The first child died of a fever after a few days of endless rain and wind. She was young, too young, and when Cruze had gone to sleep the night before, curled into the hollow of the rock he had claimed as his own, she had been delirious and shivering, but alive. When he woke the next morning, she sat with her arms wrapped tightly around her legs, her head laid against her knees, and her eyes flat and unseeing as she stared out at the forest.

Kess tried to wake her, but at the slightest touch, she fell over, her limbs stiff and locked into place the way she had died. Another girl, a friend perhaps, tried to pull her out of the knot she was in, but her body was stuck in her final position—huddled for warmth that would never come.

That had set off a round of wailing and blubbering that made Cruze’s head ache and his eyes twitch, so he once again stalked off into the woods, searching for something, anything to distract him from the situation.

Cruze was not worried about dying, though perhaps he should have been. Instead, he dreaded the slow march toward death he would have to endure with the others. It was clear to him that these children would not last long in this harsh environment. There was no doubt it was their captors’ intention, to let nature dole out the cruelty for them. But he refused to be dragged down by the weakness of those around him. The dark whispers had advanced in frequency, and he found himself fighting off bursts of temper. He worried that he would snap if he had to listen to them cry for another day.

He had to find a way to survive on his own.

That was when he felt it—another of those provocative whispers that had been trailing him since his arrival. This one was closer though, more like a brush of the wind. This time, he did not ignore it. Instead, he sought it out.

He spun around, searching the jungle around him. There was green everywhere he could see—in the vines and leaves and trees overhead, along with the undergrowth at his feet. The trunks of the trees stretched on and on, until his eyes blurred when he tried to focus on any in the distance.

“Who is there?” he called out.

The whisper curled around his ear again, murmuring indistinct words of passion and determination that made something in his chest rise up in response.

“Where are you? What are you?”

No voice answered, not this time. But a tickle crawled up the back of his neck and then he saw a flash of something in his mind’s eye. It was this same forest, but not. In the image, skyfire burst overhead, trees were toppled around him, and there was screaming, so much screaming.