They followed the tracks further north of Teb’s farm and, unsurprisingly, found another marked path.

  Syl didn’t say a thing. She simply turned down the path and headed towards the mountains. Edar tried, unsuccessfully, to convince the others not to go, but everybody followed her. Even Edar.

  Guess the forbidden cave isn’t quite as scary as the Anihazi hunting us… It was the first thought she’d had since leaving the farm that didn’t involve replaying Leeze’s death over and over in her head. She clenched her fist, the pressure reddening the bandage she’d lamely wrapped it in. The pain was the least she deserved.

  Every step she took was plagued with the guilt of watching her friend die. Of letting her friend die. Leeze had looked up to Syl. Had counted on her to keep her safe. And Syl had let her down. She’d let them all down.

  She wasn’t seeing the bushes she passed, the path marked by small stones, or the darkening of the sky. All she saw, repeatedly, was the Anihazi’s claw ripping out Leeze’s insides. The spray of blood and the dull thud of her body hitting the floor. Leeze’s last breath and her lifeless eyes staring right through Syl...

  “We’re on the right path,” Rogar said quietly from beside her.

  “Sorry, what?” Syl asked, trying to force her attention back to the present.

  “The tracks,” he said, gesturing to the dirt path. “People definitely went this way.”

  “Ah,” Syl said, still distracted.

  “Do you know why I’m telling you this?” he asked her.

  The words slid off her like they were never spoken, so she shrugged. The sound the Anihazi’s claw made when it cut through Leeze filled her ears…

  “Because we need you here,” Rogar explained, and put his hand on her shoulder for emphasis. “Not wherever your mind is right now. Not where it’s been since we left Teb’s farm. These tracks, and the people following you, that’s what you need to be thinking about.”

  “I can’t,” Syl said simply. “Leeze… she…”

  “She’s dead,” Rogar said quietly so as not to be heard by the others, but the tone more than anything got Syl’s attention. “As much as I wish it was otherwise. As much as my heart breaks and I miss my friend. She’s dead. There’s nothing I can do to change that now. Nothing I can do to help her.

  “The people who are still alive, the people who made these tracks and the people who are following you, those are the people I can help. The people you can help. You need to help.”

  “Leeze died because of me,” Syl said, unable to let it go so easily. She’d kept the tears at bay, barely, but they threatened to burst forth as she said the words. “She protected me when it should have been the other way around.”

  “Stop being so damn full of yourself,” Rogar said harshly. “How do you think we feel? We all sat there, too scared to act, while you fought and she died.” Rogar’s hand squeezed her shoulder almost to the point of being painful, but then suddenly eased off as his anger deflated. “If you think you deserve the blame, just imagine for one moment how the rest of us feel.

  “I’ve never been more disappointed in myself. Never. I wish I could cut my chest open with this damn Sho-Val and pull my own heart out. It would hurt less than what I’m feeling right now. And at least the Sho-Val would have served some purpose.”

  “You couldn’t…” Syl started.

  “Couldn’t what?” he spat. “Couldn’t fight? Why? Because we aren’t you? Tell me, Syl, was all that talk of us improving our Ka-Sho, of challenging you in the Ka-Sho-Dan, was that all for show? To build us up so you could just knock us down again when you won?”

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  “No! Of course not!” Syl said. How could Rogar even suggest that? “You’ve all gotten so much better…”

  “Then why would you think we couldn’t fight too?” he interrupted her.

  “That’s not what I meant,” she said, suddenly bone-weary. “You’re all out here for me. I’m responsible. I have to protect you.”

  “Ancestors save us,” Rogar said and shook his head. “Why do you think we came with you?”

  Syl opened her mouth to answer, and her jaw worked, but no sound came out.

  “Starting to figure it out?” he asked her. “We came with you because we wanted to protect you too. We didn’t want you to have to face something like… that… by yourself. We all knew what we were getting into, and why we were doing it.

  “And so did Leeze. She proved herself—her courage—and her love for her friends, with what she did. We can mourn and miss her later. Now, we should just be thankful to her for saving you. For saving us. We’d all be dead if she didn’t step in.”

  Syl hadn’t thought of it that way. “Thank you, Rogar,” she said quietly. “I was… being selfish…”

  “Nothing new there,” he said, but softened the remark with a small smile and another squeeze of her shoulder. “Are you back here with us now?”

  “Yes,” she said, her voice firmer than before. Leeze’s loss still weighed heavily on her heart, but the appreciation for saving them temporarily outweighed the grief. She could go on.

  “Good,” Rogar said, his voice turning serious again. “The Anihazi is wounded now. And wounded animals are dangerous. We need you watching out for it. We’re in no shape to fight.”

  Syl nodded and stretched her senses out for any sign of the Anihazi. She could feel it, south of them and following their trail. Weak and wounded like Rogar said, it was forcing itself to track them.

  She could sense its determination to end the struggle once and for all, but other emotions chipped away at that focus. Something about their encounter, that momentary paralysis it experienced, made it leery about a direct confrontation. On top of that, it kept losing their scent. Something was hiding them from it, just like the night before.

  Syl’s eyes went to the path they were following and the small stones that lined it. “I think the path is somehow hiding us from the Anihazi,” she told Rogar.

  “It’s nearby?” he asked, his eyes scanning the thick underbrush.

  “No,” Syl said, focusing on its location. “Still quite a way behind us. But it’s looking for us. I don’t think it’ll risk a straight-on fight again, though. It’s too weak. It’ll try to ambush us.”

  “And you won’t let that happen, will you?” Rogar said, gently reminding her she was the only one who could fill that role.

  “I won’t,” she promised. “And unless it literally stumbles across us, I think this path will hide us from it.”

  “I’ll feel better if we find another one of those caves,” Rogar said. “Solid walls are a bit more reassuring than some small rocks.”

  “And weapons,” Kule said from behind them. “Weapons we can kill it with.”

  There was a feverish intensity in Kule’s eyes, and Syl reached up and touched his forehead. His skin was shockingly cool to the touch.

  “I’m fine,” he said, then shrugged and looked at his blistered and ruined hands. “Well, except for these. Fix these for me, Syl. Fix them so I can help you kill it. They don’t need to work after that but make it so I can fight.”

  “I’ll… do what I can…” she said, taken aback by the cold indifference of his voice. “Once we find a safe place to rest.”

  “Should be any minute now,” Kule said, purposely looking up through the branches. When Syl followed his gaze, the towering mountains loomed over them. They had to be close.

  “He’s right,” Rogar added. “There’s more of those weird blue torches. Do you think we’ll find…”

  Syl didn’t hear if he finished the sentence. She was already running towards the cave entrance, her fatigue forgotten. After everything that had happened with the Anihazi—with Leeze and Kule—Syl needed to find the people from Teb’s farm. More than that, she needed to find her father.

  But what if he’s not there? a small part of her mind tried to ask, but Syl pushed it down, buried it deep. She couldn’t face that possibility. She had to keep believing and so she ran.

  She didn’t call out until she entered the cave, too worried about that Anihazi hearing her, but she couldn’t contain herself any longer.

  “Dad! Daaaaad?” she stopped just inside and called down the stone hall with the flickering blue flames. That same part of her brain that wondered about whether her father had made it this far also wondered why nobody was keeping a lookout. Why the hall was empty…

  “DAAAAAAAAD!” she shouted, as much to drown out the doubting inner voice as get somebody’s attention. “Dad?” she said again, weaker. Why wasn’t anybody answering? Was anybody there? Did the Anihazi kill them all before they made it? “Dad?” she asked one last time, barely above a whisper.

  “Anybody in there?” Dena asked, catching up to Syl, one of Kule’s arms over her shoulders.

  “I don’t…” Syl stopped, a shadow shifting at the end of the hall. Then she was running again, tears blurring her vision, until she collided with the man hard enough to nearly knock him off his feet.

  Syl threw her arms around his chest as he embraced her and pulled her close.

  “Syl, what are you doing here?” her father asked in surprise.

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