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And that was a terrifying place to be.

Help me, I prayed, beginning to sweat. Help me. Kham says you gave her to me. That you made us for each other. I can’t let that bastard find her first. I can’t let him lay a hand on her. Please… help me…

High, high above, so distant I was almost convinced I’d imagined it, I heard a dragon’s scream.

Inhaling sharply, I nodded and rubbed a hand over my face to remove the sweat.

Focus.

Remember what you know.

Win.

I blinked and looked around. There were small sounds of human voices murmuring, small movements close enough to trigger my senses, but nothing alarming. It was the circle, and my mother, awaiting our return.

Awaiting my return. With Grace.

Swallowing hard, I turned my attention out, stretching with the senses that had never failed me until the day Grace showed up.

And though it was quiet, nearly still, the sensation of that impending presence—someone with malicious intent, a dark plan—was there. To my right, and behind me.

Breckon.

I could do this. I could.

Focus.

Breckon knows the terrain better than me, though I have explored these woods some in the past few months, following nobles. But I have greater skill than him in pursuit, tracking.

I needed to find him—not Grace. Her path would be obscured, intentionally. His would be easier to follow because he had no reason to hide his passage.

Find him and remove the threat, then find Grace.

I nodded, relieved, and turned my mind to where the man had likely gone.

The castle was north. The hunting grounds for the birds were south and west. The Circle my mother had called was north and slightly east.

I scrambled mentally, dredging up that simple memory, the little glimpse Koa had shared with Kham that gave me a vision of Grace with two men. Two guards.

My skin peppered and fury roared in my chest. I had to stifle it. I couldn’t lose focus.

I tried to remember, to dredge up any details about the surroundings the dragons showed me. But there was nothing significant. I fixed the features of the land in my mind in case I came across similar landmarks, then turned my focus back to Breckon.

Breckon was the weapon here.

I had to follow him until I could find a way to stop him, hand to hand, before he found Grace.

But he’d already proven that he was smarter and more calculating than I’d given him credit for. So, I set my mind to my best weapons: stealth, cunning, and my senses. I was fitter, younger, faster. And more adept at subterfuge.

I leaped to my feet and ran as fast as I could while keeping my steps below the light rustle of the night breeze in the leaves overhead. If Breckon intended to follow me, he’d find a trail to follow. Keeping my mind and senses trained on him, I ran, out and away, curving in a wide arc until I found a stream that I could follow for a minute, back the way I’d come, praying that if Breckon did follow me, he’d have to do so more slowly, and I could circle around to come up behind him.

But every few minutes, I’d instinctively reach for Grace, or Kham, and be reminded that I was bound away from them, and the fear would shriek again.

Never again, I told myself. I grimaced remembering the moment Kham’s words cut off—I thought he’d stopped because I interrupted.

“…For the honor of the Dominus, and until this Circle is complete, bind me—”

‘No! Voski! Do not invite the darkness to bind—’