A flash of light gave her the briefest of images—a dark-skinned man wearing something over his eyes, a blindfold perhaps—but then her vision was also obscured by a thick piece of cloth that was wrapped around her eyes and then tethered behind her head. There had also been something strange about his lips, a series of dark, vertical lines painted on them. With a shove, they began to march her forward.

“Who are you? Where are you taking me? Where’s Ludo?” she asked.

“Bryony?” came Ludo’s voice, as clear as a struck bell now.

Hearing his voice gave her a measure of unexpected comfort. “I’m here. Are you alright?”

“Got the same soft landing as you, I expect. Beats breaking every bone in my body, I suppose. Though our hosts don’t seem too friendly.”

“Tell us who you are and what you want!” Bryony demanded.

“Don’t bother. They won’t say a word. I tried, trust me. Why’d you come after me? You shouldn’t have.”

“I wouldn’t just leave you like that.” It wasn’t meant to be a jab at him, but right after she said it, she realized it was. He didn’t know that she knew that he had almost left her in the dark. But she knew, and that was far worse somehow.

“You should have. I’m not worth risking your life over.”

“That’s not for you to decide, is it? Are you blindfolded too?”

“Unfortunately.”

“Our captors are too.”

“Seriously?”

She nodded, then remembered he couldn’t see her. “Aye. I got a quick glimpse of one before they covered my eyes.”

“That’s…odd.”

“Who do you think they are?”

“As it turns out, I think we’ve stumbled upon Oath. Maybe my weird magical door vision thing wasn’t such nonsense after all.”

“But they were men, I gathered that much before they blindfolded me. No one has ever said anything about ‘Sons of Ereniel’.”

“I think they serve the Daughters.”

“Do you serve the Daughters of Ereniel?”

No response. Just the constant pressure on her back as she was forced to walk forward. “We’ll find out who they are eventually.”

“If they don’t murder us first.”

“If they’d wanted to kill us, do you think they’d have piled up grass to cushion our landing?”

“Maybe they prefer their meat to be fresh.”

“Cannibals? Not likely. They’d have starved to death years ago. We’re the only idiots foolish enough to romp through the Oathlands.”

She knew he was right, but Bryony hated the feeling of not having control. Unable to use her hands. Unable to see. Unable to do anything to improve her situation. It made her want to scream.

Instead, she just let the lump in her throat grow and grow.