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He wasn’t looking at me. Or, rather, he hadn’t been, though now he appeared more than a little confused by my truncated outburst.
Because he’d been speaking to Niko. Which, of course, was logical.
“Yes,” I amended, praying my voice didn’t sound as stilted to the others as it did to my own ears. “What does nature say?”
Niko hesitated, eyeing us both. “Only that something came through here and scared all the plants and animals, but whether it’s the Voidborn or something else entirely…” Discomfort flashed over his face. “I can’t tell.”
“So, uh, which way is everything the most scared, then?” Clay asked like he was bracing himself for the answer.
“West.”
“Toward the Wild Lands,” Roan spoke up from the rear of the group, his cold voice scarcely making it sound like a question. Not meeting any of our eyes, he looked out at the forest like it held more monsters than merely the ones we’d escaped this morning.
Niko nodded.
Dex sighed, and frustration lined the former soldier’s face as he said, “That tracks with what I’m seeing, then. Broken branches. Scuffs in the dirt. Something went through here at high speed, heading that way, but I can’t tell much else from the terrain.”
“From what I can decipher of Ruhl’s opinion,” Casimir added with a nod to the cloud of smoke and darkness drifting along near his feet. “He concurs.”
The vampire king hardly looked pleased by his own words. It chafed at him, I suspected, the fact he was traveling with us rather than racing on ahead to find her. But given what the Voidborn could do to a vampire—what they’d nearly done to him before Dex’s blood brought him back to sanity—it wasn’t safe for him or anyone else if he encountered those creatures on his own.
And he knew it.
“So how do we tell if those creepy bastards are still ahead of us?” Clay asked as if he was thinking the same thing.
Niko made a concerned sound. “I’m not sure. Their destruction ends in about another mile, though. But I can’t tell where they’ve gone.”
Casimir frowned as if debating whether that was sufficient for him to rush after her now.
“The Voidborn could still be hiding out there,” Dex said, likely coming to the same conclusion about where his thoughts had ventured.
The vampire king’s frown deepened, but he made no move to leave.
We continued onward, the minutes ticking into hours. The terrain ravaged by the Voidborn fell behind us, leaving only endless forest and the threat of the Wild Lands looming on the horizon. And no matter how much I turned, twisted, or shook the map, no sign of the princess or even of Ozias appeared.
I’d thought crossing the Wild Lands was a form of hell.
It had nothing on this.
Niko suddenly straightened, peering ahead of us with his eyes narrowed. “There’s a ravine ahead. Too big to cross.”
“Great,” Clay muttered. “Just fucking great.”
Niko continued, ignoring the interruption. “About a half mile that way, though, a fallen tree forms a bridge.” He turned to us. “If Ozias came this way, he must’ve used that to cross. Maybe the princess did too.”
Dex nodded. “Good thinking.”
At his motion, we adjusted course, our footsteps moving faster, and soon, the ravine came into view. The tree lying across it must have towered hundreds of feet into the sky once, and now it stretched across the wide ravine like exactly the natural bridge Niko said it was. Moss clung to its bark and mushrooms had sprouted from its sides, each one suspended over a ravine so deep and dark, when I peered over the side of the cliff, I could barely make out the churning water of a river rushing by far below.
“Any sign of those things?” Clay’s fingers flexed around the hilt of his sword.
I shook my head. “None so far.” I glanced at Casimir.
The vampire regarded the drop. “They’d have some distance to cover before they reached us, if they are there.”
Clay gave him a dry look. “Not really comforting, man.”
The vampire shrugged and started across the bridge. Ruhl flowed after him, only barely in the form of a wolf.
