Page 117 of The Girl in the Forest

Then we were all standing with our arms tight and our feet shuffling, none of us wanting to think about what lay beneath the obstruction we’d just climbed across.

Brin sniffed and dragged her shirt across her face. “I lost the flashlight.”

She sounded too young. I hugged her. “It’s all right. It’s okay. See—I still have my bow and arrows.”

“Gah!” Her face was hard against my chest. “The thing’s glued to your hand. Doesn’t count.”

“It’s my super power,” I teased.

“Okay, kids,” Levi snarked from a few feet away. “Keep moving.”

“Who made you the leader?” Brin’s snark matched his—teenage wolves.

Levi laughed. “The first one through gets to lead.”

Brin kicked a loosened rock toward him as he walked away. “You remember what happened to the last guy who went first?”

“Aw… she’s worried.” Levi turned enough to grin. Emotion surged through me, hard enough to rub my chest.

Maybe we’d get out of this alive.

I wanted that hope.

Light filtered, gritty with swirling dust and debris, but growing stronger—sunlight—and when we finally stumbled from the passage and into the fresh air, my legs gave out. Collapsing, I fell to the ground, with Laura and Brin flat beside me.

My lungs heaved as I rolled to my back and blinked. Forcing myself to focus.

Overhead, the blue sky sparkled.

An autumn sky.

White clouds drifted. But birds circled, and the ebb and flow of their cawing seemed out of tune with the jarring distant sounds. A dull clanging. Mingled shrieks and deep-throated voices too far away to be understood.

I rolled to my side, looked at my clenched hands… at my fingers, curled into sooty, crumbling blades of what had been grass.

And as my thoughts cleared… as I forced myself to stand and look around… my heart pounded.

I stood at the top of a blackened hill.

Men battled below.

And in the middle of the melee… was Grayson.

CHAPTER 36

Noa

What had been a valley was now mud. Men battled with swords and shields like something out of the distant past. They were on foot, facing creatures not unlike the tusked pigs, but larger. Bodies littered the ground. Spears protruded from hairy brown pelts. From what I could tell, the valley was bowl-shaped, rimmed with a thick forest of pine. More color was there—banners in the pines, flapping in a fretted breeze.

Sentinel Falls—blue with a white stripe.

And the Carmag—his red standard, with two fighting wolves.

He will battle on the field below and you will watch…

I panted with the realization.

Do not believe, Noa…

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