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It struck her distantly that he was remarkably calm for someone who’d survived the same nightmare, but it happened that way sometimes. People pushed it aside, pretended like it was nothing, until one day they cracked. She wasn’t sure which was better, falling apart slowly or breaking all at once.

He brushed a branch aside for her. “If your friends are alive, they’ll be looking for you.” Wren nodded, drawing the whisperstone from her pocket. Silas’s eyes caught on it, and they widened. “A whisperstone?”

“I can find them,” she said. “Well, Orzen at least. If he’s still—” She stopped herself. Losing anyone else was unthinkable. “No. I know he’s okay. I can find him.”

Closing her eyes, she focused. A thread of silver light unspooled from the stone, winding between the trees into the dark. He was out there. Or at least, his stone was. Her muscles screamed, but she forced her legs to move faster.

“Wait,” Silas called, hurrying after her. “You can’t mean to go now. There are Witherborn all over, and it won’t be dawn for a few hours. You’ll be stumbling in the dark.”

“You don’t have to come,” she said. “Thank you for your help, but I need to find him.”

He caught her wrist, his grip light but insistent. “I’m sorry, you’re right. Let me go with you. You’re exhausted, and you shouldn’t be alone out here.”

Wren simply nodded, pulling away and following the silver thread into the fading dark. She held the whisperstone out in front of her, concentrating to check her position. The silver light flashed, twisting toward the deeper forest. It held as long as she focused.

Movement was all she had now. It was only bright enough to see a few paces ahead. She must’ve been out for hours. The forest was thin, but unnatural even here. No birds sang as dawn approached. The air was still, as if it were also in mourning.

Silas followed. His steps were unnaturally light behind her, as if the forest cushioned them. A ranger’s steps meant to conceal while scouting. Every so often, she looked over her shoulder, and Silas was there, a pale shadow slipping between trunks, never falling behind. Time bent and folded around their steps.

The brightening sky—tinged red from the heavy smoke drifting from the town—kept time for her. The whisperstone warmed in her palm. She waited, hoping, but nothing answered. She moved faster, hooves crunching loudly on fallen leaves.

There were voices in the distance, shouts and screams, and closer, a loud cry of anger that came from somewhere in the forest, the same direction as the stone was leading her.

“Gods damned mud!”

A desperate flutter of hope surged in her chest. Wren rushed forward, the whisperstone forgotten as she dropped it into her pouch—its silver thread flickering out.

The road dipped into a steep pile of mud. In the center of it, Garin struggled to move, stuck to his knees. His eye wrap had fallen around his neck, revealing wide, unseeing blue eyes.

“Hold on, I’m coming,” she said, carefully edging down the slope as Silas slowed beside her.

“Wren?” Garin’s expression shifted from frustration into careful relief. “Was hoping I’d find you—though not quite like this.” His staff was half-buried in the drying mud. “Tried weaving. Pushed myself too hard, and the ground gave out. Not much magic left unless I make myself rest.”

“I’m going to get you out.”

She wasn’t sure how. Even brushing against her Spirit was a struggle under this level of exhaustion. There was no way she could hold it without burning herself out.

“Never travel without the basics,” Silas said, uncoiling a rope from his belt. “It always helps to carry more than you need.”

Garin grunted in response, unsure of the new voice.

“I’m Silas, by the way. Here, this should help.”

He tossed the rope down, and Garin fumbled in the mud to find it. When he did, he tied it around his waist. Between the three of them, they dragged him free. Garin stood, staff and clothing caked in dirt, thick hands on his knees as he caught his breath.

“Should’ve waited. Foolish,” he huffed. “Heard Orzen run in here after you. Tav and Brunna went up this way, too. Couldn’t leave them alone in these woods.”

Tavrin…her eyes filled with tears, but she blinked them away. Her throat was thick and dry. She knelt in front of him and silently retied the cloth over his eyes. The relief that had bloomed at finding him vanished with the truth she knew he needed to hear.

“Garin…Tavrin. He’s…he—” Her voice caught.

Garin stilled. He must’ve heard it in her tone. He shook his head vigorously, mouth opening and closing like the words wouldn’t form right.

“But Tavrin was fighting beside us.” He gripped his staff, the feather trembling at the top. Garin sat where he stood, as if his legs couldn’t hold him any longer.

“Not Tavrin,” he whispered. “Not Tavrin…” The same words slipped out, forming a mumbled prayer—repeated again and again, as though saying them long enough would make them true.

She leaned into him, sticky mud soaking through her tunic.