Meanwhile, at the far end of the forest, Theron was still shouting Aveline's name.
Again and again.
His voice had gone hoarse hours ago, but that had not stopped him. The forest swallowed his calls and gave nothing back but the rustle of leaves and the distant, nervous cry of birds startled from their branches.
He had followed the wolves' trail into this section of the woods, but after that, everything had dissolved into confusion.
No tracks.
No broken branches.
No sign of her.
Aveline should have left something behind—anything. She was small, not quiet, not in the way a trained assassin might be quiet, but in the way a person always left a trace simply by existing. A bent fern. A footprint in soft earth. A snagged ribbon. A sign that the world had touched her and remembered.
There was nothing.
Theron stopped abruptly in a clearing, chest rising and falling too hard. He dragged a hand through his hair, eyes sharp and wild as they searched the darkening woods.
