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I see you. Open for me.
Nothing happened, so I tried again. And again.
A soft sound in the trees broke my already dwindling concentration. I spun to check, but there was still no guardian. I scanned the tree line, wondering what I had heard.
There was a faint rustle and then movement in my periphery. I turned to look, but it was gone, leaving me with only the vague impression that I had seen someone in a dark hood, slipping between the trees. I blinked and scanned the tree line again, but saw nothing more.
Before I could give it much thought, an intense sense of awareness settled over me. It was as if the air were charged with electricity and I had suddenly gone weightless.
The guardian stepped out from between the trees and fixed me with his arctic gaze. I couldn’t believe I had thought for one second that I might miss his arrival. It would have been easier for me to ignore a full marching band.
“You’re here,” he said. The two words sent a tingle down my spine.
I nodded and swallowed hard, trying to ignore the ache in my chest that intensified in his presence.
“They explained everything to you?” he asked.
“Yes,” I managed.
He turned on his heel and headed back into the forest, not even bothering to ask me to follow.
I scrambled after him. I had no interest in being alone in these woods.
Branches and twigs snapped underfoot. I had a sense that I should stay quiet, but he was setting such a brisk pace that I couldn’t do anything but try to keep up.
The moonlight cast strange shadows, stretching the trees and rocks like a funhouse mirror. I stumbled once or twice over roots, but kept my feet under me.
The Lord Protector just kept walking. He turned corners without waiting for me, his confidence that I would follow was unshakable.
And I was angry to know that he was right. Even if I weren’t designated to follow him by whatever archaic law the witches had pledged, my own instincts locked me to him as if he had my unwilling heart on a titanium leash.
We pushed through a dense thicket of rhododendrons and he turned a corner around the hillside.
I jogged after him, hugging the wall of the mountain so as not to lose my footing in the wet leaves.
But when I turned the bend, he was gone.
I sensed movement, and then something grabbed me, dragging me into the darkness.
