They found her trail within minutes. Small prints pressed deep into the dust, scraps of skirt fabric torn and hung on briars, smears of blood from a wound she must have suffered. Grey Horse dismounted and crouched, his fingers brushing the damp earth, his nostrils flaring as though scent itself could guide him.
“She runs hard,” he murmured. “Fear at her back.”
Ezra squatted beside him, scanning the brush. “And Thomas behind, I’ll wager. He won’t let her go easy.”
Grey Horse’s jaw set. “Hewilllet go.”
They rose and pressed on, Grey Horse in the lead, Ezra keeping pace. The wilderness folded around them, their silence a pact.
Each sign drew them deeper: reeds broken by hurried passage, water stirred where she had waded, mud marked with her palm where she had steadied herself.
Grey Horse’s chest ached with every clue, imagining her suffering, stumbling, terrified. But each mark was also proof she lived, she fought, she fled.
He would reach her.
?
Toward noon they paused at a fallen tree. Grey Horse read the signs, the crushed leaves, the faint impression of a form curled small. His hand hovered above it, his throat tight. He could almost feel the warmth she had left behind.
“She rested here,” he said softly.
Ezra nodded. “Smart girl. She knows how to use cover.”
Grey Horse’s eyes narrowed. “She has learned. She listens to the land.”
They pressed on, following the faint thread of her passage until the sun spilled gold across the horizon.
Ezra’s voice was low. “If she’s running blind, he’ll close the distance. A bigger man, longer stride. We’ve got to be quicker.”
Grey Horse’s eyes flared. “We will be.”
They broke into a trot, urgency mounting with every step.
?
The sun climbed, harsh and merciless. Violet’s feet were torn, her skirt ragged, her throat raw. She moved by will alone, each step a prayer. The carved bird warmed her palm, its small shape the only steady thing in a world spinning with fear.
She thought of Grey Horse, his hands in her hair, his eyes on hers, and she held that image like a talisman. If he was near, if he had heard her, then perhaps hope was not a fool’s dream.
But when a voice came behind her, harsh and heavy, her heart fell like a stone.
“Violet!”
Thomas.
She stumbled, turning, and there he was, red-faced, sweating, lantern long since discarded, his eyes wild. He lunged, his hand clamping her arm like an iron shackle.
“You think you can run from me?” he spat. “You’re mine. You’ll always be mine.”
She fought, twisting, kicking, her nails raking his skin. “No! Let me go!”
His slap rang out, staggering her, and his other arm locked around her waist. “You’ll pay for this, you ungrateful—”
?
Thomas’s shout snapped through the air, followed by a cry Grey Horse recognized. Springing from his pony, he broke into a run, Ezra at his side. They crashed through brush, bursting into the clearing. And there he was.
Thomas. Clutching Violet with his hand raised to strike again.
