Evelina's POV
By the time I realized the birds had stopped, I couldn't remember when I'd last heard one.
We'd been on the eastern road for nearly two hours by then, the trees growing thicker the farther we travelled from the estate, their branches meeting overhead in places and breaking the morning light into patches across the road.
Sometime during the walk, the ordinary sounds of the forest had started disappearing around us.
I looked up. Nothing moved in the branches.
Caspian, walking beside me, noticed. "What?"
"There were birds earlier."
His eyes went briefly to the trees. "There were."
"And now?"
He looked ahead again. "There aren't."
That wasn't particularly helpful, but the fact that he'd noticed too made it harder to dismiss.
Four guards walked ahead of us, Zoren amon
