The riders found them on the fifth day.
Roen heard them first—the distant thunder of hoofbeats, growing closer. There was no place
to hide this time, no rocky slopes or thick brush. Just open moorland and the distant shape
of the mountains.
"Run or fight?" Mirelle asked, her hand on her walking stick.
"Run." Roen grabbed her arm. "But smart. Toward those rocks."
He pointed to a cluster of boulders perhaps half a mile ahead. If they could reach them, they
might be able to lose the riders in the maze of stone.
They ran.
Behind them, the hoofbeats grew louder. Shouts echoed across the moor. The bandits had
spotted them.
"Split up!" one of the riders called. "Cut them off!"
Roen pushed harder, his legs burning, his lungs screaming. The boulders loomed ahead,
close now, so close.
An arrow hissed past his ear, burying itself in the earth.
"They're shooting!"
"Keep running!"
They reached the boulders and plunged into the maze of stone. Roen pulled Mirelle left, then
right, then left again, trying to confuse their pursuers. The hoofbeats slowed—the horses
couldn't navigate the tight spaces between the rocks.
But the bandits could.
Roen heard them dismounting, heard their boots on stone, heard their calls to each other as
they spread out to search.
"Over here," he breathed, pulling Mirelle into a narrow crevice between two massive
boulders. They pressed themselves into the darkness, barely breathing.
Footsteps approached. A shadow fell across the entrance to their hiding place.
"Checked this way," a voice called. "Nothing."
The footsteps moved on. Roen let out a slow breath.
Then he heard it: a soft gasp from Mirelle. He turned to see her pointing at the ground
beside them.
A snake. Thick and dark, coiled in the corner of the crevice. Its head was raised, its eyes
fixed on them.
Roen's hand moved slowly to his knife. The snake's body tensed, ready to strike.
"Don't," Mirelle whispered. "It'll bite before you can—"
The snake lunged.
And missed.
Mirelle stumbled backward, and the snake's fangs sank into the stone where her leg had
been a heartbeat before. Roen brought his knife down in a single swift motion, severing the
snake's head from its body.
"Did it get you?" he asked urgently. "Did it bite?"
"No." Mirelle's face was pale. "It missed. I don't know how—I just moved, and it missed."
Lucky, Roen thought. Or something else.
Outside, the bandits were calling to each other.
"Lost them in the rocks. They could be anywhere."
"We'll wait them out. They have to come out eventually."
Roen's heart sank. A siege. They were trapped.
"Roen." Mirelle's voice was strange, distant. She was staring at the dead snake, at the spot
where it had struck. "Something's happening."
"What do you mean?"
"I don't know. I feel... strange." She looked up at him, and for a moment, her eyes seemed to
flash with something—a hint of silver, there and gone. "I feel like I can see..."
"See what?"
But she shook her head, the moment passing. "Nothing. It's gone."
Roen filed it away for later. Right now, they had bigger problems.
"We need to move," he said. "While they're still searching."
"Which way?"
Roen closed his eyes, thinking. The bandits would be watching the obvious exits. But if they
moved deeper into the rocks, there might be another way out.
"This way. Stay low, stay quiet."
They moved through the maze of stone, Roen navigating by instinct. The boulders grew
larger, the passages narrower, until they were crawling on hands and knees through gaps
barely wide enough for their bodies.
And then, suddenly, they were through.
The rocks opened onto a narrow valley, hidden from the moorland above. A stream ran
through the center, and beyond it, the mountains loomed closer than Roen had ever seen
them.
"We lost them," Mirelle breathed.
"For now." Roen helped her to her feet. "Come on. We keep moving."
They walked through the valley, following the stream, putting as much distance as possible
between themselves and the bandits. By nightfall, they'd emerged on the far side of the rock
formation, the bandits far behind.
The Pale Mountains were three days away now. Maybe less.
"We're going to make it," Mirelle said, staring at the distant peaks. "We're actually going to
make it."
Roen didn't respond. He was thinking about what she'd said in the crevice—the silver flash
in her eyes, the way the snake had missed, the word "lucky" that kept echoing in his mind.
Mirelle was thread-blind. He was sure of it. Everyone was, except the one in ten who
weren't.
But sometimes, thread-blind people developed the Sight later in life. It was rare, almost
unheard of. But not impossible.
He tucked the thought away and kept walking.