that."

Trina rolls her shoulders back and meets my gaze. I try not to notice the way her eyes wrinkle at the corners, the snarl that tugs at the edge of her lips. It would be a lie to say she'd ever looked at me with much more than disappointment, but this... this is new.

"You want the deserters to work with them." She wrinkles her nose. "Shifters."

"You always taught me to recognise when I needed reinforcements."

"I was talking about your fellow soldiers."

"They are soldiers," I urge. "They're not the same as the shifters in Elel, Trina. I didn't believe it at first either, but things... they sound different in Torinne."

She scoffs. "They have you wrapped around your finger."

"I don't have to like them to work with them," I retort. "You of all people should know that."

Her lips purse ever so slightly. Eventually, her shoulders roll back. "So what is it exactly you want us to do?"

"Tell us where Freya is, first of all," I say.

She stares at me, expression measured. "I don't know where she is." My shoulders slump, heart sinking. "But I know that two days after a ship arrived in Portson, Dadun had an influx of migrants from Ayrith. Strange, don't you think?"

My heart skips a beat. Dadun. I've never been there myself; the deserter clan is small, perhaps less than fifteen or so after most of them were wiped out in one of Ereon's raids a couple of years ago.

"If you leave in the morning, you should get there in two days. I'll provide reinforcements to Dadun. They will be given orders to retrieve the girl. But no deserter will put their life on the line for any of the shifters. And if this goes south, it's on you Casimir."

I nod. "Thank you."

She takes in a long breath of air, one that makes her chest expand visibly. "I don't trust them, Casimir. And you have become one of them, whether you realise it or not." She holds my gaze, completely unaware of the way her words inch into my chest, pound at the cracks. "Don't let this little quest be another disappointment."

She turns and leaves me alone at the end of the cave.