Chapter 21
I had been moving alone for two days when the collector found me.
The bond with Kael had stretched so thin it felt like a single frayed thread. I still knew he was alive, but the connection no longer carried clear emotion. Only distance. The ache of it sat constantly under my ribs. I used the pain to keep walking. There was nothing else to do. He had left. I had to survive without him.
The eastern crossing was supposed to be a route further into neutral land. I reached the wide stretch of open ground just before dusk. That was when the air changed.
It became heavy and wrong, the same way it had felt near the sanctuary when the collector first approached. My bloodline power rose in answer, sharp and restless. I turned slowly.
The thing that stepped out of the tree line did n
