‘They’re definitely heading towards Boneridge Crossing,’Valkaryn said quietly.‘I’m sure of it now.’
I frowned.‘That’s not on any map.’
I’d memorized all the cities in Fenmyr in the first hour of my train ride.
‘It wouldn’t be,’she replied.‘The small village was buried during the fall of Fenmyr. Only old wolfkin and someone like me remember its existence. The bridge there is one of the few unguarded passes left… it leads to Aerlyn lands. A way to sneak in or out without notice.’
A chill worked its way up my spine.Why would anyone want to sneak in or out of Aerlyn? I knew some of the Elite guarded different passes from Fenmyr into Aerlyn, but I thought it was just a formality. Were the wolfkin seen as a threat?
No matter what lay beyond, Kaelric had gone that way, and Elia was near him. So I was going.
‘Well, lead the way.’
‘I’d hoped you’d say that,’Valkaryn whispered.
I adjusted my pack and slipped into the trees. The trail ahead was nearly invisible to me, but not to Val. She guided my steps, picking up traces of Kaelric’s presence as she relayed directions in my head. If I stilled my mind, which was hard, I could almost feel him, like a current of power buzzing against my skin.
When the afternoon sun rose higher in the sky, I pushed through it.
I wasn’t just chasing a trail. I was chasing the alpha of the wolfkin, and the woman who helped my family when they were in need.
Nothing was going to stop me.
After a two-hour trek through dense forest, the trees thinned just enough for me to see movement ahead. Dark shapes crouched near the edge of a ravine. I crouched low, crept forward, and the moment I caught a flash of familiar dark hair in the sunlight, my heart jumped.
Kaelric.
He was flanked by six others, four men and two women, all lean muscle and silent focus. Their eyes tracked in the same direction, toward a stream of smoke beyond the ridge. The ground beneath their feet was dotted with oddly shaped white rocks. Only when I focused on them did my stomach sour as I realized they were not rocks. They were bones.
Boneridge Crossing.Now that I saw how it got its name, I did not want to know the story behind it.
I stepped forward quietly, thinking of what to say to Kaelric, but the wind picked up, bringing my scent with it. The alpha wolf whirled on me with eyes that gleamed bright gold.
Welp, the cat was out of the bag.
I moved closer to meet him as he and his fellow wolfkin stalked towards me with thunderous stepsuntil we were mere inches from each other. The half-dozen wolfkin walked with him and stood at attention beside him, all of them glaring me down.
“I told you not to follow me.” Kaelric’s voice was low, lethal. “Do you have a death wish?”
A woman next to him stood taller, hand hovering over a blade at her waist. “Who is she?”
Kaelric didn’t take his eyes off me. “She’s someone who’snotsupposed to be here,” he growled.
I lifted my chin. “And yet here I am.”
The woman’s gaze fell to my sword, and her mouth popped open. She gasped, falling to her knees.
“She wields Valkaryn.” The woman bowed her head in reverence, and the other five wolfkin who flanked Kaelric snapped their attention to my blade. In unison, they dropped a knee and bowed their heads.
‘Whoa, you’re famous here,’Itold Val.
“Get up,” Kaelric snapped at his wolves, and they did, but whatever effect seeing Valkaryn had on them was still evident. They looked awed, transfixed.
Kaelric glared at me, muscles tight, jaw clenched. “You need to go home right now, Brynn. You don’t understand what we’re facing.”
I pursed my lips together. “I’m not one of your wolves,” I snapped. “You don’t tell me what to do.” The gathered men and women behind him turned their backs, walking ten paces away to give us privacy.
“I’m not going home,” I told him. “I’m here to help save Elia. So tell me what we’re facing so I can help.”
