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He made it twenty feet before spinning around to check where I was, then tore sideways through a patch of long grass and came out the other side with smoke streaming behind him. His ears stood high, his ember tail swept side to side, and he shoved his nose beneath a fallen branch hard enough that anyone watching would think he'd never seen wood before.

I kept walking.

He raced ahead again, vanished behind a tree, and reappeared on my other side seconds later, but he never moved far enough that I lost sight of him. Even when something rustled deeper among the trees and his head snapped toward the sound, he waited for me to catch up before he went to investigate.

"You know we've been here before."

Ashter shoved his entire head into a clump of fern.

"Many times."

He sneezed and backed out.

I smiled despite myself.

Gledhi had been the closest thing I'd had to somewhere that belonged to me for years, though technically I'd had no right to be there at all.

The first time involved a bedroom window, a length of rope I definitely wasn't meant to own. I'd waited until the Citadel settled for the night, climbed out onto the narrow ledge beneath my window, and worked my way down the outer wall while Ashter moved beside me as smoke.

The Council never found out.

Neither did Janus, which was probably the more impressive part.

After that first night, I went back whenever I could manage it. Sometimes weeks passed between visits, when the guards changed their routes or my schedule tightened too far, but I always came back. I learned which part of the wall offered the easiest climb, which paths the night patrols rarely walked, and exactly how long it took to reach my room before the Citadel properly woke.

I'd never once used the road.

I glanced back at the open track behind me.

Walking here in the middle of the afternoon felt almost insulting after the years I'd spent sneaking through the grounds at night.

Ashter barked from somewhere ahead.

"I know. Very anticlimactic."

He bounded back and rammed his shoulder into my hip hard enough to knock me half a step sideways before racing off again.

The forest changed once I passed beneath the canopy. I'd known it would. Knowing hadn't prepared me for how different Gledhi looked in daylight.

Sunlight spilled through gaps high overhead in broken shafts, lighting up broad leaves and moss-covered trunks I was used to seeing only as dark shapes. The green looked almost excessive. Ferns crowded the ground in thick layers, vines climbed the older trees, and tiny pale flowers grew between exposed roots where at night I'd only ever caught faint patches of color.

Birdsong came from everywhere.

That was new.

At night, Gledhi belonged to insects, small animals moving through the undergrowth, and the occasional distant call of something large enough to catch even Ashter's attention. During the day the upper branches seemed alive, wings flashing between leaves while smaller creatures darted along the trunks.

I liked it.

I turned slowly as I walked, noticing paths I hadn't known were there and details the dark normally hid from me. A tree I'd passed dozens of times had pale silver veins running through its bark. One of the shallow streams I'd always crossed by sound alone was so clear in daylight I could see tiny fish holding themselves against the current.

It was beautiful.

I still preferred it at night.

Gledhi changed after sunset. Tiny organisms living along the bark glowed blue and green, clusters of fungi shone beneath fallen trees, and certain flowers only opened once the light disappeared, their centers carrying a faint violet glow that drew insects toward them. Even the water sometimes caught the light where slow-moving pools gathered whatever lived in them.

At night, the forest looked like it had swallowed pieces of the sky.