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Chapter 1
Plaintive crying echoed between the shadowy trunks of the trees in the Shadewood Forest. The sound of tears mingled with the chirp of insects, the hoot of a night owl, and the moan of the wind.
Anrid Fray told herself she must be imagining the sound that did not belong, but no matter how hard she tried, she could not force her sleep-deprived mind to concoct any explanation other than the obvious.
Someone was lost in the woods, and they were crying.
It sounded like a child.
Her heart twisted. She understood too well about children in distress: the fear, the loneliness, and the uncertainty.
She had once been a child in distress, forced to take care of not only herself but also her little sister.
Anrid stood at the perimeter of the clearing where her traveling party camped for the night. No one else had woken or heard the sounds that she heard. Even the guard, a broad-shouldered lad with hair the color of wheat, dozed on the other side of the clearing. She tilted her head and strained her ears to determine the source of the crying, but it seemed to bounce around in the trees and conceal the point of origin.
The crying cut off, as if a hand clapped over the victim’s mouth to smother the plea for help. Silence descended on the forest, an unnatural sort of quiet, almost like the Shadewood held its breath in anticipation.
Her heart thundered in her chest as she hugged her woven sheepskin shawl tighter around her thin body. Had she imagined it? Anrid used to experience nightmares as a child that lingered after she thought she had woken up. But this had not happened to her in years.
No. This was no dream. She had not imagined the weeping from deep within the Shadewood.
The wailing began again with renewed vigor. Anrid’s heart tore at her. How could she ignore a child alone in the forest? Where had his parents gone? Had something terrible happened to them?
They aren’t coming back. We’re alone, Dagmar, we’re alone. It’s just you and me now.
She swallowed the bitter tang of the memory.
Years of watching out for her younger sister and caring for the children of her employers had heightened her protective instincts and drove her now to do the unthinkable.
She took one step beyond the protection of the clearing, between the trunks of two towering oaks. Then another. And another. A small part of her mind told her she should return to the clearing and enlist the help of the dragon rider, but the thought somehow eluded her. She couldn’t focus on anything but the sound of the child weeping, lost and alone in a dark, forbidding forest.
She must find him. Save him. Comfort him.
It’s what a governess was supposed to do, after all.
Somewhere, in the back of her mind, another voice tried to remind her she had another duty—the one to her people who had sent her into the woods, not to find lost children, but to fulfill the terms of the peace treaty between the dark elves of Gelaira and the humans back in Haldor.
She was on her way to Nestra to meet her dark elf husband and begin a new life. Perhaps she would finally have children of her own to hold, rather than the children of others. Maybe her husband would come to love her, and her future would hold bright things...moments of happiness and contentment... Maybe Dagmar could come and visit them. Then Anrid would have everything she ever wanted right at her fingertips.
The thought made her footsteps falter and then halt. Trees towered on both sides as shadows encroached from between them. The trunks twisted toward the canopy of leaves between her and the sky above. A moment of confusion bonded with fear. Where was she? What was she doing?
But then the child whimpered again, and the sound of his distress drove thoughts of her duty to a place deep in her heart.
She also had a duty to care for those around her, to be compassionate and protective of those who needed it. Besides, she would only be gone a moment. Then she would return to the clearing and to the dark elf husband waiting for her in Nestra.
The uncertainty fled from her steps as she hurried deeper into the forest, her confidence and determination growing. The trees whispered as a gentle rain pelted the leaves from above. She remained dry, affected by nothing more than misty air as the canopy offered its thick protection.
Find the child. Find the child. Save the child. I must save the child...
The thought grew stronger until it drowned out all other thoughts. Her purpose for being in the land of the dark elves vanished. Her sister in Haldor flitted to the back of her mind. Even the aches and pains from her long journey trickled away until only the forest and the rain and tears remained.
She couldn’t have turned back if she wanted to: her feet seemed to have developed a will of their own, and she no longer possessed control of them.
Anrid forced her way through tangled underbrush, barely noticing the briars that tore at her shawl and garments. She broke free of the growth and stepped into a clearing only a dozen paces wide. In the center, a tiny figure sat perched on a rotting stump. He sat hunched, arms wrapped around his knees, rocking back and forth in time to his pitiful wails.
Anrid hurried toward him while rain pelted her head and shoulders. “Do you need help?” she whispered as she rounded the stump to face the child.
A narrow, pinched face lifted to hers, tears mingling with rain. Her breath caught in her throat. The face was pale, almost devoid of all pigment, as white as the hair straggling around it. Ears stuck out on either side of the child’s head, much too large, much too long, and tapered to points.
