Sylvara Shadowbark's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

By midday the wind shifted, and Sylvara heard what she had feared since dawn — the high, hungry baying of hounds. The enforcers had circled back. Dogs did not chase broken branches. Dogs chased her. Her dark elf magic could hide her shape and her sound, but it could not hide her scent. She grabbed her twin daggers from the rack and ran. She cut south toward the river she had mapped years ago for exactly this kind of trouble. The water ran brown and fast over moss-slick stones. She waded in to her thighs and walked the current downstream, letting it pull her smell apart. Her boots slipped twice. She did not fall. When she climbed out on the far bank, the baying had thinned to confusion. It did not last. A new sound rolled through the trees behind her — a hunting horn, sharp and certain. Through the trunks she saw a green flame burning on a tall metal torch, held high by the lead enforcer. That flame was not for seeing. It was a signal. More men were coming, and they would not lose her twice. She climbed. The ground rose into a mossy stone face scarred with old claw marks, taller than any beast she knew. A narrow gap split the rock near the top. She pressed her back to the cold stone inside it and pulled her magic tight around her shoulders. The hounds reached the base below and lost their voices. They circled. They whined. They could not climb. She heard the lead enforcer curse and call them off, promising the rest of his men by nightfall. Sylvara waited until the green light moved away. She had shaken the dogs, but the hunt had grown teeth. By dawn there would be a net here, not a search. Her shelter was burned to her now. She tightened her grip on the twin daggers and turned her face toward the long road to the old man who carried her mother's letters. She would reach him first, or no one would.