They ran through the dark.
Tobin ran as a gray wolf, long and low and silent, his injured foreleg tucked and held, and Aria ran beside him on two legs that were not entirely her own.
It was the strangest thing she had ever felt. Her feet struck the ground and the ground gave back more than she had put in, as though the whole forest were a drum and she its beat. Branches blurred. The wind of her own passing dried the sweat on her face. Somewhere behind her ribs Sera ran too, low and fierce, a bright silver presence pulling at her stride, and every few miles Aria felt the seal at her throat tug, patient and merciless, like a hand on a leash.
Do not look back, Sera told her, every time her head began to turn south. He is not behind you. He is inside you. That is a different thing, and it w
