Cordelia left them piled in the cedar chest. In bear form, she hauled it out of the cottage, bursting through the doorframe and leaving the entrance in shambles behind her. She shifted back to a girl only for long enough to put together a harness out of Lady Elianora’s belongings, to drag the heavy chest behind her.

Even that was almost too much thinking to endure. She could hardly stand to wait until everything was safely fastened, until she could finally shift and run, straining every muscle with effort, as fast and as hard as she could, away from the cottage.

“Trust me. Trust Mother, trust Alys, and thank all the surviving spirits of the land that you and Giles and Rosalind are still together.”

Did Connall not know the truth about Cordelia, either? Or had he been lying to her all along?

Did he even think of himself as her brother?

Her roar sent birds scattering from all of the branches ahead. She tipped her head down and pushed herself faster.

Lady Elianora’s wall of air had broken when she’d lost consciousness. Cordelia would have burst through it anyway in this mood. She wanted to crash hard against something. To break things. She wanted to fight someone with slashing claws and teeth.

She wanted …

She burst through the tree line, panting. The sight ahead of her made all four paws slam to a halt. The heavy chest landed against her with a thump. She sagged to the ground, barely aware of the collision.

The forest had ended. It had actually ended! She was looking outside for the first time in her life … and it looked nothing like she had imagined.

All those books that Mother had read aloud and the ballads that Giles had learned from his books were full of great houses and colorful pageantry—or crowded towns overflowing with adventures. She’d expected to find tall buildings everywhere, flying bright flags and full of people.

What she saw instead was a wasteland.

There were no buildings on the vast plain that stretched before her, only bare brown dirt that spread to rolling, dead-brown hills in the far distance. Long furrows branded the plain like scorch marks. She could make out faded patterns in the dirt where rows of plants might once have grown … but no more. Some disaster had ravaged this place and left nothing alive in its wake.

There was no birdsong in the open, echoing air and no hum of insects to tug her forward. Wildflowers and weeds should have covered the abandoned earth. The forest should have sent forth strong roots to gain new ground.

But her big bear body understood why none of that had happened, because the warning shot up through her paws, the scent and message unmistakable to any animal instinct:

Stay away!

This place smelled overwhelmingly wrong. It was broken.

She had nowhere else to go.