Vanish (Firelight #2)(38)

I glance around, study the press of forest as if he’ll emerge from the shadows at any moment.

I don’t know quite when I notice it, but I fall still, utterly motionless. And listen.

Total silence. Unnatural.

I’m not alone. My skin ripples with awareness of this fact. Someone else has arrived. Excitement bubbles up in my chest, and I feel like I just downed one of the fizzy orange sodas Dad always bought me on our trips to town.

Will. My gaze scans the fringe of trees and brush surrounding me, hungry for the sight of him. And yet something stops me from saying his name. From calling out.

The silence hangs, swinging into this eerie, living thing, breathing menacingly all around me.

And then I realize whoever’s out there—isn’t Will. Will would have revealed himself by now. He wouldn’t do this to me.

A sound breaks the stillness. Something wrong for the setting. No bird call, no rustle of wind through the mist-shrouded trees.

A twig cracks. Just once. As if a body moved, tested its weight, and stopped. My gaze focuses on that spot, staring hard into the dense foliage.

“Who’s there?” I finally ask.

Nothing.

Countless possibilities race through my mind. Did someone follow me? Corbin? The guard? Or is it a hunter? One of Will’s family?

It occurs to me that waiting to find out is a bad idea. I push into the trees, slap at branches as I head away from the glade and away from the township. Just in case it’s a hunter . . . I can’t lead them back there.

And there it is again. Footsteps keeping a steady pace behind mine. Gratified that I’m not paranoid, I steer my thoughts into losing whoever it is trailing me. Definitely not a friend. A friend would announce himself.

Heat swims through my skin. I walk briskly, plunging deeper into the woods. My heart pounds with every step I take.

I tromp through high grass, wondering how a day that held such promise could twist so horribly into something else. I should be in Will’s arms, but instead I’m playing some sort of cat-and-mouse game. The snowcapped mountains peer down at me through the latticework of branches.

Tired of feeling like prey, I swing around abruptly. “Come out! I know you’re there.”

Silence.

I scour the trees, searching.

Then I see her. A figure steps out from behind a tree.

“Miram.” I breathe her name. I guess I should be glad she showed herself to me. She didn’t have to.

“I thought you were never going to stop. What are you doing out here?” she demands, propping a fist on her hip and looking around expectantly. “Meeting someone?”

“No,” I say quickly.

“Then why would you sneak off—”

“I just wanted some time alone.” I look her up and down. “I guess that’s not going to happen.”

She cocks her head, says lightly, blandly, “I don’t believe you.”

I try to look innocent. Hope it works. “Why not?”

She smiles widely and pulls something from her pocket. It takes me a moment to grasp what it is she holds. Paper. Two folded slips of paper.

“My letters,” I say numbly. “You went inside my house? My room?”

She flutters the letters in the air. “Lots of times. It’s amazing the things I know that no one else does. The things people leave out and about. Who wants to be a fire-breather when you can be invisible?”

Then it clicks. “You’ve been spying on me!” The sounds . . . the sensation of always being watched. It wasn’t my imagination. It was her.

She nods cheerfully, not in the least ashamed.

“Why?” I shake my head. “Why do you hate me so much?”

Her face screws tight. “For years I’ve watched the pride bow down to you; even my own family treated you like some great savior—overlooking me like I’m something lesser, of no importance. And when there’s only five—” She holds up a hand, each of her fingers splayed wide. “Five visiocrypters in the pride. We’re special, too, you know.”

I sigh. “Really? That’s why you’re so nasty to me? Because you don’t get enough attention?”

“Oh, shut up, Jacinda. I don’t know why you’re acting so smug. You’re a traitor. You’ll never be trusted again. Why do you think my father asked me to keep an eye on you?”

“Severin put you up to this?”

She nods. “I couldn’t agree fast enough.”

I inhale, forcing myself to block out the bitter flow of her words. The only thing I can concentrate on is the sudden low drone rumbling on the air. Distant but agonizingly familiar.

The moment becomes like another one not so long ago—even if it feels like a lifetime has passed since then. A lifetime since an arrow ripped through my wing. Since I was the prey, hunted down on this very mountain. A lifetime since I first saw Will. Since he spared me, saved me, and claimed a piece of my heart.

Except this time, the hunters are too close . . . too close to the pride. I know the township must be aware and in full-scale alert.

Miram turns her head. “What is—”

“Sshh.” I slice a hand through the air and listen harder. The mist increases, rolls in a thick vapor at my feet and I know it’s coming from Nidia.

The pride must be in lockdown, fully shrouded, buried in Nidia’s mind-numbing shade. Tamra probably has a hand in it, too.