Annie Hayden's Arc

Chapter 18 of 27

Kaelen woke to the fox screaming. The sound was thin and high, nothing like a beast. He sat up fast. The cave was pale with morning light. His hand found the stag's flank, then the empty space where Annie had slept. Her boots were gone. Her wand was gone. The blanket lay cold. The fox stood at the mouth of the cave, tail flaring, staring into the woods. It looked back at Kaelen and cried again. "She left you," he said. His stomach turned. She would only leave the fox to keep it safe. Which meant she thought she could walk the woods alone. She could not. He threw his pack over his shoulder and kicked out the last of the fire. He did not wait to saddle the stag. He ran. Her tracks cut clear through the wet snow. Small boots, quick steps, then longer strides where she had started to run. Kaelen's chest tightened at that. Something had chased her. He pushed faster, branches slapping his coat, cold air raw in his throat. The fox ran ahead, low and fast, following her scent better than he could follow her prints. Its fire trailed behind it. Kaelen kept his eyes on that bright tail and let it lead. He burst through a wall of brush into a small clearing. He stopped. Annie was not there. The snow was churned and dark. He read it the way his father had taught him. Two sets of prints. Hers, and boots larger and deeper, planted like a man who did not hurry. A struggle. Drag marks leading out the far side. Something caught the light near his feet. Kaelen knelt. Her wand lay broken in the snow. The silver shaft was snapped clean in two. The amethyst crystal had shattered into jagged violet shards, scattered across the ice. A heel print pressed deep beside it. Someone had stepped on it and ground it down. Vael. It had to be Vael. Kaelen picked up the largest piece of crystal. The fox pressed against his leg and whined, nosing the broken silver where Annie's hand had held it a thousand times. "He took her," Kaelen said. The words felt like stone. His mind moved fast now. Vael served a master strong enough to cage souls. Kaelen could not fight that alone. He had brought Annie to safety and then let her walk out of it. The guilt burned, but guilt would not get her back. Only one person in Deadfall had hunted such hunters for a hundred years. Only one had the power to find where Vael had gone. His father. Kaelen closed his fist around the broken crystal. He had spent months trying to teach the High Mage mercy through Annie. Now he needed the other thing his father had always been. He needed the hunter. "Come," he told the fox. "We're going home." He turned and ran for the hill.