50

After what feels like endless days of travel, night comes again. We make our beds atop soft fallen pine needles. Their scent relaxes me. Philia falls asleep quickly, her wild curls tumbling across her face. Jadon remains awake and upright—first watch. His gaze doesn’t stop. His jaw stays hard.

I lie on the other side of the fire, eyes on the sky. No shooting stars tonight. The nightstar—where is she right now? The sky is that black.

I shift against the ground, wondering if the pain in my body comes from nights of sleeping in hard, horrid spaces, or if it’s my body continuing to weaken without my amulet. In the silent expanse of our days, I’ve worried about three things: my pendant, my friendship with Jadon, and my body. Every twinge and minor ache tell me I’m dying. Every flare-up in my muscles, anytime my knee wiggles beneath my weight, anytime my tongue pushes at my teeth and I perceive that a tooth is looser than before, confirms that I’m dying. And now, my hair…

“Jadon,” I whisper.

Silence… “Umhmm?”

I move my mouth, and the hinges of my jaw creak. No words.

“What’s wrong?” he asks.

My pulse is all over the place. I don’t want to say I’m dying aloud because if I do, it will become a true thing. And what good will telling him do? He can’t stop it. Why burden him?

“Hey.” He sits beside me. “What’s wrong?”

I bite my lip, then send my eyes back to the sky. “My hair… It’s falling out.” I exhale, finding some relief at having shared the truth.

He stays still, like he’s stopped breathing. Then: “I’m sorry.”

“There’s nothing you can do about it,” I say, shaking my head.

“There’s nothing more you can do about it, either,” he says. “You’re doing all you can. Moving ahead and finding your pendant.”

“Faster, we need to go faster.” That’s what he’s thinking.

“I wish we could fucking fly to Caburh.”

“She’ll be okay.”

“Relax.”

“If you’re scared, she’ll become more scared than she already is.”

He studies my face, then studies my hair. He smiles. “You’re probably one of the only people in the world who’d look breathtaking bald.”

I snort. “Okay, then.”

He grins. “Seriously, you have the face for it. You could pull it off. I’d still follow you around like a lost puppy.” He grows serious. “We’ll find it. Okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Get some rest,” he says.

I offer him a small smile, and then I close my eyes.

Tomorrow has to be better.

Right?

The closer we get to Caburh, the more the air stinks, putrid, rancid, like slugs disintegrated in vinegar, like a corpse left in a field. The road is clear of pedestrians, but in the distance, I glimpse a man walking on the edge of the road. Dust puffs with each step, but that dust doesn’t dull the man’s urgent amber glow. He’s dying—that’s what his body is saying—and that means he may be desperate or delirious. Neither state is good.

There’s something else about this traveler. Something worrisome. Something predatory.

As the man gets closer, Jadon sneaks a look at me.

I nod— I’m ready .

“Behind us, Phily,” he whispers.

She obliges, but I see her readying her mace.

The man’s face is as withered as the last potato in a pantry. The twitchy but distant look in his eyes tells me that he sees us but… doesn’t . His leather tunic is caked with dried blood—human or animal, I can’t tell. His matted black hair sticks out from beneath a helmet that looks too small for his head.

None of these things originally belonged to him. And that’s a problem.

I can sense the tension in his body, the way his muscles quiver with each breath.

The man smells of death—his own mingled with so many others’. He stares at Philia, the most vulnerable-looking member of our group, and the hairs on my neck stand on end.

I check our surroundings to see if this is a setup and if there are others waiting to ambush us, but there’s no place to hide, for us or for them. The reviving land may have patches of green, but there are still more dusty strips of flat land that offer no cover. The bushes may be fuller than the bushes we’ve passed, but they are still thin and brittle brambles.

The man continues to shuffle in our direction.

And Philia, Jadon, and I continue to walk in his.

There’s silence except for the uneven shuffle of the man’s boots and the quiet padding of our feet against the dirt trail.

His stench blooms—rancid meat, sweat, and excrement of every creature in Vallendor. A dagger sits in his belt. The blade of the sword on his hip matches the blood beneath his nails. Like everything else, these weapons weren’t originally his.

Jadon nods at the stranger as we pass.

I keep my eyes trained on the road ahead. My skin tingles, and my fingers burn—all of me whispers that this wanderer is a threat. I try to hear his thoughts.

Only buzzing.

Strange.

“Just keep walking,” Jadon mumbles.

“Okay,” Philia says.

“Yep,” I say, even though my blood fizzes with worry. Why can’t I hear his thoughts?

The man’s feet scrape the dry earth.

Our feet tap against the dirt path.

My heart pounds, and my hands go hotter. This isn’t right. This —

I turn to look back at the traveler.

“Where’d he go?” I ask.

Jadon keeps walking. “Doesn’t matter. Keep moving.”

I walk backward for a spell, eyes scanning the brush and the tufts of dead, high grass.

No shouts. No scuffling. No amber glow of a skulking man.

I turn south again. “I don’t like this.”

Jadon grunts but says nothing.

I take one last look behind me.

No amber glow or blue glow or any-colored glow gleams from that man.

It’s like… Like he was never there at all .

How is that possible? Is this some sort of magic? Is he a mage? Another agent of Elyn’s?

I look down at the dirt path.

Dead moths, dusty, smashed, and dragged beneath his shuffling feet.

Is there danger ahead?

Always. There is only death here. That’s what that second raven told me.

Are we finally headed to that danger?

The gnawing in my stomach answers.

Yes .

Shit.