Page 55

“What happened?” she asked.

The guard answered first. “Tracks.” He pointed toward the forest edge.

At first glance, Elowynn saw nothing unusual beyond disturbed snow beneath the trees.

Then she noticed the size of the tracks. Her eyes widened.

Wolf tracks.

Huge ones. Each print looked larger than a man's outstretched hand. They circled the road in broad arcs before disappearing back into the trees. There were far too many of them.

“The cold drives them farther south before the heavy Frost moon snows hit,” another guard muttered while surveying the tree line.

Elowynn looked thoughtful. There was something about the tracks that made her uneasy.

One trail dragged unevenly through the snow as though the animal had been wounded. Thin streaks of blood stained the frost behind it.

The blood was far darker than it should have been.

Almost… black.

One of the guards noticed it too, and when he announced it, the mood throughout the caravan became fearful.

Everyone in Aetheris knew the stories about the animals remaining near corrupted aethercurrents. Sometimes the corruption buried itself beneath fur and bone, turning creatures savage long before their bodies ever began showing physical signs of transformation. It could be difficult to discern whether or not the creatures were acting on instinct, or if they were, in fact, tainted.

“We keep moving,” the lead escort ordered, his voice hoarse. “No stopping until dusk.”

No one argued.

Elowynn watched as her mother climbed back into the carriage at the front before she turned and joined the others in the middle one.

It lurched forward once more. Guards rode closer to the outer edges of the caravan, and several scholars chatted in nervous whispers about Starless sightings farther north during previous moons.

Leaning her head against the wood panel, she watched out the window as the tracks and dark blood disappeared.

Something cold had taken root inside her as she listened to the conversations. It felt irrational, almost childish, but she couldn't shake it. She couldn’t have said what disturbed her so thoroughly. The tracks? The blood? Or was it the feeling that the forest was watching them?

Elowynn kept those thoughts to herself.

Another span had gone by with no further incident. They camped, ate, and rested. They were moving again by a half bell after dawn every sun.

The caravan had made an evening stop near the ruins of an old trade outpost partially swallowed by snow drifts. There were crumbling stone walls that offered enough shelter from the wind to establish camp.

Elowynn stood near her mother by one of the fires, warming frozen fingers around a cup of bitter tea. She wished she had some lemon and honey to sweeten it, but she was grateful for the heat it provided, even if it tasted terrible. Small flurries had begun when they stopped, but they had been fortunate to have mild weather for their journey thus far.

Most of the travelers had remained subdued since the wolf tracks; even the guards laughed less, their joking having mostly ceased several suns back.

The wolves had followed them, but no one said it aloud. As if speaking about them would manifest an attack. Elowynn thought that was illogical, but every so often, distant howls could be heard rolling through the forests and surrounding their camps each dusk.

They were too close.

It was one of the younger Astrari scholars that finally broke the silence. “Do you think they are Starless?” she asked, her large gold eyes looking around with worry.

The question made many of those around the fire tense because they had all likely been wondering the same thing.

An older merchant spat into the snow. He was shorter than most human men with a large mole on his forehead and had greasy blonde hair. Elowynn always tried to remain away from him because he carried the scent of pickled fish and wet leather.

“If them things were Starless, we’d already know! Can’t miss ‘em, with their milky eyes and dark veins,” he growled.