“Ryker,” I breathed as I broke free of the confusion trying to rule me. “I have to get back to the campright now. Stay with the deer.”
Mr. Fletcher stepped toward me. “What is it, Ellery?”
“I’m not sure, but something’s not right with Ryker.”
“How do you know that?” another man asked.
“I just do. Stay here.”
“Like hell,” Mr. Fletcher muttered.
I didn’t have time to argue with him, and I wasn’t going to. “When I open this portal, I’m not sure what we’ll find on the other side. Be prepared for something to come through,” I told the others.
They pulled their swords free and held them at the ready as I waved my hand before me while my heart urged me to go faster. I clamped down on my impulse to rush; something was wrong, and if I plunged recklessly into this, I could end up causing more problems.
No matter how badly I wanted to rush through this, I couldn’t.
When the portal opened, I half expected something malevolent to rush out at us, but nothing did. Lightning slid across my fingers and crackled at my elbows as I strode through the portal and emerged on the other side.
CHAPTER FORTY
Ellery
My lightning rose higheras I stood in the clearing, turning as I prepared to savage the enemy, but no screams greeted me, no battle cries filled the air, and I didn’t scent blood or death. My confusion mounted as I started spinning in a frantic circle, but I sawnosign of death or destruction.
Everything was as it should be as amsirah glided across the clearing, going about their day like nothing was wrong while I was an increasingly flustered mess. Ryker was in trouble; I knew that as surely as I knew air filled my lungs, but there was no sign of peril here.
I should feel relieved; I didn’t. He was still in the encampment when I left him, but if everything was okay here, thenwherewas he?
In their pens, the sheep baaed as the chickens pecked the ground. A woman carrying a bucket of water frowned at me as she stopped a few feet away.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“Where’s Ryker?” I demanded.
“He’s in the woods, with the others, working on the new grouping of tree houses.”
I knew where they were assembling those buildings. I’d told myself I’d be cautious about this, but though I sprinted across the clearing and past the home I shared with Ryker with reckless abandon, I didn’t open another portal, so that counted as restraint.
It would take me longer to reach the new work area, but it was safer to approach this way; I never knew what I’d emerge to find if I used a portal. I told myself this, yet I couldn’t deny that terror invigorated my movements.
“Ellery!” someone shouted after me.
It took me a few seconds to realize it was Scarlet, but I didn’t stop to talk with her before plunging into the forest. Branches battered my flesh and tore at my clothes and hair as I raced heedlessly onward.
After a few hundred feet, a repetitive thudding sound floated in the air. It was distant, but I recognized the thud of hammers.
My brow furrowed as my uncertainty intensified. I still felt that draw of power deep within me, but was I wrong? Was Ryker perfectly fine, and this was some new development in our bond?
If they were still hammering, then things couldn’t be as wrong as they felt. If they were still hammering, then why was my heart about to explode out of my chest while the need to see Ryker clawed at me?
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Ellery
I passeda few amsirah carrying supplies toward the new tree house as I ran. Two of them cried out when I bolted past them like a crazed lunatic… and that’sexactlyhow I felt.
A branch tangled in my hair, ripping strands free as I scurried around a collection of rocks, passed a copse of trees, and poured on speed when the hammering grew closer. Welts formed across my cheeks, and I nearly lost an eye to an especially angry briar patch, but none of it slowed me.
