Sol veered toward the sound, adjusting the angle of their path.
He hoped it was a signal from his correspondent, but perhaps he was blindly following the sound of a forest owl.
The owl hooted again.
Sol continued toward it with confidence. The forest was alive with activity, and no wild bird would reveal its location in such chaos.
“An eagle’s talon,” a voice hissed through the wind.
Sol instantly stopped, glancing in every direction for signs of the speaker. “Cannot stop the flow of the river,” he responded into the shadows.
“Sol, here,” the voice sounded above him.
Sol looked up to see a hooded figure sitting in the branches of the tree above him. “Lady Robin?” he asked. It was too dark to make out any features.
“You’re not alone?” The voice sounded like a woman’s, but she did not answer his question, nor did she deny it. As she spoke, she threw a soft object from the tree.
“A fellow prisoner,” Sol explained, deftly catching the object despite the darkness. It was a bundled rope ladder, still attached somewhere above his head.
“Quickly,” she urged. “Quietly.”
Sol shook out the ladder and gestured to Neven to climb it first.
Once they stopped moving, the wind continued to circle them, slowly losing its power. Sol breathed his thanks to the quieting gust. He had never seen magic respond in such a way, but his mind was too worried about their pursuers to examine the anomaly.
Sol followed his companion up the ladder and helped Robin draw it quickly back up into the tree. From what he could see in the darkness, they were crouching on a small platform that had been built into the branches of the tree.
As soon as he had taken in his surroundings, he reached behind Neven’s head and fumbled to quickly unclasp the gem tied around his neck.
Neven exhaled audibly.
Sol tucked the gem into his pocket, knowing exactly how it felt to remove the hated device. The chaos magic in the gem was physically painless, but it separated a person from their magic, muting more than their voice.
“We’ll wait here until it’s safe,” Robin whispered.
“Hopefully that won’t be hours,” Neven breathed.
“Or days,” Sol added.
“I have so many questions, young man, but tell me. Are we going somewhere better than our previous destination?” Neven said.
Sol could feel Neven’s gaze on him in the darkness. “In good time,” Sol responded, his voice barely a whisper. “We are still in danger.”
Neven nodded, leaning back against a thick branch behind him.
Sol remained alert, crouching over his toes. Scanning the forest around them, he approximated where their pursuers would come from, and calculated which directions appeared best to use as escape routes.
The sounds of the forest slowly played out around him, occasionally interrupted by a shuffle from Neven or a breath from Robin.
Exhaustion gnawed at Sol’s mind—as did the myriad of questions he wished to ask Robin—but he could not relax even if he tried.
A short time later, the sound of footsteps broke through the forest.
Two Quotidian soldiers walked toward them, carrying a torch which lit the forest around them.
Sol stopped breathing completely, muscles tensing in readiness.
The soldiers walked warily, even gazing up into the trees as they searched.
