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They reached the edge of a clearing, and Iryana was still looking skyward, scanning the trees for which way the creature had gone.

“Iryana,” Pyetar called, pulling her attention from the branches.

She looked down, her eyes instantly drawn to the dark gray scattered across the white snow. She blinked a few times. They didn’t go away.

“They’re poppies,” she stuttered.

The delicate black flowers had grown right out of the snow, seeming to be gray from all the white snow visible through the translucent petals. But not even a dusting of white snow had fallen on them.

“This is unnatural.” Pyetar bent down next to one of the flowers.

“Oh gods,” Iryana gasped, eyes wide as she stared at the side of the clearing. She rushed toward it, her snowshoes digging into the snow awkwardly.

Along one edge of the poppy field were deep depressions in the snow, as if something had lain there thrashing. There were tracks leading away from the mark, but not toward it.

“Pyetar!” She called him over, breathing so fast that her voice sounded panicked.

Dakii tracks led away from the depressions.

Shaking, Iryana leaned down to hold her hand next to one of the paw prints. It was one of the smallest dakya tracks she had ever seen.

She panicked, pacing around the spot, circling wider each time, but she couldn’t find any prints leading the dakya toward the poppies. Only away. It would have had to lie there for hours, days even, for every hint of a track leading it there to have disappeared. She looked harder, until it was almost impossible to make out the dakya tracks from how many times she’d walked back and forth.

Finally, she forced herself to look at Pyetar. He was standing at the edge of the poppy field, stiff as a statue, just watching her.

“They were created here, weren’t they?” she gasped, pointing at the deep impression where the monster had thrashed. She had no other explanation.

Pyetar was silent, still staring. She wanted him to offer a more reasonable explanation, but instead, his brows slowly pulled together, jaw tensing.

“Pyetar?”

He let out a heavy breath. “I don’t know what else would cause this.”

Iryana shivered. The poppies and the dakii had been created there, sometime since it had snowed a few days prior. The prints were so clear… it could have been as recent as that morning.

She was going to be sick.

Almost in a daze, Iryana started searching the rest of the clearing. She didn’t bother stepping around the poppies, instead crushing them beneath her snowshoes. She didn’t find anything until she reached the far edge, where the familiar prints of boots lightly indented the snow.

Iryana froze. Her heart raced.

“Is this where we entered the clearing?” Her voice was shrill.

“No?” But she had known that.

“Then why are there footprints here?”

Pyetar was suddenly beside her.

“They weren’t wearing snowshoes,” he pointed out. “And they’re large, likely a man’s.”

Her mouth moved on its own as her mind spun. “Hadima barely needs snowshoes, the snow is almost firmer under her feet due to the effects of being water-forged. And the air-forged are the same, as if they just aren’t as heavy. But to go without them entirely?”

“So, someone air or water-forged was here?” He leaned down to the tracks that led toward the poppies and then away again, inspecting them. “I can’t tell if they’re newer or older than the others.”

Had someone come across the clearing like they had? Or…

Suddenly, she didn’t want to know. Didn’t want to follow the tracks any farther. This mystery, where the dakii had come from, had haunted Istri for fifteen years. Who was she to be the one to discover the answer? She was nobody. She didn’t need to be the one.