What if that’s not truly Ashyn? What if she’s become . . . ?

Her mind refused to finish the question.

But why else would Ashyn run into the forest? In all the time Moria had been chasing her, she hadn’t paused to wonder that.

Moria crept forward, gaze fixed on her sister’s face. She could see the shape of it but not the features. Not enough to know that it was still her sister’s true face.

“Tova?”

Daigo let out a soft snarl, as if also calling the hound.

Even if her sister couldn’t hear them, Tova should, but he stood straight and unflinching at Ashyn’s side.

Daigo and Moria skirted a dead tree. As they rounded the roots, the figures of Ashyn and Tova disappeared behind it. Then Moria stepped out the other side and—

They were gone.

Moria shoved through the dense woods, squinting into the darkness until Daigo stopped and nearly tripped her again. He glanced over his shoulder, not at her, but behind them. Then he backtracked. Moria hurried after him. This time when he stopped, she halted in time. He looked up at her and made a noise deep in his throat.

They must have passed the spot.

“Where are they?” she said, her voice echoing.

Daigo grunted and started into the forest. When Moria tried to follow, he growled softly, telling her to stay. As soon as she stopped moving, the silence prickled at the back of her neck, as if someone was creeping up behind her. She spun and saw nothing.

She strode to the nearest tree, rammed her dagger into her belt, and grabbed the bottom limb. She swung up from branch to branch, not slowing until there weren’t any more that would hold her weight. Then she stretched out and peered down to see . . .

Nothing. She saw nothing.

Moria’s boots squelched in mud. She could not see well in the ink-gray night, but she could make out obstacles before she smacked into and stumbled over them. There were no trees in this barren strip. There were rocks, though, and the gurgle of water, so faint it was as if a tiny underground spring was trying to hide beneath the stagnant, fetid water.

She walked to a large rock. There was a smaller one attached, like a baby on his mother’s back.

“We’ve been here before,” she said, casting an accusing glare at Daigo. “I thought you were leading us out.”

He harrumphed, as if to say, What do you expect? I’m not a tracking hound.

They needed to find out what had happened to Ashyn. Moria had no idea what she’d seen—a hallucination, a phantasm? It didn’t matter. What was important was that it had not been Ashyn. She had to get back to the village to find her sister . . . but they were lost. Hopelessly lost.