Liam shifted direction, following the signs Nyxie had shown him rather than the voice itself. The forest seemed to resist clean movement. Roots rose at awkward angles. Mist hid shallow dips. Branches hung low enough to catch on shoulders. He moved over and around them, pausing when necessary to compare the memory to the ground before him.
There, the crushed plants. There, a scrape in the mud where someone's boot had dragged. There, another faint smear of blood, this one on a leaf. He did not hurry. Hurrying in mimic territory was how someone allowed sound to pull thought ahead of sight.
The pleading voice continued somewhere deeper, changing slightly now.
"Please… don't leave me… I'm here…"
Liam ignored it.
After several minutes, he heard real voices.
