Alden Greenleaf knelt where her mother had been taken, and found nothing. Bootprints ended at the stream. Her mother was gone, dragged off in the night, and every hour widened the gap between them. Alden had sworn to find the men who took her and drag them before justice. But she could not chase what she could not track. Behind her, the tribe watched from the trees. They did not help. They blamed her. Her aunt spoke from the fern shadows, arms folded. "You slept while your mother screamed. And now you want our trackers?" The old woman's voice cut like a splitting branch. "No. You brought this. You end it alone." The others turned their backs. One by one, they climbed to their treehouse and drew up the ropes. Alden stood at the base of the great trunk, shut out from the only home she knew. She swallowed her shame and worked. The stream had washed the trail clean. She waded the shallows, searching the far bank for any mark. Nothing. She circled wider. The forest floor gave her only leaves and stones. Two hours burned away. Then she saw it. A climbing vine hung torn from a low branch, its clusters of red fruit crushed into the mud. Something heavy had shoved through here. The vine bled bright sap where a body had ripped it. Alden crouched. Boot marks pressed the soft ground beyond, deep and dragging. Two men. One load between them. Her mother. She followed the prints east, faster now, arrow nocked. The tracks climbed rocky ground and grew faint on stone. Alden slowed, reading each scuff. The trail led to a cliff face split by a dark opening. Cold air breathed out of it. Passages branched inside, twisting into deeper black. A labyrinth of caves, older than her tribe, mapped by no one. The boot marks went in and did not come out. Alden checked her quiver. Twelve arrows. She had a trail again, and it led underground, into a maze that could swallow her whole. She stepped toward the opening. Something moved in the dark. Low. Fast. A snarl rolled out of the cave mouth, too deep for any rabbit its size. Yellow eyes flared. A creature burst into the light, gray fur bristling, teeth bared, guarding the entrance like a hound. It was no ordinary beast. It hunted by day, and it stood between Alden and the only way to her mother. She raised her bow. The tunnel behind the creature swallowed the sound of dragging feet, moving farther away with every heartbeat. She had found the door. Now something wanted to keep her out.

The creature planted itself in the cave mouth. It was no dog. Sweeping wings folded against a catlike body, and long fangs curved past its jaw. A thick tail lashed the stone. Alden drew back and loosed. The arrow struck its shoulder and bounced away, useless. She fired again, faster. The shaft skipped off the beast's hide and cracked against the rock. Its skin turned every point she had. Alden stepped back. Four arrows gone. The tail swept out and slammed the ground where she'd stood. She would never shoot her way past this. The dragging steps of her mother's captors faded deeper into the dark. Every wasted moment carried them farther. She remembered the old magician who camped near the eastern rocks. Traders spoke of him with pity now. His power was fading. But she had no better plan. Alden ran. She found him seated on a stone, rereading a cracked book, his staff leaning at his knee. White hair stuck out in every direction. He did not look up. "There's a winged beast at the cave," Alden said. "My arrows can't touch it. I need to get past." Arglad Chakleberry closed the book. "I moved a river once. Held a storm still for a wedding." He paused. "Last week I moved a river four feet. Into my boots." "Can you help or not?" He studied her. Then he stood, slower than his years should allow. "I can try. The trying is the risk." They climbed back to the cave. The beast rose the moment it saw them. Wings spread. Fangs bared. Arglad lifted his staff. The crystal at its tip glowed pale blue. He spoke words Alden didn't know. He aimed at the creature. The light bent wrong. It missed the beast and struck the cliff above the cave mouth. Stone cracked. A slab the size of a cart broke loose. The creature looked up too late. Rock crashed down and buried it, filling the opening in dust and rubble. When the dust cleared, the beast lay pinned and still. But the cave mouth was gone. Boulders sealed it wall to wall. The path her mother had taken was blocked from the world. Arglad lowered his staff. He stared at the ruin. "I meant to freeze it." He cleared his throat. "The beast is handled. Mostly." Alden dropped to her knees at the rubble. She clawed at the stones. They did not move. Her mother was on the other side, deeper than ever, and the only door was buried. She pressed her palm to the cold rock and made herself breathe. "There's another way in," the magician said behind her. "The caves branch. I've heard of a second mouth." He looked at the buried entrance. "I've only heard of it." Alden stood. The beast was beaten. The door was gone. Now she needed the one path she couldn't see.

The buried cave lay behind them now. Alden walked the mountain's rocky base with Arglad at her side, watching for any crack that might be the second mouth. Every hour her mother slipped farther into the dark. Arglad tapped stones with his staff and muttered names of old spells he could no longer trust. "You said you'd only heard of it," Alden said. "Have you ever seen it?" "No." He prodded a boulder. "I once found a hidden door by accident. I was looking for my hat." He kept walking. A gray bunny hopped across the loose rock ahead. It stopped, sniffed the ground, and dug at a gap between two stones. It moved with purpose, not fear. Alden slowed and watched. The bunny circled a shadowed cleft, then squeezed through and vanished into the mountain. "There." Alden crossed the scree. Behind a jut of stone, a narrow opening cut into the cliff. Cold air breathed out of it. The passage ran deep and branched into darkness, a maze of tunnels and worn steps swallowed by black. The second entrance. She had found it. Before she could step inside, a woman rose from the rocks below the cleft. She was young, blonde, and her right sleeve hung empty at her side. With her one hand she pulled herself up the last ledge toward the same opening. She had been climbing for it the whole time. Alden's hand went to her bow. The stranger stopped. She looked at the bow, then at Alden's face, and did not flinch. "You found it first," the woman said. Her voice was flat and quiet. "I've searched three days." "Why do you want in?" Alden asked. "I'm hunting a man. My master. He went into these caves." She lifted her empty sleeve a little. "I've lost enough already. I won't lose him too." Arglad studied her. "A witch," he said. "Half-trained, by the smell of the air." He said it without judgment. The woman's jaw tightened. "Elara. And you're a magician who's forgotten more than he knows." "That's fair," Arglad said. Alden did not lower the bow. "My mother was taken through the other mouth. Two men. If your master is inside, he may know them." Elara went still. "Two men," she said. "One tall. One with a shield and marks on his skin." "You've seen them." "I've followed their tracks. They're deep now." Elara stepped toward the opening. "I go in either way. You can shoot me or walk with me." Alden weighed it. A witch who knew the tunnels and the captors was worth more than a stranger's trust was worth losing. She lowered the bow. "Walk," Alden said. The three of them entered the second mouth. The passage closed cold around them, and the branching dark ran on in every direction. Alden had her way in at last. Now she had to find her mother inside a maze, with a witch she did not trust and armed men somewhere ahead.

The tunnel narrowed ahead. Alden raised a hand and the others stopped. A thin gleam crossed the passage at ankle height. She crouched and traced it with her eyes. A cord ran from a notch in the wall to a wedge of stone braced above the path. One wrong step would drop the ceiling. Her mother's captors had left this behind. "A snare," Alden said. "Trip it and the roof comes down." Arglad leaned on his staff and studied the cord. "I can burn it clean," he said. "Watch." He whispered an old word and pointed. A weak flame licked the air, then died three feet short. "Or perhaps not." Elara crouched beside the cord. She lifted a small object from her belt with her one hand. It caught the dim light and hissed. It was a molten snake no longer than her forearm, its black scales split by veins of glowing lava. "I keep it for cold nights," she said. "It burns anything it touches." "It'll drop the stone the moment the cord parts," Alden said. "Not if he holds the wedge." Elara looked at Arglad. "You can't cut. Can you push?" Arglad set his jaw. "I can push." They moved together. Alden braced her shoulder under the loose stone. Arglad raised his staff and spoke, and this time his magic held, a steady weight pressing the wedge tight. Elara pressed the ember creature to the cord. It ate through the fiber in a breath. The snare went slack. "Now, elf," Elara said. Alden slid clear as Arglad let the spell fall. The stone dropped into the notch with a dull crack. Dust rolled over their boots. The passage stood open. No one was hurt. Beyond the cleared snare, the tunnel widened into a low chamber. A figure sat slumped against the far wall. Iron battlegear lay heaped nearby, dwarf-forged, heavy with fur trim and carved trim of stone-gray steel. Someone had stripped it and left it. Alden crossed to the figure and knelt. It was a dead man, days gone. Not her mother. She let out a slow breath. "That's my master," Elara said behind her. Her voice did not shake. She stood over the body and looked down at the marks on his throat. "So. Three days for this." Alden lifted a blade from beside the corpse. Its edge held fresh notches. She rose and pulled the dwarven battlegear over her tunic, buckling the straps tight. The steel was cold and too broad, but it would turn a sword. Her mother was still ahead, and the men who took her killed without pause. A sound came from the dark beyond the chamber. Boots on stone, unhurried. A large shape stepped into the edge of the light. He carried a shield on one arm and a sword in the other. Tattoos crowded his skin, and his beard hung long. He looked at the dead master, then at the three of them, and stopped. "You came far," he said.

The tattooed man stood between Alden and the dark path ahead. Sword and shield ready. She did not know if he had killed her mother's captors or joined them. Her hand drifted to her bow, then stopped. Behind her, Arglad's staff began to shake. The crystal at its tip flared blue. The old magician gripped it with both hands. "It's slipping," Arglad said. His voice stayed flat, but sweat ran down his face. "I can hold it. Probably not." The blue light spread up his arms. A hum filled the sealed chamber. Dust trickled from the low ceiling. Alden knew what a loose spell could do. She had watched one bury a cave under a mountain of stone. If it broke here, the roof would drop on all of them. "Old man, put it down," Elara said. She stepped close and gripped his wrist with her one hand. The witch's jaw tightened. "Anchor it. Now. Pick a point and hold." Arglad squeezed his eyes shut. The hum climbed higher. A crack split the stone above them. Alden had to know the tattooed man's part before the magic decided for them. She turned to the warrior. "Are you with them or against them? Answer." He did not lower his blade. "I hunt a man with no marks on his skin," he said. "He killed the witch's master. He took your mother." His voice was plain, hard. "I am not that man." The words did not settle Alden. She needed proof, not a promise. She looked at Arglad's shaking staff and made her choice. "Let it go," she told him. "Aim it up, not out. Break the ceiling clean or point it away." Arglad's eyes opened. He wrenched the staff toward the roof and screamed one old word. The light did not burst. It bent. It gathered into a shape above them, round and pale and huge. A single eye opened in the air, wider than a shield, veined and slow. The blue drained from Arglad's staff. He dropped to his knees, empty and gasping. "That," he said, "was not the ceiling." The floating eye turned to Alden. "I am Visidar Fate," it said. "I show three moments to come. You. The witch. The marked man." Its pupil widened. In its dark center, Alden saw a low cave and a figure bound against a wall. A woman. Her mother's braid. Her mother's hands. Alive. "She lives," Visidar said. "For now." The image held one breath, then closed. Alden's knees weakened, but she stayed standing. Her mother was alive. Somewhere past this man, past this dark, breathing. The spell that could have killed them all had answered her one question instead. Alden lifted her bow, but not at the warrior. She lowered it toward the path he guarded. "Then we go forward," she said. "All of us."