She shot another glance at her slumbering companions and debated waking them. If she shook them from their sleep for the disturbance of a squirrel, she knew she’d never hear the end of it. She couldn’t justify waking Ash or Malik just because it was too quiet. Similarly, if there was something more sinister in the forest, perhaps the sounds of them stirring would invite attack.

Reevers were typically dispatched alone, she told herself. She did not require their aid.

Silent as a shadow, she slipped from the clearing and into the trees. Though people had commented on her unique, lilac eyes for as long as she could remember, they’d proven relatively useless, in the practical sense. Despite Samael’s insistence that she must possess some gifts of sight, they’d never offered her any ease when it came to seeing in the dark. While a supernatural edge would have been advantageous, she had spent years training to fight and stalk in the shade as well as in the sun. She’d reassured herself of this over and over, convincing herself she’d be fine. Whatever it was, she could handle it.

Amaris picked her steps carefully, moving through the thicket between the trees. She avoided fallen leaves, stepping around dried branches and avoiding the tugging fingers of thorny weeds to remain as imperceptible as what she currently sought. The pitter-patter of her heart was the loudest thing in the forest.

Her instincts insisted that she was headed in the right direction. She followed, trusting whatever unknown impulse guided her toward the night’s disturbance. The tug told her not only that she was going in the right direction but also that she was closing in on whatever she’d sensed. If she didn’t calm her nerves, she wouldn’t be able to focus long enough to master whatever lay ahead. She cursed her thrumming heart yet again for betraying the anxiety she felt as she drew closer and closer to the unknown.

There was something brighter ahead. It was a break in the trees.

The moonlight washed the space ahead as if silver had been poured into a fishbowl and filled it to the brim. It was no grassy meadow but a clearing of bright, reflective water. The tree trunks encircling it were lit by the bright moon, acting as walls for the small bowl fishbowl of light in the otherwise darkened forest.

Her feet stopped of their own accord. Her senses spoke to her once more, and she listened.

Amaris paused as the tree line ended, several paces away from the pond. The silver light flooding the small clearing revealed everything, as the moonbeams didn’t need to battle through a leafy canopy to illuminate what lay below. Her eyes scoured the small clearing from the hiding place where she’d stopped.

The smallest movement caught her eye.