“We need to leave the village,” her father continued. “Don’t you understand? It’s coming.Tonight.”
“You think we will fare any better out there? To reach Lykos Peak, we must pass through the Forbidden Woods. Do you mean to take us to our death?”
“Enough! I have spoken, and I’ll not suffer you to argue with me on this matter!” The booming command vibrated through their small cottage before settling with a dreadful silence. Soft weeping soon followed.
Dyna’s younger self gasped, stunned. Father had always been a soft-spoken man.
“Forgive me.”
Her mother sniffled. “I’m frightened.”
“As am I,” he admitted, his voice trembling in a way it never had before. “I watched, helpless, as the Shadow took my sister at its last coming.”
“Oh, Baden.”
“I don’t fear to die. I fear what may befall my family. I have been plagued by nightmares of that night for the past year. Now I fear my past will repeat itself, and that is a future I cannot bear.”
Dyna looked over her shoulder at the window. The time had come. The Shadow was coming.
She yelled at her younger self to move, to go to her parents, to dosomething. But she didn’t. As a child, she knew better than to interrupt them when she should have been asleep.
“Please, we must go,” her father begged.
“I will follow you,” her mother said at last. He released a long exhale of relief. “But if what you say is true, then the Shadow must be out there.”
“For that, I have prepared. I’ve made cloaking amulets for us all,” he said.
Dyna heard a faint clink. She pictured him removing the lid from the ceramic bowl he kept on his cluttered desk among the dusty magic books.
“Luna reeds. Where did you get these? They only grow in Magos.”
“Aye, and they were difficult to acquire,” he said. “Here, take two. It masks everything but sound. As long as you’re quiet, you’ll be safe. Go for Leyla while I wake the children.”
Her mother’s thudding footsteps ran out the front door, off to collect Grandmother Leyla. “No, we should not separate!” Dyna shouted. “Come back!”
Her younger self backed away from the door and tucked baby Lyra in the woven shawl wrapped around her shoulders.
The door swung open, and her father entered. Dyna inhaled a breath at the sight of him, stifling a sob. She reached out her shaking hands, calling him.“Father,see me. Hear me, please.”
Dressed in furs and thick wool, he carried a large canvas pack strapped to his back. He brushed his unruly red hair aside, his face set with calm determination. Her father was not tall or strapping, but he was a man of repute in North Star, among the rare few who wielded magic. He would keep them safe. Her younger self had believed it so thoroughly she smiled.
Foolish girl.
“You need to run!”Her screams went unheard.
His astute green eyes swept around the room as he accounted for all his children. “Dynalya, are you ready?” He smiled, but she read the urgency in his gaze.
“Yes, Father.” Her younger self pointed at the two small travel bags packed and perched by the bedroom door.
“Good lass.” He held up three necklaces of dried, white reeds. From each hung a circular pendant made of polished wood. “These are Waning Amulets infused with the magic of the moon. It will cloak you from the demon.”
A foreign spell. One he must have found within his many magic books. The rune for concealment marked each amulet: a single line connected with an inverted triangle on both ends. It matched the one he already wore.
He handed her two of them. “Be sure to wear it.”
Young Dyna nodded, stroking the smooth grooves of the carving with her thumb. She placed the smaller amulet over Lyra’s head to rest on her chest.
“Dress warm,” he ordered. “I’ll wake Thane.”
