Chapter 5 #2
He brought her to her feet with one tug. “Go into the woods and hide. Stay low and cover your hair. Don’t let the moon catch it.”
Her fingers trembled as she pulled the hood up, tucking every strand of silver from sight. “What about you?” she whispered.
“I’ll see what they want.”
“You can’t fight them alone.”
He gave her a faint, grim smile. “You’d be surprised what I am capable of.”
He turned his head slightly, listening to the faint ring of metal, the low creak of leather drawing closer. Too close.
“Elara,” he murmured, his voice barely a breath. “Go. Now. And don’t come out until I summon you.”
Her throat tightened. She hesitated for only a moment before slipping away into the forest, drawing her cloak tight around her. Every sound seemed too loud: the soft crack of twigs beneath her boots, the quick rhythm of her own breathing.
She crouched behind the thick trunk of an old pine and peeked her head around it.
Through the branches she could still see the faint glow of their dying fire and Dar’s shadow moving against it.
She pressed her hood tighter, willing her heartbeat to quiet.
A branch snapped somewhere beyond the camp, a deliberate sound, not of forest life.
Then another. Low voices followed, rough and certain.
She should have gone deeper into the forest to hide, eyes closed, trusting Dar’s word.
But she couldn’t. She couldn’t leave him completely alone, not when he had been so generous with his help, his protection.
Not that she could do anything, but if he was, the gods forbid, left harmed, she could at least tend to him.
She shifted slightly, peering through the dark.
Four figures emerged between the trees, cloaked in black, their hoods pulled low. The glint of steel caught the moonlight, and the slow, deliberate rhythm of their steps turned her stomach to ice.
Hunters.
And Dar stood waiting for them.
Elara crouched low, not making a sound.
Four Hunters stepped into the clearing, their movements sure and quiet, the firelight gleaming faintly off their dark cloaks. They spread out, closing in around Dar like wolves circling prey.
He didn’t move, didn’t even reach for his weapon. He simply waited, hands open, posture easy, as though their unexpected presence meant naught to him.
Their voices came low at first, too soft for her to make out the words. She caught fragments—alone, tracks, south road—then one of the men gave a short, humorless laugh.
Dar said something in reply, and whatever it was, it earned a round of chuckles. The sharpness in the air began to dull.
Elara strained to listen, catching more as their voices rose slightly.
“… wanderer, are you?” one asked.
“Unless you’ve a better name for a man with tired boots.”
His tone was mild, almost amused.
Another Hunter snorted. “Foolish place to stop. You’re not the only one on the road tonight.”
Dar’s brow lifted. “Aye? Trouble ahead?”
The Hunter shrugged, resting a hand on the hilt of his blade. “Not for us. We’ve business farther on. Orders from the king.”
Elara’s stomach knotted. She barely breathed.
The man beside him spat into the dirt. “Rathmor, by dawn. Healers there, too many for their own good. The king’s patience wears thin.”
The tall one grinned, showing teeth. “We’ll have them sorted soon enough.”
Laughter followed, low, cruel, and careless. It grated against the quiet night.
Elara’s hands clenched in her cloak. Her pulse thudded in her throat as she watched Dar, waiting for some sign, some mistake that might give him away. But he only laughed with them, shaking his head as though at some shared jest.
“You’ll not find me near Rathmor then,” he said easily. “I’ve no wish to cross paths with your kind of work.”
“That’s wisdom, wanderer,” one of them said, swinging into his saddle. “Mind your business and you’ll keep breathing.”
They rode out a moment later, the sound of hooves muffled by moss, their laughter fading into the trees until only the crackle of the dying fire remained.
Dar stood watching the woods.
Elara shifted slightly in her hiding place, meaning to rise—and froze.
A voice rang through her head. This ruse better work or there will be hell to pay.
The words struck so clear and sudden that she almost gasped. They hadn’t been spoken aloud. No echo, no whisper through the trees, just the clean, hard edge of sound that didn’t belong in her mind.
Her pulse thudded in her throat. The night pressed close, alive with silence, yet the words lingered, thick with menace and threaded with impatience. She couldn’t tell if it came from the Hunters who had just ridden off or something else entirely.
Another premonition? A warning?
She swallowed hard, glancing toward the fire. Dar still stood there, motionless, the wind tugging faintly at his cloak. He gave no sign that he’d heard anything, no sense of unease.
Elara pressed a trembling hand to her chest, trying to steady the rush of her heart. The Hunters’ laughter still echoed faintly in her memory, harsh and misplaced in the stillness of the woods.
She didn’t know what it was she had heard. She only knew that she had heard something she sensed. Something she wasn’t meant to know, and it had the feel of truth to it, wrapped in danger.
Slowly, she sank lower against the base of the tree, hiding her pale face in shadow. The fire crackled softly in the clearing, and Dar’s shape moved at last, stirring the embers with a stick before turning his gaze to the dark beyond.
Elara watched him, her mind whirling. She’d trusted her instincts before—the drums, the faint warnings that proved real—but this felt different.
A voice that came from nowhere and yet was real as if the person stood next to her.
And for the first time since leaving Birkfell, she sensed there was more to this hunt for the healer than anyone realized.
And she feared what that realization might be.
She felt the touch before hearing her name.
“Elara.”
She jumped up, startled, and when she turned and saw it was Dar, she dropped against him in relief.
His arm wound around her, his hand stroking along her neck after feeling her shiver against him, the cold having settled into her.
“I called you twice and you didn’t respond,” he said.
“Fear and thoughts that overwhelmed,” she admitted, though offered no detail and he did not ask.
“Sunrise is not far off. At first light, we’ll get started.”
“Why not now?”
He offered a reasonable explanation. “The forest is not easy to navigate in the dark.”
Elara never had any trouble navigating a forest no matter day or night. The trees, foliage, the ground itself guided her, but she would not share that knowledge with him.
“The Hunters found their way,” she said as if proving it could be done.
“They have experience at such a task. We wait until daylight. Besides, we don’t want to chance running into a group of Hunters who might question more than we’d like. There is no point in tempting fate.”
“Have you slept at all?” she asked, recalling he’d said that sunrise wasn’t far off.
“I dozed,” he said as if it were enough.
“Then sleep until the sun rises. I will keep watch.” When he looked about to argue, she hurried to add, “You will be of no use to me if worn out.”
“So, you find me worth having along,” he said with a touch of a smile.
“You have proved beneficial.”
He bowed gallantly. “I am here to serve.”
Elara could not help but chuckle at his playfulness. “You serve me well, brave wanderer. Now rest.”
“I’ll doze,” he said and stretched out by the fire, closing his eyes. “But if you hear the slightest noise alert me.”
“Aye,” she said softly and watched him, his breathing taking on a steady rhythm as he more than dozed.
Elara turned her gaze back to the fire, though her thoughts refused to follow.
Instead, they drifted to the kiss that lingered still on her senses.
She touched her lips absently, wondering if it had truly been a dream or something more.
A vision, perhaps. A glimpse of what might yet come.
It had felt too real to dismiss, too tender to ignore, and it left her unsettled.
Was it fate, pressing gently, insistently, toward a path she had not chosen? Or simply her heart, tired and confused, reaching for comfort where it could find it? She did not know which troubled her more, that it might mean nothing, or that it might mean everything.
Her gaze shifted back to Dar, sleeping by the fire, his presence solid and reassuring.
Whatever the kiss had been, whether dream, vision, or wish, it had stirred something she could not easily set aside.
And for now, that was enough to trouble her thoughts as she kept watch, waiting for dawn and whatever truths it might bring.