The moment Darian hits the earth beside me, I give the rope a violent tug until it breaks free from the wall and tumbles like a dead snake on the grass.

It’s quiet between us as I secure the rope in my bag and we head out toward the forest. There is a confident air about Darian that keeps my head together. I might not know where we’re going—he might not know where we’re going. But we’ll get there somehow.

The moon beckons high above, a perfect swollen circle in the sky. Gossamer clouds stretch over it like pulled cotton, but it still provides just enough light to help us see.

Not enough to ward the fear away, of course.

We make our way to the tree line, and I realize this is the farthest away from the village I have ever wandered. I wonder if my father’s blood still stains the ground. If I’d walked right over it on my way up the hill.

The world darkens around us the moment we enter the shroud of the forest. Then the doubt strikes me.

What am I doing? I feel nearly blind walking through the thickets. Every sound—every brush of a tree limb startles me out of my skin. Even Droplet seems to have stiffened, her claws prickling like little thorns into the skin of my shoulder.

But Darian leads me forward with a sense of ease. A sense of direction. And I allow myself to relax, knowing he is here with me. All the same, that notion makes me ache with guilt.

He is here because of me.

He left his home because of me.

And for all I know, this could be an incredibly perilous journey.

I feel my way through the trees, touching the wet, mossy bark as I pass. But I cannot see a foot out in front of me, and it isn’t long before I trip over a breached root and stumble to the ground. I fall fast, banging my knee on a jagged stone and digging my hands into the rough, sharp foliage on the ground.

Doubt begins to cloud whatever clarity I had left.

What am I doing?

What am I doing in this place?

“Are you alright?” Darian helps me up, scraping the earthly matter from my palms like a child. “Did you hurt yourself?”

I pull my hands away, crossing them with a petulant grumble. “I’m fine.”

His expression is wrought with worry. He leans down to look me in the eye and asks, “Where are we heading?”

I give a sigh as I take in our surroundings. All I can see are trees…and more trees. Even if we decided to turn back now and head home, I wouldn’t know which way to start walking.

“I don’t know,” I admit. “I just needed to get away from the village as quickly as possible.”

I dust myself off and start to walk on ahead when Darian reaches out, gently hooking my shoulder. “We won’t survive out here,” he says.

It awakens something cold and unsettling inside of me. Something I didn’t want to acknowledge all this time. The fact that I don’t know how to survive in the wild. The fact that my only plan now is to wander aimlessly until I cross civilization. The fact that wandering aimlessly in a world full of apex creatures makes us dead meat walking.

“What other choice do I have?” I think aloud. “It is either die back in the village, or have a fighting chance out here.”

“I’m not certain how much of a fighting chance you think we have.” Darian gestures out to the darkness. “Would you be able to see anyone coming at us? Anyone could spring on us at a moment’s notice. And humans aren’t even the worst of our concerns; there are wild dragons, giant wolves, poisonous two-headed basilisks, vultures, hellcats…the list goes on, really. All of which are predators, if I might remind you. And what are we but prey?”

I shiver at the thought. Of course, I know about the dangers out here, but when he puts it like that, it really does seem dire.

“You’re a ranger,” I tell him. “Surely you have some sort of inclination toward the wild?”

“Of course,” Darian says. “But better rangers than me have perished in these woods. And we have next to no supplies.” He looks me over, his dark eyes unreadable in the shadows of the forest. “Tell me you have a plan, Arla.”

I let out a frustrated sound and cross my arms. “I am well aware of how completely dangerous and complicated this is. I do not need you reminding me.” I gesture out vaguely toward the darkness. “The village is in that direction if you’d like to go back now, but I can’t. My chances of surviving with hellcats and basilisks are somehow higher out here in the woods.”

Darian, unfazed, moves closer to me. His eyes gleam in the darkness as he leans in and takes my hands. “You don’t get it. I’m not going to leave you.”

Why not?

For a beat, we simply stare at one another. The air goes terribly still, and even the rustling of the trees seems to quiet away to nothing.

I know that everything he’s said about the dangers of this place are real. That he’s not just trying to scare me into going back. Darian is a ranger, and by all accounts, that means he has more experience with the horrors he’s just described than most everyone else.

I know he’s right. I know that my chances of surviving out here are slim to none. That any moment, the shadow dragon could strike and we would never even see it coming. And if not the dragon—if not all of the heinous things Darian had listed—then surely, the bandits and rebels.

But whatever fate awaits me here, it can’t possibly be worse than what Uncle Ivan has in mind back at the village.

Can it?

Darian considers my expression of conflict with a rugged sigh. “If we can stay alive until morning, we might be able to make it to one of the outlier clans. We could get shelter there until we figure out our path forward.”

Mention of the clans puts a lump in my throat. Of course, I’ve heard of them before—but I’ve also been taught that they don’t take kindly to strangers from outside clans. And of course, there are the rumors of their supposed cannibalism.

I shiver at the thought.

Darian catches the reaction. “We’ll build a fire,” he says, noting the chill bumps on my skin. “We’ll have to figure something out for shelter, and then we’ll set off in the morning.”

Darian gathers large rocks to secure a fire pit in the small clearing we’ve found. Meanwhile, I begin scraping the forest floor for pieces of wood and sizable twigs to burn. But as I gather bundles into my arms, I cannot help but wonder if an open fire is a terrible idea.

“Darian,” I call, watching him wedge out a piece of rock from the hard-packed earth. “Won’t fire attract…well, something dangerous?”

Darian does not look back at me as he says, “It’s more likely the fire will deter at least some of the creatures—they won’t risk that it could be a dragon. It might attract bandits, but I’d much rather face a man than a hellcat.”

I cannot argue that.

We gather our supplies and construct a pit, and while I am trying to strike a spark from the flint, Darian is preparing a bed of large leaves to sleep on.

It takes effort to get the flames to catch on the tinder, but soon enough, I’ve managed to get a warm fire blazing. As I bask in the warmth, I can’t help but notice that Darian has only made one pallet to sleep on. “Where will you sleep?” I ask.

He comes to sit beside the fire with me. “I was about to go on watch when we fled, so I took a nap earlier. I can afford to stay up and keep watch tonight. It would be best if you get some rest.”

It has been a hellish day. A long one at that. And though my heartbeat still staggers over the fears of surviving the night in a dark, dangerous forest, I am also exhausted. Drained to near nothing from tears and heartache, I simply nod and rise to my feet.

“Wake me so I can take over when you get tired,” I tell him.

Darian offers me a slight smirk, and I’m caught for a moment by just how handsome he looks in the fire light. The shadows wrap his features in lovely, defining ways. His sharp brows and dark eyes, and a jawline that catches the light with its sharp edges. “I’ll be sure to wake you if the rebels attack,” he says with a wink.

“Or the bandits,” I add, touching my cheeks so he cannot see the heat on them.

“Right,” Darian says with a smile. “Can’t forget the bandits.”

For the first time all day, I feel a sense of ease come over me. I manage a promise of a smile and climb onto the pallet to sleep. But of course, it does not come. At first, I distract myself with the thought of bandits and rebels, and which is worse.

Then my mind strays to my father. To the hatred on my uncle’s face as he ordered my death. To the council and their pitiful gazes as they tore my title out from under me.

I lie on my side, watching the flames. And the longer I gaze into the light, the more my blood begins to boil.

Why should I have to run? It should be my uncle fleeing from the village after what he’s done. The elders, banished for robbing me of what is rightfully mine.

Banished.

They had used that word at the council meeting when they spoke of Julius. Julius, who was banished for bonding with a Great Dragon. That was banish-worthy, but murder isn’t?

The fire pops and cracks, spitting sparks into the dark night. I watch as Darian tosses a fresh log into the pit.

Bonding with a Great Dragon…is such a thing really possible? I can’t help but wonder what it would be like. What kind of vengeance I could serve if I could do the same…

And if Julius did bond with a Great Dragon… Could he teach me how?