Page 59 of When Sisters Collide
He bounded ahead, slipping soundlessly through the trees, and they followed. The forest was calm, the air holding a faint warmth despite the spring equinox still days away. Snowmeltwhispered down gullies, and the crisp wind was winter’s last breath sighing through the pines.
As Alena crested a familiar ridge overlooking the valley, her pulse quickened. She pushed her pace, thighs burning, boots slipping on slick moss. Phoebe’s muttered complaints trailed behind her, but Alena barely heard, her focus fixed on what lay ahead.
With a final grunt, she surged over the crest—and froze.
Below, the valley was a wasteland of ash and ruin. The village lay blackened, gutted by fire. No smoke rose now, only the ghost of devastation lingered in scorched earth and collapsed roofs.
A cold, paralysing dread clamped around her heart.
“Oh no,” Phoebe murmured beside her.
Alena’s Gifted eyes swept the wreckage, locking on the hut where San and Kaixo had stayed.
Her stomach knotted, fear hollowing her chest.
The hut was no more than a charred skeleton—splintered wood, grey ash, and nothing left alive.
CHAPTER TWELVE
ALENA
Alena’s heart clenched. “No. Please, no.”
She bolted forward.
“Alena!”
Phoebe’s voice barely reached her through the roar in her ears—the rush of wind, the pounding of her own heartbeat.
San. Kaixo.
She tore down the steep ridge, boots skidding on loose earth and moss. Just before the line of bushes, she lost her balance. The world pitched sideways. She slammed into the slope, brambles clawing her arms and slicing her palms as she tumbled.
“Alena, wait!”
She scrambled upright, blood slick on her hands, eyes already tracking Apollo. The grey wolf had pushed through the underbrush and now waited in the tall grasses ahead, ears alert.
“Go—find them!” she gasped.
Apollo sprinted off.
Her raw palms and stinging knees were nothing compared to the dread spearing her heart. The village lay silent, the onlysound thecrunchof ash underfoot. Huts stood collapsed and blackened. The smoke was long gone, but the air still held a faint tang of it.
Alena reached the charred remains of the farmers’ hut, breath ragged, eyes sweeping the wreckage. Nothing.
But their scents lingered.
“They’re not here,” she said as Phoebe caught up, panting.
“Are you sure?” The Amazon’s lone eye scanned the ruin.
“I’d smell them.”
Through her bond with Apollo, Alena felt a flicker of hope—he’d found survivors.
“This way,” she urged.
They pushed on through the ruined village, past the skeletal frame of a toppled fence, until the land opened into a grove of olive trees.
