The trail continued before her, the footsteps closer together now. In a few places a print was smeared, as if the person making it had slipped but not fallen. She could imagine the ones carrying Rochant getting tired. They too would need a place to hide at night. They were heading away from any known Sapphire settlements, suggesting that the pair had a camp or fortified location nearby.

Or that they’re as desperate as I am.

At some point she lost the trail. It took her a while to retrace her steps, and she had enough time to worry that the forest had played a trick on her before she found the end of it again. A few different prints merged here, suggesting they’d stopped a while. A little more investigation revealed some grey threads tramped into the mud. She crouched down to sift more closely and found leaves pressed down too, not by boots but by a body.

They put him down here. They rested for a time. Where did they go afterwards? Did the Wild take them? There’d be a strange irony in that.

Here, the canopy was thick, oppressive, the sunslight able to make it glow overhead but not penetrate deeply. It was already getting hard to discern fine details on the ground. She made one last search, vowing to go back if no new clues presented themselves. When that failed, she made one more, vowing that this really would be the last one.

That was when she saw the tree.

In and of itself, there wasn’t much to tell it apart. The Wild was full of large imposing trees that seemed to loom over her as she travelled. This one was old and many things, from moss, to mushrooms, to tiny Lizardkin, seemed to have made a home there. Again, hardly remarkable. However, hanging from its branches like slender banners were two lengths of hair, of a colour that seemed tantalizingly familiar. Pari cursed the lack of light and moved closer, stepping up on a lower branch for a better look.

I know you, she thought. Or someone very like you.

A name was on the tip of her tongue, so close she could almost speak it, when she heard a footstep from somewhere behind her. It was heavy, too heavy for the smaller of the two carrying Rochant, too heavy even for the larger one. It was followed by a second footstep, just as heavy.

The hairs on the back of her neck prickled, as the two things – her senses, cultivated over lifecycles, screamed at her: things, not people! – got louder.

It was clear that they would find her at any moment and it was just as clear that she could not allow that to happen.

Quickly but quietly, oh so quietly, Pari slipped around the wide trunk of the tree, just as the first of the lumbering figures arrived.