Leah Carter’s Point of View
“Emma!” My voice tore through the cold morning mist, but the forest swallowed it whole. Kael’s boots sank into the half-melted snow as he sprinted ahead, following the faint trail of golden footprints that flickered like dying embers, each one hissed softly as if the earth itself recoiled from her touch.
“She can’t have gone far,” Kael muttered, though his tone betrayed the fear behind the words. “She’s weak, she wouldn’t get far on her own.”
I tried to keep up, branches scraping my face as we ran through the frozen brush. “Kael, she’s not herself anymore! She’s being called somewhere, the Oracle said…”
“I don’t care what the Oracle said,” he snapped, his voice sharp with worry. “She’s our daughter.”
The silence that followed was broken only by the sound of
